In order to offer a dry and warm place to meet this winter, we recently purchased a large party tent (40x20 foot) to put up on the site of the future Abbey. We’ve dubbed this the “Tent of Meeting” (with all of its Old Testament echoes intended). It’s a great temporary measure. It was a more challenging job than we wished constructing the tent. And, in order to endure the 40 mph gusts that were predicted a few days later, I spent many hours adding extra cables to secure it. Praise God, it survived the most recent gusty storm without any damage!! It’s absolutely wonderful to be inside with the heaters going… downright magical.

We also added a lot more gravel and expanded the road to create a loop that takes you pretty close to the tent for drop-offs and for closer parking for those who are disabled or have mobility limitations. Woohoo!!!

Fall has come to Iona House. There is an incredible golden glow that jumps out against the rich dark greens of the evergreens. It’s hard to capture how beautiful it is on the land right now.

One of the most wonderful parts of this place is that it experiences all four seasons while still being livable and usable all year round. That being said, some seasons stand out as superior; of all of them autumn is our favorite.

“For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Isaiah 55:12

So much has been happening that I have been too busy to put up any new blog entries. Here’s some of the rundown:

A couple of Saturdays ago, we had a very exciting (and noisy) community day. We had six guys working with chainsaws, a couple of tractors running, and a crew spreading wood chips in our parking area. As usual, we enjoyed a delicious lunch together, midday prayer, a time of silence & solitude, and a lot of time for fellowship (amidst the sounds of giant dead trees being cut down with a gigantic, earth-shaking crash).

This was just the beginning of a week of very productive work on the land with the two tractors we rented. We had a father-son crew fly in (one from Seattle, one from South Carolina) to operate the tractors all week. These two men volunteered an entire week of their lives to serve the mission of Iona House!!! And they made great progress. This kind of serving heart and generosity is the very essence of the Iona House spirit. Three cheers for Steve & Stephen Lanford.

We had another retreat this past weekend with a group mostly from the Bay Area (and a couple from Portland OR). It was a great time of fellowship, prayer, contemplation, and formation.

Earlier this week we had a very powerful storm come through (high winds + rain). Unfortunately, some of our shade tents were destroyed. :(

This coming weekend is another Family Faith Formation retreat with 6 families from San Francisco.

What an adventure!!

Last Saturday a wonderful group came together to enter into a day devoted to the ancient practices of silence and solitude. These practices are as old as the people of God. If we look at the life of Moses, David, Elijah, and many others we see that God used extended times of silence and solitude to shape them and to teach them to listen to His voice. Jesus, of course, famously began His ministry with a 40 day experience in the wilderness.

What we experienced this past Saturday was truly a gift. It was perfect weather - high 70’s with a gentle breeze. Just the sounds of birds and the wind in the pine needles. The group dispersed with each person finding a comfortable place to be still. And, from what people shared at the end, the Lord showed up! People heard from the Lord; they sensed Him leading them and comforting and challenging them. As the Psalm says of the Lord, “Be still and know that I am God”. The challenge for us is that we often struggle to be still or quiet or alone. Sometimes it’s easier to approach these practices with a community all doing it together.

I look forward already to our next day of silence! Perhaps you’ll be able to join us.

We had a fantastic time connecting with new folks and catching up with old friends at the event. We estimate that about 200 people came out to join us, which was so encouraging. Elizabeth’s food / aesthetic vision was a huge hit (evoking a farmers’ market). Our volunteers were amazing and we’re so grateful to the five churches who helped us co-sponsor the event.

For many folks, this was the first time they’d heard of Iona House. We kept hearing over and over again: “Iona House is so badly needed! We’re so glad you’re doing what you’re doing.” That was encouraging for us.

Content: We got great feedback on the content of the evening. Dr. Carolyn Chen is the real deal. She is articulate, extremely perceptive, as well as prophetic yet gracious. If you’ve not read her book, it’s worth getting a copy. She provides a valuable (and often missing) perspective to many of the ongoing “faith & work” conversations.

For more about the event, check out our Work Pray Code event page (with follow up questions, etc.)

Here is the audio recording of the evening. Note that the panel portion of the evening was not recorded in order to allow panelists to speak freely without concern for what might be said.

On September 14 every year the Church around the world celebrates what is called “The Feast of the Holy Cross”. The date of this feast comes from the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which occurred on Sept. 14, 330AD. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre contains both the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection. In April of this year Elizabeth and I led a group of pilgrims to experience this church (alongside a lot of other amazing sites in the Holy Land). We had the unique experience of being able to soak in the mystery and wonder of that place with relatively few people with us (due to the downturn in travel related to COVID). It’s a place, if you haven’t been already, that I hope you get to visit one day.

