Bible readings, reflections and prayers for the days of Holy Week, and a large section of resources, including `Prayers on the seven words from the Cross', `A service of lamentation to liberate us for action', poems, meditations, and reflections ... The sun slowly rises on city streets where saints trail and spread God's light. The sun slowly rises in Glasgow classrooms where folk teach English as a second language to refugees and asylum seekers. The sun slowly rises at islands for world peace and over Iona Abbey. It rises on farms in Palestine where folk plant olive trees and work to grow peace from the ground up. It rises where street pastors hand out bandages and love. It rises in houses of hospitality, in the work of organisations like Church Action on Poverty, in Spirit-filled churches everywhere from Taipei to Orkney, at demos in solidarity with those suffering unjust taxation and benefit cuts. The sun slowly rises at climate marches around the globe. The sun slowly rises at Faslane submarine base where protesters sing and waltz the dance of life and blockade death and pray for the day when all nuclear weapons will be abolished ...

'Holy Ground' contains liturgies and worship resources on a range of subjects and concerns: globalisation, food, water, HIV/Aids, the environment, interfaith dialogue, prisoners of conscience, 20th century martyrs, homelessness, racism, gender, living in community, youth, children, ageing... and much more.

Here, in the `Celtic' tradition, are prayers from members, associates and friends of the Iona Community for the whole of life: for starting an engine, for keeping us engaged and on the road to God's Kingdom; for taking a daily walk, for refugees travelling dangerous seas; an Iona Abbey kitchen prayer for chopping carrots, making bread and sanitising surfaces, and a Harvest supper prayer of sharing; prayers for personal healing, and for our deeply wounded world; a prayer for self-knowledge, and another for doing the laundry and remembering `lost socks' ... Contributors include: Tom Gordon, John Harvey, Jan Sutch Pickard, Peter Millar, Rosemary Power, David McNeish, David Osborne, Ewan Aitken, Anna Briggs, Elaine Gisbourne, Thom M Shuman, Chris Polhill, Neil Paynter and others. Lord God ... we bring you everything, and tip it out in front of you ... And now we pause a while in silence, waiting for you to show us what we need to understand ...

When editor Neil Paynter called for contributions to Iona of My Heart he wrote: `I'm looking for those human stories from Iona. You know the ones - we all have them. Stories about different folk coming together - people from different countries and backgrounds. Stories of encounter, challenge, exchange, connection, transformation. Stories about people and the power of the Spirit ... Show why Iona and what the Iona Community does there is important to the world. Give it a human face.' This book of four months of daily readings, which reflect the concerns of the Iona Community, is the result. The book can be used for group or individual reflection and is intended to inspire positive action and change in our lives. Contributors include Ron Ferguson, Helen Steven, Nancy Cocks, John Harvey, Molly Harvey, Norman Shanks, Alastair McIntosh, Brian Woodcock, Martin Johnstone, Iain Whyte, Alison Swinfen, Jan Sutch Pickard, Joy Mead, Stephen Wright, Janet Lees, Thom M Shuman, Tom Gordon, Nicola Slee, Yvonne Morland, Kathy Galloway, Peter Millar, Ruth Burgess, John Philip Newell - and many other members, associates and friends of the Iona Community. The royalties from Iona of My Heart will go to the Iona Community's Iona Abbey Capital Appeal. Neil Paynter was a member of the Iona Community's resident staff group on Iona. He is an editor with Wild Goose Publications and of the Community's magazine Coracle.

Daily readings for four months from a wide range of contributors within the Iona Community. These prayers, liturgies, songs, poems and articles can be used for group or individual reflection and are intended to inspire positive action and change in our lives. Hospitality and welcome, prayer, justice and peace, the environment, healing, social action, church renewal, worship, work, racial justice, women, community, pilgrimage, sexuality, Columban Christianity and Celtic tradition, ecumenism, interfaith dialogue, peacekeeping and non-violence, spirituality, commitment, economic witness, youth.

