And it’s all come full circle…

It really is incredible isnt it? Its been six weeks, and I am back at the Hostel where I spent my first night in Europe. When I got off the bus from the airport, I didnt spend two hours wandering, I knew right where to go. But because I’m that type of guy, I went ahead and threw on the same songs that played when I got off the bus six weeks ago. And this may make you, reader, very sad, but I dont know what jamaica will bring, but there is a good chance that this will be my last blog.

Because of this, I feel like it is necessary to skip over London, which was amazing, and just talk for a moment about my last month and a half. I will say that I went and saw Les Miserables at Queen’s theatre, and it was soul shaking. Everytime it gets to the end and Jean Valjean sing “to love another person is to see the face of God” I get chills all over.

And if my trip has proved anything, it is exactly that. My greatest wish is that I could find some words to really capture the heart of what Im trying to say, but it seems that any effort to do so would seem as fruitless an endeavor as attempting to write a worship song. But what I’m begining to realize is that worship songs in the first place have less to do with the words we are singing, and more to do with the heart we approach them with.

And such is life, too.

What we say while we are here–the activities we partake in–they mean little compared to the heart we bring to each and every situation in our life. Going to Europe to hang out for a few weeks does little until you learn the power of a moment… until you can learn to actually experience the moment you live in, not merely exist in it. And that is completely a heart thing.

I realize more now how moments seem to slip through our fingers, like sifting through sand for a shell, somehow overlooking the vastness of the beach all around us. The biggest problem with all of this, of course, that sometimes we don’t realize we’ve lost a moment until its already gone.

Much in the same way, we sometimes don’t really understand how much we have, or how much we love what we have until it’s removed from us. This is why understanding perspective is so important. And perspective may be the thing this trip has taught me most. Is any of this making sense? I hope that it does. And maybe I’ll now be able to continue developing a better understanding of it now that this trip has gotten me started. But this whole notion began developing early in my trip, in Dublin. Sitting down, looking up at a cross on an steeple, I carelessly wrote this down in my journal. And Ill be the first to admit that it isnt really a poem. There is no real rhyme or rhythm behind it. Just thoughts from a wanderer:

Perspective is a funny thing

I don’t pretend to understand.

Until you learn to swap your sight

With the eyes of a hypothetical soul

Will never be understood:

That the furthest point on a glowing horizon

Is only free space to one already there—

That any place you might find yourself

May be that glowing horizon to another—

That the highest peak of the snowiest mountain

Has a beautiful view of its own looking back—

That the most flawless of buildings in all of its fame

Might find more renown once it lay down in ruins—

That being one drop of rain has no more glory

Than being a very small part of the vastest of seas—

And

That the highest cross

On the tallest tower

Of the oldest cathedral

By the greenest lawn

In the most colourful garden

In the sight of the most inspired onlooker

Within the most magnificent city

Is still only a perch to a bird.

I don’t really know what any of that means. Nor do I know if it will make any sense to anyone else. But I do know that being here has made me see things differently. And Ive gotten to see a lot of amazing things. Ive hiked in the Alps, Ive jumped off waterfalls, Ive explored ancient prisons. Ive seen Di Vinci and Michalangelo. Ive walked by the leaning tower and through the gas chamber of a concentration camp. Ive had deep conversations with people I’ll never see again. Ive gotten lost. Ive gotten found. Ive seen the Eiffle Tower glitter at night while eating crepes. Ive seen the most famed architecture and awed over the most beautiful lanscapes.

But nothing…. nothing, in this world anyway, compares to knowing that you have a home to return to. That you have a mother, father, brother and sister who love you and would support you through anything. That you have friends who care enough about you to sift through your babbling on the computer to find out what’s happening in your life. That people actaully go to God to pray for you – for saftey – and for wisdom – and for perspective. And somewhere in all this, that you might not be able able to really make out entirely, there is this a huge webb of love that we all have for each other. And to be a part of that webb. To be deep inside it, somewhere in the shadow of light that God has casted to hide us from darnkness-

That is what it is all about.

Thank you all for your prayers. This trip has really been life-changing. And now, to Jamaica for a week, and hope to see you all when I get back a week from Saturday. Oh, and by the way, I apologize if that was way to sappy, its just my last night here and its making me all… well… sappy I guess. And ask to see pictures and hear stories. Because Ive got a lot of ‘em.