128 days

walked

it seems, for the people in my life, that october is the month to go on vacation. right now, i have friends and family in Egypt, Israel, Texas and California.

as envious as i am, given that i always want to travel, there seems to be a bit of a theme woven throughout some of these vacations, and even crossing over into some of the books i have read this year.

more than one friend who was going to Israel told me that for them, the crux of the trip is to walk where Jesus walked. to see things He would have seen with His eyes.

this morning i received an email from my dad, who, with my mom, is finally living his lifetime-long dream of visiting the Alamo. in it, he said,

"What a feeling to be standing where all those heroes stood. To cross the line and stand with them. The feeling of hopelessness as you realize they were all going to die yet stayed there to serve their country."

my dad is living his dream, walking in the footsteps of his heroes.

after that, i read my friend Phil's blog post, and in it he has a video where Francis Chan talks about going to Oxford and getting a crash course in church history, actually seeing where some lived, and some died.

combine all that with some books i have read this year. A Walk With Jane Austen, for one, where a young woman drops her life to go to England for a month to visit the places where the famous author lived her life and wrote her words. and then there is the book i just finished, Juliet, which while it is a novel, is about a woman who discovers that she is related to the original Juliet, of Shakespeare fame, and returns to Siena, Italy to discover the truth, and her rightful inheritance.

there is something so compelling about connecting the past with the present. about standing in a place and wondering how many fascinating, or just plain normal people through the years have also stood in the same place. about wondering what they did, who they loved, how they faced down their own fears.

...as a child, i walked through forts on vacations with my family, where people of bravery took stands and fought to keep invaders away from their land, teaching me that the way things are now, is not they way they have always been. that there are things that are worth defending.

...i have wandered a Parisian garden where both my favorite sculptor and favorite poet wandered themselves, looking for inspiration and solace, hoping the garden would pass its magic into my own words and art.

...sadly, i have found myself standing in a gas chamber in Auschwitz, unable to keep the tears from flowing for all the lives that ended in that cold, cement room, and all the ways the world could have been made a better place had that room not ever been built.

there are still so many places that i want to touch the ground. so many people, long dead, whose ghosts i want to will my eyes to see. so very much history that i want to connect with.

so many places to walk...


where do you want to walk?

favorite things...

it's been a while since i posted some of my favorite things. you may think it cheating a bit if you've sneaked a peek down to the first one, but i really don't think my favorite city in the world has ever officially made it to a favorite things fridays post...

Paris
it has been 457 days since my heart was last in the one place on earth it truly feels at home, Paris, France. in some ways the days have flown by, but lately, the length of the journey between visits is starting to wear on me.

i've been dreaming of this beautiful place. dreaming of the Rodin museum gardens, which i am sure are beautifully blooming right now. the Tuileries, and the walk through them from the Louvre to Angelina Tea Room, where africain chocolat awaits. dreaming of standing on the Champs Elysee, looking right to see the Arc de Triomphe with a faint outline of the Arc de Defense behind it, then turning left to see the Obelisk in front of the Louvre, made tiny by perspective.

but mostly, i have been dreaming about the streets of Paris, and the sheer joy that i feel just wandering through them.

i think it's time to go back...


Stacey Kent
on my first visit to Paris, while visiting the Virgin Megastore in the Carousel de Louvre, i was introduced to a recording artist that has rapidly become one of my very favorite, Stacey Kent. this American-born jazz singer has a smooth voice that i simply adore. to be honest, i would have to say that my favorite song of hers is one from the first album that i bought that day in Paris, a song called I Wish I Could Go Traveling Again. does that not sound like the theme song for my life!? {especially when you listen to the first two lines of the song: i wish i could go traveling again / it feels like the summer will never end...} kind of sums up exactly how i'm feeling right now about this brutal heat! you can listen to a clip of my favorite song here.

just a couple of months ago, Stacey released a new album, Raconte-Moi, entirely in french, which makes me so happy i am almost giddy. i haven't got it yet, but hope to soon. here is a video of one of the songs on her new album, so you can hear how absolutely brilliant she really is:




Kobo eReader
on my last trip, when i discovered New York City for the first time, my carry-on had 12 lbs. of books in it. {the fact that i wrote that sentence with a little bit of pride is very telling.} but as much as i love my books, carrying them around, especially when traveling can be wearing.

