The flight to the Isle of Mann was amazing, and I have never met more friendly security guards than in the Dublin Airport.  I have this little spork multi tool thing on my bag that really threw them off, and it was hilarious.  The man checking the screens that scan carry-on bags told me it "looked really strange on my screen," and another asked, "but really, what's it for?!"  But it didn't make them angry or suspiciously; they were smiling. And people apologize whenever something inconvenient happens, such as when I wasn't able to carry a drink onto one of the buses.  

We arrived on the Isle of Man two days ago not really knowing what to expect (or at least I didn't).  I didn't even really know this tiny island existed until recently when I found out from Melinda that we could find the Ouessant sheep on a certain farm there.  I mean, that's what this trip was all about, finding this rare breed of the tiniest sheep in the world!  I don't know quite how to classify the Isle of Man.  It uses the British Pound, is only a short plane hop from Dublin, and has a rich heritage of intermingled Vikings, Celts and Christians.  Oh and there's Manx cats, and a big motorcycle race called the TT, too.  But even after learning all that, the only thing I understand for certain is that this island is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Think, for example, of waking up every day to see the sea framed by rugged hills and green pastures full of cows and sheep.  The fields are full of rabbits, pheasants and jackdaws (there don't seem to be many natural predators).  The banks lining the roads are covered in different flowering plants of all kinds.  There are only five or six major fishing towns on the island, which you can easily reach within a few hours' drive.  Between that, there are farms.  That's it.

We had a cottage booked, but we had not arranged transportation and were planning on using the bus system.  We knew our destination to be Cammal Farms in Kirkmichael, but had no way of contacting anyone and had to ask many locals before we found our way.  

This video just about sums up everyone's feelings during that time.

Julia: Is the Go Pro actually on?

Anna: omg where are we going?  How are we going to get there?  We're lost!!

Melinda: sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

Two buses and a few hours later, we ended up in The Mitre, the oldest pub on the island.  The staff there kindly provided us directions to the Farm and made us sandwiches and chips to go (best tasting chips ever because by this time we were starving!).  We walked the rest of the way, about a mile up into the hills with our luggage.  But it was so beautiful and we were so close to our destination and we had chips so it didn't matter that much at all.  We finally reached the farm and settled into our little barn-like cottage, watching the sun set over the hills.

The next day we visited an ancient castle in Peel, learned some history of the island in the museum of Mannanan, and climbed a hill that gave us gorgeous views of the surrounding country.  When getting directions, we were given instructions like, " just go down the hill," or "just head north for a while."  On the first bus we took, a whole village of old fishermen took it upon themselves to help us find our way, but finally just wished us good luck and instructed us to talk to "the nice young bus driver."  And half of them looked a little tipsy so we did decide the bus driver was the best bet.

We never became seriously lost, and on an island of 85,000 people, most everyone knows how to help you or where you're supposed to go.

Standing on a big hilltop overlooking Peel, I thanked God for this trip, my friends and the unbelievable view.  It was a mountaintop moment for me and I hope the memory will nourish me in those days to come when acedia sets in and life seems like endless drudgery.

If I didn't need to make a living, I would go back to school in a heartbeat, and if I could, I would go to Trinity College.  The library would be reason enough.  At the Long Library, books are treated with the respect they deserve.  We watched a member of the restoration team painstakingly dust the individual pages of one volume.  They also had a children's exhibit running and I was able to find my favorites.

• We received a tour around Trinity's ground from a Ph.D history student named Caoimhe (pronounced "Queevah").  She did a great job and told us to go look in the geology building as well as seeing the obligatory Book of Kells.  The geology building has stone carvings along the outside depicting native Irish flora and fauna, but as Caoimhe informed us, the sculptors got more creative towards the top and added animals like flamingo, monkey and platypus.  Inside the building were two skeletons of the extinct giant deer that used to live in Ireland.

Caoimhe let us take a picture with her!

The Book of Kells is one of Dublin's most well-known attractions and was well worth the visit.  It's a beautiful illuminated manuscript of the 4 books of the gospel.  One thing that isn't apparent from pictures is the decorated lettering and illustrations are ridiculously intricate but also very tiny.  The most famous page is the Chi Rho, which symbolizes Christ and is full of other icons of faith.  It's beautiful.

Another interesting thing about the book was the monks put their own personal touch on the pages, leaving messages outside the borders of the text.  One such message was about the monk's feelings of solidarity with his white cat, Panger Ban. 