The feast, of course, is not actually about a building or an object (i.e. the cross). It’s yet another celebration of the wonder of God’s immense love and generosity toward us as expressed in the mystery of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s about the shocking twist of how the central symbol of shame and humiliation and exclusion in the ancient world became the sign of grace and forgiveness and hope. It’s not accidental that the cross is the very symbol of the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul was the first to write about the irony of how “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to use who are being saved it is the power of God” (I Cor. 1:18). Ever since the earliest times, the symbol of the cross has had a central and visible role in the faith.

It would be hard to articulate with any measure of satisfaction in a blog post the meaning of the cross for Iona House. The theological meaning of the cross is nearly inexhaustible: it is the source of our hope and joy, the means of our salvation, and the shape of our life in Christ. Perhaps that last phrase is a place to say a few words today.

At Iona House we believe we are called to a cruciform life because that’s what Jesus told us: “If you want to be my followers, take up your cross and follow me.” Christians since the earliest times have understood Jesus to mean that they must endure suffering as part of their Christian journey. Life in Christ is not an opportunity to escape or avoid suffering. It is an invitation to enter into the sufferings of Christ. And it is in this participation in Christ’s sufferings that we are also able to experience the great joy of hope in the resurrection. The author of Hebrews exhorts us in chapter 12 to look to Jesus “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before Him endured the cross…” The irony of the cruciform life is that it is the only path to true joy. Sure, you can have pleasure without the cross; you can probably experience a degree of “happiness”. But if you want lasting joy, then the cruciform life is the only way. The “joy” we’re talking about is the joy of union with Christ… a joy that cannot be taken away from us.

So, today, let us say a prayer of gratitude for the very real and tangible sign of God’s love toward us. Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for the cross!

PS - Earlier this year we received this amazing gift of a handmade olive wood cross from the Holy Land. Check out the video below.

Last weekend our family spent several days with seven other families (from the Bay Area) who came up to visit Placerville / Iona House who are in our exact same season of life (married with small children). It was quite the weekend: 16 adults + 15 children all under the age of 7!!! The weekend was sort of a “beta” version of a retreat experience that we have been imagining. It was a great weekend filled with joy and lots of what you’d expect with small children. There were structured activities, times of worship, lots of family fun and adventure. One of the highlights was the evenings together with the adults (after kids had gone to sleep). It was strangely comforting to hear everyone share their struggles (and joys) about the same things.

This past weekend crystalized for us what we had already been intuiting: people in our season of life have particular spiritual needs. Parents in our situation do not get much solitude and silence. Spiritual disciplines are especially difficult. We’re tired and we long for a sustainable rhythm. At the same time we long for adventure. But the idea of a vacation with small kids often sounds more exhausting than restful.

Hopes and dreams: If you’re like us, you long for your kids to have deep, formative, spiritual experiences that will shape them as Christians for the rest of their lives. But church can feel like one of the most challenging times of the week. Bedtime worship routines can be great… or a total meltdown disaster depending on the night and the exhaustion level of the kids (and parents).

The more we’ve thought about it, the more we’ve come to believe that Iona House is well-suited to minister to folks in our situation. Our vision has been marinating around this question: What might it look like to uniquely minister to young families at Iona House?

THREE CORE IDEAS:

Family Spiritual Formation Retreats - We would offer unique family retreats designed to give both children and parents a deep, faith-inspiring experience of God’s goodness in a rhythm that is sustainable for everyone. The kids would get to experience the adventure of agricultural / farm activities (interactions with animals such as chickens and goats; learning about planting and growing things in the children’s garden; nature hikes, etc.) and connect these activities to spiritual truths and practices. Parents would get to experience many of the same activities alongside their children, while also being given support and freedom to go off and spend time in much needed solitude and silence or meeting with a spiritual director (for example). Meals would be family-friendly, healthy/local (made from our own gardens!), and delicious. There would be a rhythm to each day that orients life toward worship of God. Children would learn about contemplative forms of spirituality (as opposed to, perhaps, the hyped up, loud, and rambunctious types of experiences we often think of as children’s ministry). There would be adventure, discovery, and wonder - hands-on learning in God’s great creation. There would be practical teaching for parents about raising children as Christians (in an increasingly secular, post-Christian culture) and realistic guidance on how to be spiritually formed as adults through this unique season of life. Evenings would include times of worship and teaching for adults along with much desired adult social time with those in a similar season of life… and hopefully lots of sleep! The overall pace would be one that is designed in order to not add to people’s existing exhaustion. To this end, during these retreats we would offer additional staffing support with safe, background-checked, experienced staff members who are able to assist with kids and families. We would offer these retreats perhaps 4-8 times a year at times especially advantageous for family travel. Structured retreats would be 3-5 days in length - long enough to get into a rhythm, but not so long as to be inaccessible for those with work and full schedules.