so i did research, O did i do research, just about every eReader on the market, as well as other vehicles, like the iPad, was under some pretty strong scrutiny, but in the end, i landed on the Kobo. at only $149, it was substantially more economical than the Kindle, which would have been my second choice. and while it may lack 3G wireless, i decided that a person such as myself doesn't need book buying to be made easier, or ANYWHERE! so the Kobo was my choice.

the fact that it came with 100 pre-loaded classics was a big selling point for me. carrying around all Jane Austen's books, some Dickens, not to mention War and Peace would give anyone a backache! i can also read PDFs, ones i've created, or otherwise and carry them with me as well. good times.

one other reason for going with the more economical option was that i was unsure if i would even like reading eBooks. i am a HUGE fan of paper. i love the look, the feel, the smell. i love how it feels to hold a book in your hands, and open it for the very first time, unaware of what or where the ink on the pages will bring you. so the whole eReader thing could have been a mistake of epic proportions for me.

but surprisingly, i love it! it's easy to read, i even read it on the beach in South Haven, and the fact that i daily carry 119 books around with me, always giving me something good to read makes my heart happy.

i will always love books. just because i have the eReader does not mean that i will never buy a book again. to be honest, i ordered two earlier this week! but it does mean that traveling will be considerably lighter, and this girl will never be without something to read!

* * * * *

well, these are a few of my favorite things this morning.

have a fantastic weekend, stay cool however you can!

seeing

i don't believe i have ever ridden a city's metro system and not heard strains of music from a musician playing within the subway system. paris. kiev. london. toronto. it doesn't matter where you are, the underground seems to call musicians to be the soundtrack for commuters.

in my travels, however, i don't seem to recall ever not quickly walking past these rush hour artists in an effort to get where i was going, even when i was on vacation. perhaps it is the nature of a metro station that makes loitering for any reason seem vaguely wrong.

much like the 'tree falling in the woods and no one hearing it' question, i ran across this article in the washington post online about whether or not commuters would stop and listen if a world-renowned violinist was the one providing their transit melodies.

violinist joshua bell, who shortly before this experiment, played at symphony hall in boston for no less than $100 a seat. but on a friday morning last january, donned in some rather banal attire and accompanied by his stradivarius, he set himself up in washington's l'enfant plaza station beside a trash basket, and gave what should have been an amazing gift to all who passed by.

the article goes on to say that very few of that morning's commuters had any clue that the music that they could not help but hear was played by a master. most rushed past in an effort to get on with their day.

earth's crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees,
takes off his shoes—
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

—elizabeth barrett browning

it makes me wonder how many amazing moments i rush past in my efforts to live life. would i, on that cold friday morning, have been one of the few who recognized the strains of genius, and in essence, taken off my shoes, or would i have been one of the many unseeing crowd, rushing off to whatever else? i fear that the answer is not the one i would want it to be.

* * * * *

God, open my eyes and ears to the extraordinary moments of life, however small they are. let me not be in such a rush to live my life that i forget that, as frederick buechner said, "all moments are key moments and life itself is grace."

reckless

here is a sentence i never thought i would write: last month i visited the auschwitz-birkenau museum for the third time.

realizing that most people will never visit it once, a third visit could almost be considered an indulgence. but considering this was my fourth missions trip to poland, and for those we traveled with who have never been, skipping it simply wasn't an option.

but even given the number of times i have been there, this is the first time i am able to write anything more than a few words about it. the first time that the magnitude of hatred and madness hasn't left me feeling overwhelmed and helpless. the words of theoden from LOTR: the two towers almost echo through the bunkers...

what can man do against such reckless hate?

* * * * *

as you walk into one of the first buildings on the tour, the words of george santayana greet you:

those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

i didn't see this quote anywhere in the museum, but the words of edmunde burke seem to fit here perfectly:

all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

we need to remember these things, no matter how hard they are to recall. we need to remember them so that the next time we are confronted by injustice and evil, we will be compelled to act, no matter how small that action may seem. it may not be genocide, but forced slavery, prostitution, and the madness of extreme poverty need to be met with more than an overwhelmed indifference.

we must remember that our inaction allows the wrong side to win.

yes, the issues may be vast and almost incomprehensible, but if every one of us who has the ability, the income, the voice, to do something, the problem of injustice facing our world might be a little less intimidating tomorrow. and when tomorrow comes, we need to be ready to do what must be done then.

how different our world would look if we loved recklessly?

or wouldn't you love to see the LOTR quote turned around...

what can evil do in the face of such reckless love?