Today was our last full day on this beautiful isle. After yesterday, our legs lacked power, so we sauntered around the coastline, enjoying sunshine despite the cold wind, watching seals, wading birds and sheep mothering their new lambs.

As we walked the low cliffs around the south of the Isle, I remebered that I had read somewhere recently that the word ‘saunter’ may have its origin in the phrase ‘a la sainte terre’, or ‘to the holy land’, an answer given when medieval pilgrims were asked about their destination.

It seemed an entirely appropriate word for this place, not because it is more ‘holy’, but because the big theme for me of being here has been so much to do with the sacred that is in all things. Or to put to the Pierre Tielhard de Chardin way, to deny the divorce of matter and spirit.

In the distance, Gannets form and reform formations, wheeling above the sea as if for pleasure, whereas flitting in and out of the rocks are pairs of my new favourite, the snow buntings. These are lovely creatures, but then so are we all. After all, we are made by and held together by the light behind light, the soul behind souls and the spirit behind spirit.

This is a special place, but only because it reminds us so vividly of the oneness of all things. It is special in that it brings to us closer to the beautiful ordinary. Not the sameness of all things but the fact that, as Richard Rohr puts it all things carry inside them the same am-ness.

In these parts, people live deeply connected, interdependent lives. The population of the island is low and aging, so essential tasks are shared. When people fall out, they are forced to reach truces, because how else can people survive? There is tradition, but lots of incomers, yet we have seen no sign of rancour from original islanders towards the new residents. No-one ‘owns’ their houses here, rather they pay a rent to The National Trust, who took over ownership of the island decades ago. This lack of ownership seems to foster greater community spirit. Heating is provided by a common electricity supply from wind turbines, and power generally has to be used carefully, lest it impact the neighbours supply.

This too is an ordinary way for children of the living god to live. These normal principles are revealed, not as perfection, but as a skew towards grace.

It took coming here to teach me what I had already begun to glimpse – in no small part due to Richard Rohrs writing – that the God who loves things by becoming them is in and through me, then outwards towards all that is and all that ever will be.

Like Ezekiel’s dry bones, things are coming to life again, and again,

In an ordinary kind of way.