Iona Community needs funds to meet new needs for the next generation

“When I was a young ordinand, what appealed to me about the Iona Community and its leader was the way in which they brought together prayer and politics, spirituality and justice

Iremember it well. I was in the refectory of Iona Abbey, when I was approached by a young and earnest member of staff, who was something of a classics scholar. He had been reading the Rule of the Iona Community, the little book which describes what it is that members of the Community commit themselves to when they join.

He was troubled by the fact that the book was titled Miles Christi, which, in the Latin, means ‘Soldier of Christ’.

“How could George MacLeod, who is a pacifist, use such a military title?” he asked me.

“And why is it Miles, singular, instead of Milites, plural, when he is talking about a community?”

At that moment, as if on cue, the refectory door opened and in came the old thespian himself.

“There’s George MacLeod – why don’t you ask him?” I told the young man. And he did.

George thought for a moment, then he replied: “I called it Soldier of Christ because we are engaged in a battle, and I called it ‘Soldier’, singular, instead of ‘Soldiers’, plural, because when I made up the Rule I was the only Christian in the Community at the time!”

Exit 90-year-old actor manager on left, chuckling.

Why am I thinking about George MacLeod at this moment?

It’s because I’m back on the holy island of Iona, which has played such an important part in my life – and the lives of many others – over the years.

And Lord MacLeod of Fuinary – otherwise known as the Very Reverend Dr George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community – was one of the greatest influences on the direction of my own life story.

Dr MacLeod, who died in 1991 at the age of 96, is widely recognised as one of the greatest Scots of the 20th century.

A titanic and turbulent figure, he was a charismatic preacher and Celtic poet with a wonderful gift for language.

When I was a young ordinand, what appealed to me about the Iona Community and its leader was the way in which they brought together prayer and politics, spirituality and justice.

For George MacLeod, God was to be found not in the remote heavens, but in day-to-day practical life.

The spiritual was to be glimpsed in the material world, or not at all.

Prayer was seen as a radical, subversive act rather than pious words that challenged no governments.

This was the kind of language of faith that I was looking for.

George MacLeod and his community were not popular everywhere.

MacLeod, who won the Military Cross for bravery in World War I, was denounced both inside and outside some churches in Scotland – including the Kirk–as a Communist.

The Community was described as “halfway towards Rome, and halfway towards Moscow”. George MacLeod, socialist and pacifist son of Tory MP Sir John MacLeod, regarded the insults as compliments, and carried on cheerfully.

I liked the fact that the Iona Community put its money where its mouth was. In the Scotland of the 1960s and 70s, inner-city churches and housing scheme churches found it hard to attract ministers.

George MacLeod, the practical mystic, trained ordinands for work in the tough areas. That’s how I came to be a Church of Scotland community minister in the big Glasgow housing scheme of Easterhouse.

After seven years there, I was appointed deputy warden of Iona Abbey.

It was a huge privilege to live in the abbey with my family and to welcome pilgrims from all over the world.

George MacLeod’s vision was an ecumenical one. People from all religious traditions came – and still come–to Iona to worship in the beautifully restored Benedictine Abbey. Lives were, and are, changed.

Mine certainly was.

When the Iona Community was looking for a new leader, George MacLeod encouraged me – after pouring me a huge glass of whisky – to take the job on.

The rest is mystery.

So it’s good to be back on Iona, the place of memories, the place of hope.

People still flock to the island, looking for inspiration, or healing or new directions.

To meet new needs and demands, the Iona Community is currently seeking funds to refurbish the historic buildings and to make them places of renewed welcome for a new generation of seekers.

In the face of an increasingly troubled and anxious world, signs like a restored Abbey work their own kind of wonder.

George MacLeod, the troublesome priest is dead.

But the dream lives on.