photo: through the veil

“There is a natural inertia built into the human condition that seeks the comfortable, the familiar, the secure. We want to shape life to our specifications and fix it there. We want stability. When life becomes difficult, the temptation is to want to reach the summits we can see, to settle down there, to turn our worlds into stone. We fossilize our hearts. We say this is enough. We limit our vision to what we can grasp without strain. We spend life trying to settle down, satisfied with where we’ve come, in control of where we are. Ironically, it is stability – homeostasis, the failure to adjust, to grow, to change – that threatens to destroy the very system it sets out to save.

Only the capacity to go on living, to face all of life as it is, grows us.”

– Sister Joan Chittister

through the veil
© erin dunigan 2013

iona

This image is from Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland. Iona was the center of Irish Monasticism for over four hundred years and is now the home of the Iona Community, which describes itself as a “dispersed Christian ecumenical community working for peace and social justice, rebuilding of community and the renewal of worship.” I love that description.

This image was created within the chapel building and is one of my favorites. I wound up using it as my ‘ordination image’ which was printed on bookmarks with the order of service.

iona window, Iona, Scotland
© 2003 erin dunigan