The dramatic events of the days leading up to Easter Sunday are expressed through biblical readings and the reflections of several well-known Iona Community members: Ruth Burgess - Jan Sutch Pickard - Tom Gordon - Brian Woodcock - Peter Millar - Kathy Galloway - Leith Fisher - Joy Mead - John Davies - Yvonne Morland Connecting the denials, betrayals, suffering and eventual new dawn of this life-changing week with what is happening in our own world today, this book accompanies the reader as an insightful guide. To travel through Holy Week with awareness leads to a greater understanding of God and ourselves.

Fifty new prayers from young and old and from folk around the globe - from Glasgow to Cincinnati, from Malawi to Alaska, including well-known Iona Community writers like John Harvey, Ian M. Fraser, Peter Millar, Yvonne Morland, Chris Polhill, Thom Shuman, Brian Woodcock, the Wild Goose Resource Group and many others - A pocketbook of prayers that might be used in a daily discipline, many on the concerns of the Iona Community - poverty and economic justice, welcome and hospitality, interfaith dialogue, church renewal, peacemaking - A prayer book to use in church worship, and to carry in your coat or handbag out into the world: to connect with the still small voice in the midst of the busyness and babble; to root yourself firmly in the Word. There are prayers here for the renewal of global and local community, and for recharging the battery of your mobile phone: 'Either He is the Lord of everything or He is Lord of nothing,' wrote George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community. Also includes a helpful 'scrapbook' of thoughts on prayer from many sources.

Bible readings, reflections and worship resources from Iona Community members and associates - Helen Boothroyd, Ruth Burgess, David Coleman and Zam Walker, John Davies, Leith Fisher, Ian M Fraser, Kathy Galloway, Tom Gordon, John Harvey, Peter Millar, Jan Sutch Pickard, Norman Shanks, Thom Shuman, Alison Swinfen, Brian Woodcock. May this book be a friend through the joy and euphoria of Christmas and New Year, and may it feed you, challenge you, in the in-between times. There are good-hearted, human companions here for our journey through this bewildering and beautiful world.

Lent is traditionally a time of repentance and penitence but it also offers an opportunity to see the world afresh, with a new sense of wonder. These readings, up to Easter and beyond, encourage us not only to regard ourselves with a healthy realism and accept responsibility for our shortcomings, but also to recognise the nature and purposes of God and the never-ending renewal of possibility, both within ourselves and in the world.

Features full colour photographs by a Iona Community member and photographer David Coleman, and Anja Grosse-Uhlmann, who lives on the isle of Iona, with accompanying reflections, prayers, poems and stories by Community writers.

Daily readings for four months from a wide range of contributors within the Iona Community, including John L. Bell, Ruth Burgess, Ian M. Fraser, Kathy Galloway, Tom Gordon, Peter Millar, J. Philip Newell, Jan Sutch Pickard. These prayers, songs, poems, articles, liturgies, which reflect the concerns of the Community, can be used for group or individual reflection and are intended to inspire positive action and change in our lives. Subjects covered include: Hospitality and welcomePrayerJustice and peaceThe environmentHealingSocial actionChurch renewalWorshipWorkRacial justiceWomenCommunityPilgrimageSexualityColumban Christianity and the Celtic traditionEcumenismInferfaith dialogueNonviolence and peacekeepingSpiritualityCommitmentEconomic witnessYouthLiturgies Neil Paynter was a member of the resident staff group of the Iona Community for four years on Iona. He is an Associate of the Community and the editor of Lent & Easter Readings from Iona, This Is the Day, Blessed Be Our Table, Holy Ground, Growing Hope, Iona Dawn and Iona: Images and Reflections.