I was so inspired by the Celtic art that I drew my own depiction of Panger Ban, too.

we're in Dublin!  After a long trip from Orlando to Toronto to Ireland, we decided to fight through jet lag to get on a somewhat normal sleep schedule as quickly as possible.  

In Toronto, we had an 8-hour layover at the airport so we did everything we possibly could do in the confines of our terminal.  We played card games (which I am sad to report amazed some people around us; most travelers were using the provided I-pad stations to isolate themselves from each other), did a lap of lunges around this interesting piece of art, and stared in total amazement at the way Canada markets cigarettes (or doesn't market them), with zombies.

When we got to Dublin, we spent the day walking around and taking the tour bus.  We ate a late lunch at a restaurant called The Turks Head, found Trinity College and the Jameson Distillery and watched birds at St. Steven's Green.

Trinity College was gorgeous, and there I found my first bird that wasn't a rock dove or a mallard: the elegant, playful and smart Eurasian Magpie!  It was entertaining itself by grabbing a stick and running across the lawn like a little velociraptor, which was adorable.  I love corvids (crows, jays, etc) in general because they're so smart and sassy but this guy might be a new favorite!

At St. Steven's, there were plenty of gulls and more mallards, but the species that most stood out to me were the Tufted Ducks.  These are a migratory winter species for Ireland but I have no idea if some stay on the sheltered ponds of St. Steven's year-round.  Anyway, they floated around in pairs and were quite handsome.

We ended the night early to try to get on a somewhat normal sleep schedule.  More adventures to come!

I feel all grown up, and yet terrified, because really, I'm not grown up at all.  I still think of my friends' parents as "so-in-so's mom and dad" and I still coast on shopping carts through the parking lot sometimes.  I am, however, embarking on my first adult vacation and I am going to make an effort to document it.

We're going to Ireland and the Isle of Man!  For me, I'm hoping that it's going to be somewhat of a spiritual journey, a chance to regain energy and heal and try to see God in day-to-day life in a way that I lost during school.  I also want to share with you what I learn about Irish culture and creatures.

Yesterday we drove to Orlando to catch a flight to Toronto and then on to Dublin.  In south Georgia we rescued two turtles from the perils of crossing human migratory paths.  Unfortunately in my eagerness I did not actually press the buttons on my Go Pro  (though I tried) and can't share with you the footage of our daring rescue.  But be assured both turtles are safe!  I think saving turtles is one of the easiest ways to help wildlife.  As long as the traffic volume is low and you can park in a relatively safe place, you can simply put the turtle on the other side of the road in the direction it was heading.  Preserving the lives of individual turtles can really make a difference since they live such long lives (eastern box turtles can live 50 years or more!).

When we got to Orlando, we went to get dinner at Downtown Disney and watched the performers.  And we got Anna a corndog, of course.  Next stop, Toronto, then, IRELAND!!

Spike Jr., our traveling stegosaurus enjoyed his fries and beer from the food trucks at Downtown Disney.

Being a devoted fan is hard work.

Around the time when I got to first wear contacts and my teeth were beginning to look normal as the braces did their job, I decided that the Lord of the Rings was cool.  I don't remember why I decided that it was cool.  Probably, as with most things, it was because some people I held in high esteem liked it.  For instance, around the same time I had decided that playing the saxophone was cool, mostly because the barry sax player in the jazz band at school was the kind of person I wished I was.

Anyway, it was a good time to decide to become a Tolkien fan, with the hype of the release of the Fellowship of the Ring movie building.  I was able to finish the first two books of LOTR before I saw the movie, and it’s for this reason that I think I can say I’m a true dedicated fan and not just someone who falls in love with the books after seeing the movies.  For me, things happened pretty much simultaneously, at least for the first year.  The next two years, I would re-read the Lord of the Rings in its entirety before going to see the next installment.  I started this yearly tradition of reading the book and it continued for quite some time after.  I was officially part of a fandom, I was a Ringer!

In those awkward adolescent years, I can honestly say that LOTR stands out as a positive force of good in my life.  I fell deeply in love with the story and characters, and it gave me hope and something to live for, but it really also became an obsession bordering on idolatry.  I wasted huge sums of money buying things for my collection: all of Tolkien’s books, movie books, those costly but precious extended edition gift sets, movie soundtracks, trading cards, replicas of the One Ring which I would actually wear around my neck… I even wanted a movie replica sword (thankfully I couldn’t afford one, though I did manage to acquire a miniscule letter opener version of Anduril).  

