Fingal's thoughts.

I found this picture and it took me back so many many years. I just could not resist painting it though I would rather return and paint it while there. I have promised myself for the last three years to take time and go back and spend a week or so on Iona painting. I am not sure if I will ever do this.

I spent a year on Iona and stood on this very spot a great many times when I was fortunate enough to be part of taking a party of people out to visit Fingal's Cave.

This was at a time when I was trying to find myself rather than the butcher I knew myself as. I worked and studied for a year in the hope that I might become a Youth Leader. As things turned out I became instead a Parish Minister.

It was a year of much time spent on my own wandering the island after working for the day on the building of the Abbey. I had never in my life taken time to find out just who I was.

I learned much that year, not all of it academic. I wrote music and hymns and many poems. I learned all the things I should have learned at school. But I learned some other important life lessons.

I learned that true strength is in the inner being and spirit, not in muscles, which I had spent much time developing from the little runt I used to be.  It’s about having faith and trust in who you are, and a willingness to act upon it.  To decide to never again beg anyone for the love, respect, and attention that you should be showing yourself.

I learned to look at myself in the mirror and say, “I love you, and from now on I’m going to act like it.”  I learned it was important to be nice to others, but it’s even more important to be nice to yourself.  I learned to practice self-love and self-respect, you give myself the opportunity to be happy.  

I also learned that people rarely behave exactly the way you want them to.  But to hope for the best, but expect less.  To remember, the magnitude of happiness will be directly proportional to my thoughts and how I chose to think about things.  

Even when a situation or relationship doesn’t work out at all, it’s still worth it if it made you feel something new, and if it taught you something new.

Those were some of the many things I learned while standing or sitting in places like that portrayed in my painting.

Now how I so wish I had managed not only to learn those lessons but to always live in the knowledge of the learning. Maybe there is still some time left?