Peace be with You

A few things I’ve learned about London: a weekend in the summer is not a good time to visit. There are crowds of tourists everywhere. Lines are long and many, though quick-moving.  If there’s a short line for the toilet anywhere, take advantage! (the toilet lines at the Tower of London: non-existent. Westminster Abbey: don’t waste your time.) If you mistakenly buy the wrong train ticket, the man in the black jacket making you pay the very big fine will not have mercy, despite pleadings of ignorance. Cornish pasties are only good upon consumption, but later? Gut bomb. Despite multiple, daily, scientific testing of various brands of espresso from street stands, none compare to what I get in Seattle for twice the price.  You can avoid the worst crowds in the popular places if you go just before closing and wait to get kicked out by the staff. The downside, of course, is that you don’t actually have time to see much.

Here’s something else I’ve found: despite the teeming crowds seemingly gathered from all the nations, it is indeed possible to find peace. Solitude.

I had an epiphany sitting on the edge of the fountain in front of Buckingham Palace, slowly digesting my Cornish pasty and burning time before the production of Wicked began. Threads of the song “I Will Exalt You” ran through my head, so I plugged in my iPod. I will exalt you; you are my God. My hiding place, my safe refuge, my treasure Lord you are. Anointed One most holy. Because you’re with me, I will not fear. Suddenly the frantic sounds of traffic, horns honking, and humanity faded. It was just me and God, alone together, sitting in the sun, surrounded by hundreds of people.

I had a similar experience in the British Museum the next day. That famous home of antiquity, accompanied by the soundtrack to Out of Africa became a place of transcendence and art.  It was yet another place mobbed by tourists like myself. The Rosetta Stone, my main reason for hunting down the museum, was surrounded by a multi-lingual crowd four people deep. In went the earphones, though, and I gradually felt my body wind down from the tension of being in such a place.

It’s interesting, and somewhat surprising I guess, that these places so filled with crowds and noise can actually be ‘thin places.’ I love this term—it’s one I only recently learned—that defines places where the veil between heaven and earth is quite thin. I left on this pilgrimage just over a week ago with the purpose of seeking out thin places, just not expecting to find them in the city.

My friend Leah, an old high school chum who’s just been ordained in the Anglican church, reminded me over breakfast this morning that people go on pilgrimages to places. So where am I going? A farm in Yorkshire? Iona? No, those are just stops along the journey. I’m not really sure yet, but I am excited about this journey I’m on.

Delight. Rest.

A central quest in my life seems to be re-learning lessons I've already learned. Case in point: school got out just over a week and a half ago. I spent the following week preparing to exit the country for two months. (Who'd have thought it would take so many errands to make that happen? That's a blog for another day...) I packed in as much activity as possible--seeing friends, a barbeque on the beach, extra workouts to make up for the ones I'd miss... In other words, by the time I left Seattle, I needed a vacation from my vacation preparations. I found myself in my first destination, the Netherlands, exhausted and drained. But in classic Lindsay fashion, I jumped into the next activities that presented themselves.

Don't get me wrong, the last three days in the Netherlands have been pretty amazing. I went to the birthday party last Saturday evening of a friend of my Dutch host, Sjoerd. I chatted it up with friendly people who speak great English. I talked for a while with the mother of two pre-teens, comparing teenage life across two continents. I spoke with a British ex-pat from Yorkshire, where I'll be heading in another week. (He warned me that I'm going to have a really hard time with their accents!). I really like the Dutch; they're warm and witty and so welcoming.

Sjoerd and I spent all Sunday at a festival on stilts in one of the oldest towns in the Netherlands, Deventer. (Check it out!) Who knew that stilts could look nearly natural? I was delighted by the edgy, weird acts that passed through the tight,  ancient streets, pulling by-standers along magnetically. I stood in the main town square, packed with people, in awe at the creativty on display. One group of performers were completly painted in blue and rolled blue oil drums down the streets, banging on them and lighting off small fireworks, while their band followed on a massive truck. My first reaction was to dimiss everything as too strange, but God said to me, "This is weird; it's not normal for you. Delight in it!" Another act had two dancers suspended from ropes off the edge of a building, doing flips and twists and steps completely perpendicular to the ground.

We toured Amsterdam yesterday. Huge cities are always both exhausting and exciting to me. There were tourists everywhere; street performers in every square; I risked my life on every street corner while I figured out that bicycles and scooters don't slow down for street lights or pedestrians. We packed in lots of actitivity: the Van Gogh museum, a tour of the canals by boat, walking through the Nine Streets shopping district, Thai food in a small restaurant down a side street. The Red Light District didn't shock me as Sjoerd had predicted, but rather just grieved me.

But here's the thing: I'm wiped. I'm doing lots of cool stuff, but it's really difficult to take delight in these things around me when my battery's empty. The lesson I have to keep learning--well, one of them--is that I slowly grow more and more miserable to harder I push myself. How is it that Sjoerd so clearly saw in me this morning that I needed a 'quiet day,' when I could neither recognize nor admit it myself? I admit, this is a weakness of mine. Period. I'm perpetually caught in this cycle of work, play, work, burn-out.

So today, I rest. Three cups of coffee on the patio. Reading. Blogging. Not sure what's next. A nap? More reading? More coffee? Bliss. Rest.