Take a forty-five minute train ride south from Edinburgh and you come to small north England town called Berwick-on-Tweed.  It is a walled city from the medieval time when the marauding Scots or invasive English (it depends on who you ask) where fighting each other for territory.  Directly across a small bay from the town is Lindisfarne island, better known as Holy Island.

Lindisfarne is a tidal island.  There is one road to it from the mainland which is covered by ocean when the tide is in.  Marcia and I timed our trip to get there while the tide was out so Steve, the good natured cab driver could drive us across for a night on the island.  It was worth the effort.

Holy Island represents the third expansion of the movement of Irish Christianity started by Patrick.  You might recall Columba was sent from Ireland to found the monastary at Iona that would eventually lead the way for the evangelization of the Picts, the barbarian tribe in Scotland.  In the 600’s Columba, at the request of the king of Northumbria, sent Aidan to found a monastary to be a base for the evangelization of the barbarian tribes that made up what is England today.  In time he was very successful.  Lindisfarne Priory, the name of the monastery, was instrumental in the spread of the gospel not only in England but back on the continent as well in the areas that would become France, Spain, and Italy.

So much for the history lesson.  Aidan was Christian of great character and deep compassion who like the monks before him found ways to adapt the gospel to the non-Irish he came to reach.  And long after he died the community he founded continued the work.  There is still a modern day group on the island, The Community of Aidan and Hilda, that continues in his tradition today. When Marcia and I went to the retreat center they run I was pleased to discover another Presbyterian pastor on sabbatical through the Lilly Endowment, doing some very similar things to what I was doing.  One of God’s little surprises along the way.

This is one place I’d like to return to in the future.  The natural beauty is stunning, the spiritual opportunity compelling, and the crabmeat is to die for.