Concerns include: The ministry of the whole people of God * the renewal of prayer and worship * health and wholeness and the ministry of healing * church renewal * the ecumenical movement * people of other faiths and beliefs and the promotion of understanding through dialogue and joint action for justice and peace * economic witness * poverty * trade justice * young people * working together for change * social and political action for justice, peace and the integrity of creation * victims and perpetrators of violence * peace movements and organisations * human rights and gender justice * racial justice and the rights of indigenous peoples * the environment and all who work for ecological sustainability * refugees and asylum seekers and our commitment to hospitality * the renewal of community and the well-being of our own local communities * intentional and basic Christian communities throughout the world ...Contributors include: Brian Woodcock, the Wild Goose Resource Group, Chris Polhill, Ruth Burgess, Peter Millar, Jan Sutch Pickard, Kathy Galloway, Joy Mead, Rosemary Power, Ian M Fraser, John Harvey, Ruth Harvey, Warren Bardsley, Norman Shanks, Alison Swinfen, Alastair McIntosh, Thom M Shuman and many other members, associates and friends of the Iona Community.

he stories he tells here come out of the experience of working in homeless shelters in North America and Britain, as a nurse's aide with the elderly and as a mental health worker. A book about searching for, and finding, Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit in down-to-earth places. In a world of easy compromises and much false posturing in which the rich, the often corrupt, and the people with power keep telling us how to live and what to strive for, Neil writes about a world where hearts matter and in which vulnerable folk can teach us much. - Peter Millar, from the Foreword Contains strong language

Life just seems to be getting busier and busier. And even when we're not doing, our minds are eternally busy - life seems so full of distractions, different messages: babble - So: a book of short daily readings for the whole year, to help folk still themselves. Short readings because sometimes it feels like there are enough words in the world! The world is so crowded with words it makes it difficult to focus on the Word. The Still Small Voice is a book for those who feel themselves travelling at an increasingly frantic pace each day, and are hungry for snatches of nourishment to feed their souls - energy and inspiration and wonder to help keep them on the Way. Jesus lived a balanced life of reflection and action, of times rooted in prayer and contemplation and of times engaged in the tangled messy thick of it. This is a book to help with that balance. God, help us to hear your voice through the babble of this busy world where words are used to confuse, distract, manipulate, sell illusion, buy power; help us to be still and receptive to your healing, encouraging, inspiring, enduring, life-giving Word.

The title comes from one of the closing responses of the morning service in Iona Abbey: Go in peace to love and to serve; We will seek peace and pursue it. Contributors include: Lesley Orr, Iain Whyte, Paul Nicolson, Helen Steven, Alastair McIntosh, Kathy Galloway, Molly Harvey, Rosemary Power, Ruth Harvey, Jan Sutch Pickard, John Philip Newell, Mel Duncan, Jonathan Inkpin, Alison Swinfen, Peter Millar, Chris Polhill, Sally Foster-Fulton, Bonnie Thurston, Murphy Davis and others. While several of the contributors are from various grassroots organisations and communities, many are members, associates or friends of the Iona Community, which, from its beginning, has been engaged in work for peace and reconciliation.

Reflections for Advent from members, associates and friends of the Iona Community around the world - from Uganda, Scotland, Wales, Palestine, Switzerland, India, Malawi, Australia, China, Iona, Sweden, Kenya, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, Jerusalem, Japan, Ireland, Taiwan, Cuba, Alaska - and more. Many people are seeking for a meaningful spiritual dimension in their lives. There is evidence of that in the huge number of people who work for peace and justice, who accompany the marginalised, and who, in trying to live more simply, become deeply attentive to the cries of our wounded planet. The writers in this book come from different parts of the world. In everyday language they reflect on the challenge and hope of Advent - a time in the Christian year both of waiting and of expectancy. Their thoughts relate directly to our present world situation in which both hope and uncertainty are interconnected. They also remind us that many are seeking the reality of God's presence in the midst of human experience - or in more traditional language, 'the light of the Lord upon us'. The various reflections point us to places and people in many parts of the world where that light shines, often - surprising as it may seem - brightly. Their insights enable us to walk more creatively and compassionately in our own local situations, and to discover that God's light sometimes shines where we least expect it.