But I noticed that something troubling began to happen.  Because I loved the world of Middle Earth so much, I couldn’t stay away from it.  And yet each time I went there again, watching the movies or re-reading the book for the 20^th time, I loved it a little less – or it affected me less and less.  By that time, many words, phrases and character lines were so familiar that I could quote them by heart.  And I was troubled because they began to lose their meaning.  My heart didn’t catch at the place where Gandalf tells Frodo that “even the very wise cannot see all ends.”  I didn’t feel that swelling of love, admiration and pity when Samwise picks up Frodo and carries him up Mount Doom.  I could remember feeling great things, but those feelings weren’t there anymore.

I don’t often give my heart away to a story, but when I do, I do it completely.  For a while, I am utterly obsessed.  Then one tragic day when the winds are howling and the sky is the color of lead, I realize that the flames have died down and I can go back to ordinary life.  My current infatuation is Doctor Who, but I know that a time will come, sooner or later, when I will still love it, but will be tired of it.

Dare I say: the same thing happens with the Gospel.  That is the oldest story in my life by far.  Raised in the proverbial “Christian home,” I have been exposed to it since I was a small child.  I went to Sunday School and had primitive Bible storybooks and was told again and again the Christmas story.  Repetition has brought a certain tiredness to the words and a frustration on my part that I feel this way.  I know in my head that the story of Jesus is beautiful and powerful, but it’s hard to feel it in my heart these days.  I long to hear it for the first time, again.  Think of how different that would be.  To not know that the world was in the hands of an Almighty, holy God who was willing to become human to save us from ourselves and redeem the world.  And then to hear that story for the first time, to have a great swelling of hope and joy at the thought of redemption, healing, and impossible, enduring love.

I can’t just forget that I’ve heard the Gospel thousands of times.  But I can make an effort to refresh the story.  The Lord of the Rings recently was refreshed for me.  Why?  Because the Desolation of Smaug just came out.  Even though I think the new Hobbit movies are really quite terrible (besides brief moments of brilliance like Smaug himself), they reminded me what I loved about the Lord of the Rings.  The other night I watched the end of Return of the King and actually cried again, touched and moved by it for the first time in several years.  It’s hard to remain an infatuated fan.  There are only two ways: forget about it for a while, or explore it in entirely new ways. The only way I know how is to keep the story fresh and new, to explore it in novel, far-reaching ways through art and music, to talk about it and write about it and seek out similarities between it and daily life.

So I could distance myself from the Gospel and come back years later, when I’ve somewhat forgotten it.  There’s always the risk that I might not come back.  Or I could seek confirmation and truth in the Gospel in things that will touch my soul, in art and music, in good discussion, in beauty.

Some Christians think that the only way they’re allowed to connect with God is through reading the Bible.  Now of course I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and I think reading it constantly through life is extremely important for maintaining a correct lens about who God is.  I also think parts of the Bible are extremely beautiful and the book is certainly long enough to read it for a lifetime and still discover new or forgotten wisdoms.  But if I’m to taste and see that the Lord is good, I need to not only read the Bible but experience its Word playing out in daily life, everywhere.

Christmas Musing

My favorite Christmas carol is “Oh Holy Night,” because it reminds me that the world is pining for the new creation and the stars are shining in anticipation.

I know some people don’t believe that there is anything beyond and in control of this universe, and that the stars are alight due to the nuclear reactions of atoms in their cores, not because they are worshipping the God who created and sustains them.  That’s okay.  I have no definitive scientific proof.  But I have decided through much study and thought that it is not unreasonable to accept Christianity as the truth that shapes the world.

N.T. Wright wrote “Surprised by Hope,” to revitalize the Church’s idea of heaven and the resurrection.  I just finished reading it, and it is so appropriate for Christmas, even though it’s more about Easter.

Most Christmas church services I’ve been to do a great job of recognizing Christ’s birth and glorifying Him.  Most services make sure to emphasize that Christ is the personal savior of our sins, a bringer of hope and joy.  The service I went to tonight was beautiful, heart-felt and no doubt Spirit-filled, but I felt this bone-deep empty feeling due to the absence of any mention of the resurrection and the reason to have hope and joy.

