"Goodbye, my friends...it's not the end"

Yes, this blog entry does begin with a Spice Girls quote. Please put it down to my emotional, pre-departure state of mind. If you want to delve deeper into their lyrics, feel free to click the link below. 

http://youtu.be/eegDtyrSUZw

30th July 2012: Last day as a YAV.

30th July 2013: Leave Larne to return to Nashville.

What a year. A year of friendship: new and old. 

Welcome home parties, leaving parties,  live rugby, seeing Snow Patrol on home soil again, London-room nights, Duddy-Lough BBQ's, Costcutter fun, trips to Dublin, London (x2), Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Mull, Iona, Lake District and many Belfast nights out.

My love for my homeland, in particular the people here, has been strengthened this year.

To everyone who has been a part of my year, thank you. 

A Friendship Blessing

From “Anam Cara” By John O’Donohue

May you be blessed with good friends.

May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.

May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.

May this change you.

May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.

May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.

May you treasure your friends.

May you be good to them and may you be there for them;

May they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey.

May you never be isolated.

May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam cara.

Four days pre-departure.

This blog was created a few weeks before my initial Nashville departure in 2011. Since then I have contributed sporadic posts, mostly about my YAV year. This time next week I should be back in my beloved Nashville, preparing to begin at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Many things look the same as in 2011; the suitcase, the bedroom littered with clothes, the goodbye lunches and dinners with my nearest and dearest. However, the Ashley who boards the plane to Nashville next Tuesday is indeed different.

Throughout these two years I have called three places 'home': Larne, Nashville and Iona. For the next three years Nashville will become my geographical home, but the time spent (no matter how long or short) in each of these places has prepared me for theological education at Vanderbilt. The experiences I have had in each of these places have challenged my view of the world, others, God and myself. I expect my time at Vanderbilt to continue to challenge me, probably in ways I could never predict.

Iona

Iona is undoubtedly the most spectacular place I have ever lived. The connection I experienced here to the environment was something new and intriguing. Growing up in Larne I have always lived close to the sea, and been surrounded by the natural beauty that the Coast Road draws you into. However, how I responded to Iona was different.

Practically everywhere I traveled I did so on foot, so there was a physical connection to the land, free time was more likely to be spent walking to Columba's Bay or the North End than on Facebook, and the wind had the power to halt travel like I had not experienced before.

“The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: the clay from where the tree of the body grows.”  John O'Donohue

My days on Iona were also framed with services in the Abbey. One evening a fellow staff member prayed this blessing, and it has remained with me. This is my prayer for us all as we go, stay, or return...

May God, whose name is holy,

be with us in our waiting,

travel with us in our journeying,

and hold us in love and wisdom

until she welcomes us home.

Amen.

(Jan Berry)