50 of the best-loved prayers of the Iona Community in a portable edition. A book that is sure to become dog-eared through use in worship, or from being carried around on the often bumpy, sometimes tran

Many people believe in a Christian spirituality which actually relates to the modern world - in all of its division, hope, violence and interconnectedness. Others find belief in a God of any kind impossible. Our human future is uncertain in many ways and this is not a time for the churches to respond with easy answers. This Easter book is not about easy answers. The words of Jesus from the Cross are difficult and challenging. And yet the fact that they emerge from a situation of human agony gives them huge relevance for our times. And the God whom Jesus addresses from the Cross remains at the heart of humanity and continues to weep with us. Each contributor to the book shares what a particular word means to her or him. These various reflections will enable the reader to encounter the words of Jesus in new ways; to be spiritually refreshed in order to listen more tenderly to the cries and longings of our sisters and brothers around the world. Includes reflections by Jan Sutch Pickard, Ruth Burgess and others, and an introduction by Donald Eadie.

This is a book of quotes and readings - poems, prayers, short reflections and stories - for each day of the year from writers and thinkers who have inspired the Iona Community and from members of the community themselves. The royalties from this book will go to the Iona Community's Growing Hope appeal to renovate the Camas outdoor centre on the Isle of Mull and to extend the community's day-visitor facilities on Iona.

For centuries pilgrims have travelled to the isle of Iona in search of the sacred, inspired by the example of St Columba, a 6th-century Irish monk who founded a monastery there, and whose influence is felt to the present day. Many modern-day pilgrims and seekers are also drawn to the island through the work of the Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian community acting for justice and peace, the rebuilding of the common life and the renewal of worship. The Iona Community runs a weekly pilgrimage around the island for those who visit, pausing for reflection at places of spiritual and historical significance, and at less obvious landmarks which offer inspiration for our daily lives and our engagement with the wider world.

Third in the series following This Is the Day and Gathered and Scattered Daily readings for four months from a wide range of contributors within the Iona Community, including Warren Bardsley, John L. Bell and the Wild Goose Resource Group, Ruth Burgess, Ian M. Fraser, Kathy Galloway, Tom Gordon, John Harvey, Peter Macdonald, Joy Mead, Peter Millar, J. Philip Newell, Jan Sutch Pickard, Rosemary Power, Eurig Scandrett, Alison Swinfen, Iain Whyte, Brian Woodcock and many others. These reflections, prayers, poems, songs, which reflect the concerns of the Community, can be used for group or individual reflection and are intended to inspire positive action and change in our lives. Subjects covered include: Hospitality and welcome prayer justice and peace the environment healing social action church renewal worship work racial justice women community pilgrimage sexuality Columban Christianity and the Celtic tradition ecumenism interfaith dialogue nonviolence and peacekeeping the rediscovery of spirituality commitment economic witness youth Neil Paynter was a member of the resident staff group of the Iona Community for four years on Iona. He is a member of the Iona Community and the editor of This Is the Day, Gathered and Scattered, Blessed Be Our Table, Holy Ground, Growing Hope, Iona: Images and Reflections, and many other books, and the author of Down to Earth: Stories and Sketches (Wild Goose).

For many people prayer is difficult. This collection helps us to be less bothered with our uncertainties about what we should be saying when we pray. We can read a prayer and then sit quietly for a few minutes, allowing the particular words and thoughts to meet with our inner self, with our soul, which is linked to the energies and wisdom of the Creator of all things. The prayers here are not to be read in a rush. They are not about a small God, but about One who at every moment is at the very heart of both our personal lives and the life of the world. A God whose goodness, healing and tender grace are at the core of humanity. In the reading of them may our hearts become more loving and aware, for each prayer invites us into a reality much wider than ourselves - the whole world in its contradiction and promise - and brings us close to our sisters and brothers who, like us, are on a journey in which both light and shadow, sadness and joy are regular companions. Living God, like leaves that turn to the sun so we turn to you, the source of all life, for your love to sustain us, your will to strengthen us and your wisdom to guide us. Amen - Chris Polhill

Advent is a special time in the Christian year. In our troubled world, which is also a world of extraordinary possibility and creativity, we need such times more than ever. Times to renew our soul so that our lives may express a deeper compassion and a more joy-filled awareness. Traditionally in the days of Advent there has been an emphasis on the coming of Light - that Light which illumines all our journeys and brings healing to the nations. May these readings enlarge your hope, and bring you to Christmas morning with Christ's light steadily illumining your path.