pat loughery

Summary

When I returned home and told people about the trip, I initially told most people that I had enjoyed my time, but that it was a bit disappointing. I had expected “the experience of a lifetime” – a true pilgrimage – but I had experienced a nice time, but just a nice time. I met many people that I appreciated building friendships with, but I couldn’t say that the experience transformed me or my thoughts of Christian life.

I returned to a new job as a web developer for a startup company. My first two months after my return were full speed ahead; I worked – quite literally – from around 9am to 2am or 3am, seven days a week.

I wrote a little bit at a time in my trip journal, but the more time went on, the more I realized that I had a lot to process from the trip. A month in, I realized that there was a lot to consider from the trip, and that the themes of Celtic spirituality and particularly Celtic monasticism were tugging greatly at me.

I began to describe the trip to people as something I wanted to do again, at my own pace, and as soon as possible. I also had no idea what to write about for my class project. The themes were all too large. I used the illustration that I felt that my spiritual journey was on a path, and then on this trip I felt that there was a large stone column placed in front of me that I needed to explore. It was higher than I could see, and sunk deep into the ground. It went far to the left and to the right. In prayer, I felt that I shouldn’t rush through my processing of the trip just to finish my paper, that there was much here to think through and that if I did it too quickly, I would have a hard time coming back to it.

I applied for an extension with BGU for my project paper, citing two main reasons: My day job was all-consuming at the moment, and I had a lot of processing still to do. Meanwhile I picked up the pace of trip journaling. As I did this, I found myself re-invigorated. I also talked with my wife about doing a family vacation back to Northern Ireland and Scotland soon – perhaps as soon as next summer. She liked the idea, and that gave me hope that I could spend a couple of days at Northumbria community and at Lindisfarne, and experiencing Edinburgh again.

I still have major questions that I don’t think I am any closer to answering now – the main one is, “what is the major difference between a church and a monastery in today’s culture; and what is different between being a member of a healthy, functioning missionally-shaped church, and being a monk?”