A space for families year-round - We have also envisioned the campus of Iona House such that there is a part of the campus that is designed with families in mind and available for self-directed family retreats year-round. This is a place that a single family or a group of families could come up together and could experience a place of renewal and formation. It is a space where kids can be kids without disrupting adults doing retreats with contemplative practices seeking silence and solitude. Staff could be available to assist parents with activities designed for multi-generational spiritual formation. While this isn’t the full-scale structured retreat mentioned above, it might be exactly the low-key thing that many families need.

A space for parents to find spiritual renewal without their children - We have also envisioned the campus of Iona House as a place for adults to come and experience formation, healing, restoration, deep silence, rest, and solitude without their children. This might be a place where one parent at a time can get a 1-5 day spiritual retreat. We have hermitages (fully self-sufficient 250 sq ft cottages) designed for individual self-directed silent retreats as well as ongoing, repeated, structured, guided retreats along the themes of formation, contemplation, and restoration designed for adults. We see this as an important part of supporting parents in their goal of growing as disciples who can disciple their own children.

We can see benefits to all three of the above. There may be other ideas that emerge as well. All we know is that Iona House needs to be a place for Christian formation for families with small children. Pray with us that God will guide us into a full expression of this vision!

A friend recently sent me a link to an article that is a reflection about the story of the Irish monk Columba coming to Iona, establishing an abbey, and about the island’s ongoing legacy into the present as a place of spiritual vitality, mission, and transformation. I learned some interesting things from this article. If you’re curious, it’s a quick but thoughtful read.

Here’s a link to the article: Celtic Christianity on Iona

On June 18, we enjoyed incredible weather, a wonderful group (only partially pictured), delicious food, and an all around great day on the Iona House land. We made significant progress on our parking area - spreading the wood chips in order to suppress unwanted plants and keep the dust down. It looks so good! We also cleaned out a new storage shed that we had donated. It’s a 10 foot section of a shipping container with a rollup door on it. It works marvelously. We recently had some other valuable things donated as well: kids toys, a campfire pit, storage racks, and more. Go team!!!

We compiled a short video showing some of the progress on the land. We’re so excited about what has already happened. Come visit for a full tour!

Today we celebrate the life and legacy of St. Columba. He was a man who was mightily used by God. But it didn’t start out that way. After accidentally inciting a minor civil war in his native Ireland in which 3,000 people lost their lives, Columba and 12 companions, in a state of penance, exiled themselves to the remote island of Iona off the coast of what is now Scotland. The purpose of this “exile” was to form a distinctive community of prayer, discipline, and deep faithfulness to the Word of God. The monastery / abbey that these men formed went on to become one of the most significant centers of Christian mission the world has ever seen. Much of modern-day Scotland and Northern England were converted from the missionary efforts launched from Iona and the monasteries that were established from this center of contemplation and Christian formation.

Looking back 1500 years, nobody would have ever expected that this remote, beautiful but desolate island on the edge of civilization would go on to have such impact. But this is how God works: He so often takes what seems insignificant to the world and uses it to His own glory. (Nazareth? Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?)

When Elizabeth and I set out to encapsulate the vision God gave us with a name that captured its vital essence, we were led to St. Columba and the abbey of Iona. It’s an incredibly inspiring story. In so many ways we believe the world needs a new Iona.

Our personal story is that after ministering in a place of major cultural significance (San Francisco) for over a decade, we felt God leading us to a place that some people might think of as the edge of civilization. Placerville? (Can anything good come out of Placerville? - I can hear someone saying). Oftentimes God uses the margins and the overlooked places as locations for vitally important formation for His people: Mt. Sinai, the wilderness, the Jordan River valley (John the Baptist), the region of Galilee, etc., etc.

This is our prayer - that God would use the margin / separation / rugged beauty offered by Iona House in Placerville to cultivate a unique and particularly potent place of Christian formation for those who come. May God grant us the spirit of humility, contemplation, faithfulness, and zeal for Christ’s Name that shaped the life and ministry of St. Columba and his companions on the Isle of Iona.

By Elizabeth Jones

Iona House is best understood as a “house” of formation. I believe horses have a key role to play in this mission.

