The Mystery of Travel

As I write this special entry for the folks gathering at Mysterium tonight, Beth and I are sitting in a London train station waiting for our overnight train to Glasgow, Scotland (and eventually Iona). I’ve been thinking about our experiences these past 12 days and what I could say about them that would be meaningful for a Mysterium gathering. I would like to share what I have learned on this travel adventure so far.

First I have learned that people are different from place to place, and to really experience this you need to encounter people in their normal surroundings. The people of Rome were different from the people of Lucerne, who were different from the people of Paris, and the people of London. Yet in spite of cultural differences, different languages and accents, different dressing customs, different foods and drinks, I also learned that people are the same wherever we’ve gone.

Our tour group had people from Australia, New Zealand and all across the United States, yet we had more in common than we had differences. As we interacted with the people in Italy, Switzerland, France and England, we were always able to find a commonality. In the larger cities the whole world was represented with immigrant populations from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, yet there too I was reminded that people are people and we have more in common than we have differences. I have watched parents interacting with their children, and it was easy to understand what was happening, in spite of language barriers. I have had strangers trying to help us when they recognized a look of uncertainty and frustration on our faces, in the same way I would attempt to help someone else. Travel has shown me something I have said for a long time, we live in a global village.

Specifically this trip, the travelling we are doing at this moment, has opened my understanding about how the Christian faith has decreased in Europe, once a stronghold of Christianity. Simply put, the Christianity of large lavish cathedrals, while perhaps inspiring in one way, also distracted people from some of Jesus’ central teachings - and when the church was less and less connected with political power the people over here, who experienced the hypocrisy first hand, simply disregarded that which didn’t make much sense to them, especially when there was no political or social price to pay. Too many wars fought in the name of Christ, too many wars fought by those who claimed the name Christian, too many lavish buildings while the masses starved, too much church and empire. The Kingdom of God was lost in the shadows of Christendom.

Yet at the same time I also see signs of hope, the spark of faith still alive. I cannot even come up with specific examples, but somehow I sense it in land of deep history. Being here is a reminder that today is not everything, that the important things are measured in decades and centuries, not in instant gratification. God is in the big picture, as well as in the details.

Lastly travel has shown me the beauty of an incredible creation, with diversity in landscape, climate, animals and more. Every day we have seen things that would not have been possible had we not travelled. There is beauty everywhere, though it is different aspects that reveal the beauty of a specific place. There is so much to see in the world and I am reminded how big the world really is, even though in the universe it is really small.

The Mystery of Travel is this… that it reveals new mysteries, more to learn, more to discover, more to wonder at, more to be in awe of. I wish we had more time to discover the fullness of each place we’ve visited so far… we have seen so much, and yet we have seen so little… such is the Mystery of Travel.