They don’t really mention that Heaven will come to Earth and all creation will be redeemed.  Evil will be purged from all space and time and matter.  We will be resurrected into new physical-spiritual bodies on a new earth, not just exist in some mystical heavenly space.  And Christ will rule over all, with us as his co-rulers.

It actually sounds kind of crazy and radical when you think about it, but that part of Jesus’ message was just as important as the individual forgiveness of sins part. 

I just think that when we talk of our hope and our reason for glorifying the birth of Christ, we should not fail to mention these things.  Especially when Christmas Eve services are often populated by once-a-year church attendees who may not fully understand the basic goodness and loveliness of genuine Christian doctrine.  These are my thoughts.

Update for last two weeks.

When I started my food journey, I didn’t really think about the difficulties that would come spending two weeks away from my normal routine to go home for spring break and go on an adventure in the Pacific Northwest.  I began to feel vaguely guilty because I couldn’t think of any way to maintain a $20 a week grocery goal under such conditions.  I talked to some friends and my mom and decided to just do my best to be food-conscious, to resist the urge to indulge every small pang of hunger, and to keep track of everything.  And, of course, I didn’t want to be cheap.

Being cheap would be letting my good friend Grace in Seattle supply all of my food while I stayed with her (as hard as I tried to avoid it, she still supplied most of it).  Being cheap would involve avoiding social events at the conference that would involve going out to eat, or making my lent resolution public so that people would give me leftovers.  I tried to avoid all these things.

Here’s how I did:

The travel day: I brought lots of snacks from home so I’d be set all day long.  Because of the time change, I arrived at my hotel in Portland around 6:00 at night and still felt like I had time to go to a nearby Safeway to get groceries for the week.

Total at the store: $16.00, spent on sandwich materials, microwavable soups and fresh fruit.

The conference in Portland: I ate my groceries, made the unlimited free coffee in my hotel room rather than buying the expensive kind downstairs, and did not feel appreciably more hungry than I normally am.  I did go out to eat once with colleagues.  Though I only got an entrée, it still cost me $12 with tip, so as you can see I was about $8 over my weekly goal.  I also went to the conference banquet, which I had paid for several months ago so I didn’t really count it.  But I did appreciate that the banquet had cost me $35.00.  The banquet and the other dinner seemed necessary to me, though, purely for the social aspect.  I enjoyed them and was okay with spending the money within reason.

Visiting Grace in Seattle: I resolved to be less thrifty around Grace.  She knew about my resolution but I tried to make it very clear to her that it was okay if we went out to eat and that I wouldn’t worry about my spending habits too much.  Before we left Portland, I got a $4.00 sandwich from a food cart and a $2.00 cup of coffee from Stumptown (and I will have to say it was one of the best coffees I’ve ever had – maybe just because I was comparing it to the hotel stuff).  We took the bus to Seattle and got home pretty late, so Grace just cooked up some chicken and frozen vegetables for our dinner and we went straight to bed.

I love Grace because she is so generous.  We went grocery shopping and she insisted on buying the food.  Then she cooked me delicious meals.  She also bought my dinner one night when we went out to eat.  For the most part, we didn’t go out to eat, but that isn’t to say we didn’t eat well.  We had plenty of portable snacks for our adventures and the anticipation of savory, hearty meals when we returned.  The only things I actually bought for direct consumption were: another couple cups of coffee ($3.00 total, and can you see what holds the keys to my heart?  Maybe that’s what I should give up next), a bowl of salmon chowder ($5.00-ish?  I paid with cash), and a ridiculously tiny, adorable fruit tart ($2.00).

But does it matter?  Sure, I met my goal for the week, but only because most of my food needs were supplied by someone else.  I guess that brings me to my main point:

My $20 a week grocery resolution has not taught me what it means to be hungry, like I originally intended.  Instead, it has allowed me to experience the generosity of my friends and family and get really good at doing math.

Huh.

Yes, I got hungry for sure.  My hunger was never terrible or debilitating though.  The biggest thing with living by the generosity of others is you don’t get to make the decisions about when, where and what to eat, which I did find very humbling and a little disconcerting.  But Grace always made sure I was well fed and I just had to trust her.

What if God treats me the same way, giving me what I need to be satisfied, not more or less?  Why do I have such a hard time appreciating that?  Why must I always be in control?

Only two more weeks to go.