While obtaining my masters in counseling psychology, I learned that an incredible amount of critical formation happens in the first few years of our lives. Before we even have the capacity to think in words or communicate in words, we are forming our emotional sense of self. We are learning the attachment patterns which will guide the course of our relationships through out our lives. We are forming intuitions about our place in the world and establishing our emotional baseline sense of safety. All this is already beginning, and in some cases, rather firmly established, before we even have the capacity to verbally articulate what is going on inside of us.

Horses have a unique way of connecting with us in these non-verbal, embodied places. Horses are incredibly sensitive to what is going on inside of us – what is really going on inside of us. Even if we are blind to our own carefully guarded anxiety, grief, or anger, horses are herd animals whose survival is predicated on knowing the non-verbal cues of their herd. Their bodies pick up on the tensions within our own bodies. They mirror to us what we are feeling, even when we do not know what we are feeling ourselves. In fact, because horses are so big, they actually amplify to us what we are feeling. When we learn to address the feelings being displayed in the horse, it can in turn address the feelings that we are feeling in ourselves.  

I experienced this recently while I was spending time on the parcel adjacent to Iona House a couple of months ago (this is the parcel we hope to purchase). There is a barn on this parcel with a 21-year-old mare who is the last of her herd. She was raised on this land with her mother, but now all the other animal companions (horses, donkeys, llamas and goats) are gone. She is well cared for in every way physically, but her relational world has been largely emptied.

The first time I went to visit her (after the horse’s owner had given me permission), I was a bit of jumbled mess. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself in the wake of losing all that had formerly occupied our lives in SF. I was irritable and blamed it on an exhausting move with two toddlers, but I didn’t necessarily have a conduit to access what was happening more deeply within me. When I went to visit the horse, it took a while for the horse to even let me halter her, but eventually she allowed me. It took a while for the horse to even let me pet her (she isn’t used to much human handling), but eventually she let me touch her. Importantly, what was happening between us was an intricate, embodied building of trust. In the midst of an uncomplicated, bodily felt trust, I found myself crying to this horse who could understand no reasonable words. But in the midst of our interaction, I felt safe to acknowledge my grief (having moved away from our community in SF). Somewhat mysteriously, I simultaneously experienced a feeling of understanding, since this horse also knows what it’s like to feel alone. I have experienced and witnessed unique connections like this many times from when I have volunteered in therapeutic riding, worked as a horse expert in equine assisted psychotherapy, and from when I previously owned my own horse.

As a house of formation, Iona House intentionally cultivates places of non-verbal, embodied formation, and part of this will be through care of our animals at Iona House, including the horses we hope to have one day. I look forward to the day when we can utilize horses at Iona House as an intentional way to access some of the non-verbal, embodied aspects of our souls (that are sometimes wounded, guarded or numbed) in order to bring ourselves more fully into the presence of Christ as embodied, integrated creatures who are more fully worshipping and trusting their Creator.

Lots has been happening the past week at Iona House.

We rented a compact track loader (skid steer) with a forestry grapple and went to town cleaning up old burn piles, cleaning up rough terrain, cutting new trails, and removing poison oak. It’s a great machine! This is exactly the kind of machine we want to purchase when funding comes together for it. It’s like a swiss army knife.

We took delivery of approx. 80 yards (four massive dump truck loads) of wood chips that we will put in the parking area to keep dust down. Many thanks to the good folks at El Dorado Truss who donated them to us!!!

We had a group of four amazing volunteers come out on Saturday along with 7 chainsaws (!!!). We removed some trees that needed removing and chopped up a bunch of wood which they hauled away as fire wood. It was a great afternoon.

Finally, we began cleaning up an area that will add more to our upper pond. It was a large depression in the earth leftover from 1800’s era hydro-mining (looking for gold). It was full of trees, brush, and debris.

With every passing day, there is good progress! Praise be to God.

Come visit! Looks like we’re having wonderful cool weather this coming Saturday and a Community Day is coming together. It will be a great day to come out. Email me if you want to join us.

Most of our blog posts to date have been about property development. This one is more about exploring one of the underlying inspirations for what we’re doing. We’ve been deeply shaped by the Benedictine (Christian) monastic tradition. For 1600 years this faithful way of following Jesus has deeply impacted the life and health of the Church in countless positive ways. Unfortunately, many Christians (especially protestants) have notions of monasticism that are less than positive. We believe there is much to be gleaned from the Christian monastic tradition even for the vast majority of those of us who will never actually become a vowed monk.

An example of the treasures to be discovered in monasticism is illustrated in this is a wonderful article that was shared with us by a friend. It captures the experience of a young 25 year old woman who spends part of a summer living at a monastery as a guest. We hope it inspires you. https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/cultivating-benedictine-wonder/

A few weeks back we had our third community day. We had a great group of around 20 people come out. We enjoyed a variety of work projects: road / trail maintenance, burning dead debris, transplanting trees, drainage ditch improvement, and most of all seed sowing! We had a wonderful BBQ lunch, midday prayer, and an extended time for solitude and silence. The day ended with us walking the whole property sowing seed: Rye Grass on the trails and Crimson Clover on the hillsides. As we walked and toured the property, we spread seed as we prayed over the various components of our ministry. It was wonderful! Soon there will be splashes of bright red clover springing up all over.

One of the ministries that Iona House / Institute for Christoformity will be developing over the coming years is offering the experience of pilgrimage. We will be leading trips to the Holy Land, the Footsteps of Paul, and Celtic Christianity tours (Ireland, Scotland, England). For nearly two millennia Christians have made journeys of faith to sacred places in order to enrich their own faith and enter into solidarity with the people of God. Countless people have been deeply marked by a pilgrimage experience.

We (Elizabeth and I) were blessed to have been invited to lead a group of 15 people to Israel for a 10 day pilgrimage. We THOROUGHLY enjoyed our time with a fantastic group of committed Christians. We learned so much from our Palestinian, Christian guide about the current context of Christians as well as the history of God’s people in Israel/Palestine. We saw many ancient sites and also got to know some of the “living stones” (present-day Christians) of the Holy Land. We had a chance to walk the Via Dolorosa and pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (which has within it both the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and the tomb where He was laid). We spent time in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Galilee. We also visited the site where Jesus was baptized, floated in the Dead Sea and saw a host of significant biblical sites. It was AMAZING!

One of the highlights for us was finding a bell in a market in the Old City of Jerusalem that we purchased and brought back to use as a means of calling people to prayer. It weighs about 27 lbs and is solid brass. Everyone chuckled at us when we showed up at the bus with our large, heavy bell. “How are you going to get that home?!” Truthfully it did destroy our suitcase. But it’s worth it to have a bell from the Mother Church calling us to prayer! When you hear the bell at Iona House, know that it is a call to prayer from the source of Christianity.

Below is a gallery of some highlights of the trip.

The well drilling rig

We have been eagerly awaiting the well being drilled on the land. We’ve been in the queue for 8 months and finally this week the drilling rig arrived and they began the process. They discovered that there is a lot of dirt on our land. Typically they hit bedrock around 40 feet. At our land it was 140 feet. On the third day of drilling (good biblical reference in there) they hit good water at about 450 feet. We have a solid well that is producing 25 gallons per minute. That means it can produce 36,000 gallons a day. We will be utilizing one, possibly two different storage ponds for our irrigation needs.

Having a good producing well is an answer to prayer, especially since county water does not serve our land. The parcel next door (that we hope to purchase later this year) has an even better well of around 70 gallons per minute. Between the two of these wells, we should be able to easily accommodate all of the water needs on our future campus. Praise be to God!

This weekend we’re headed to San Francisco to connect with a number of folks about Iona House. We’ll be doing a special gathering with Eucharist Church on Saturday and then I (Ryan) will be guest preaching for RealitySF for Palm Sunday. We’re looking forward to connecting with a lot of friends and folks in the Iona House network.

Our next event is another Community Day on Saturday, April 23rd at the Iona House property. We’re planning some other upcoming events as well: a silent retreat (1 day), a workshop about regenerative agriculture and Christian spirituality, and more. Stay tuned. We’ll put details on the website once we have them. Also, if you want to come up and get a tour of the property, please contact us and we can arrange it.

Please continue to pray for all aspects of the development of Iona House. Pray that God would provide us with great team members / leaders, a thriving intern program, an abundance of financial supporters, and more.

Here’s the photo of the day. (We have these chapel windows out on the property evoking our future prayer chapel building).

This week we’ve got a couple of guys running machines continuing the fire prevention, forest clean-up, and manicuring / prepping of the land. This video shows a tractor (compact track loader) with a “grapple” (like a big rake) moving pieces of manzanita into a pile to either be buried or burned. There is 150 years worth of organic material that has built up. This is a big process!

We had a wonderful group of 17 folks (including 7 kids) come out to join us on Saturday, April 2nd for work, prayer, tours of the property, BBQ, some silence and solitude, and a whole lot of bonding. It was a wonderful time together and we accomplished some great stuff. Here are some pictures.

Kids busy working while some adults (ahem) are talking :)