If you read the preceding post, then maybe you'll forgive me for not having posted anything since then.
Over the past month I've visited the beautiful south of Ireland, and then Hungary and Slovenia. The incredible beauty of each of these places was beyond my powers of description. But I absolutely felt God's presence in the beauty of sunrises in the mountains, the peacefulness of wide rivers, the power of rushing underground streams, and the mysterious silence of sunsets on bays. And that's hardly the beginning.
I once had an editor who allowed me only three exclamation points per book. Well, he'd be disappointed in me if I were to try writing about what I experienced on my three and a half week's journey.
While I won't even try to describe the beauty of the places I visited, I can share some of the things I learned about myself. I learned several spiritual lessons that I'm already aware of, and I'm sure tons of other insights will come along later. But here's a beautiful one. I get along in a few different languages, and so am not used to being totally out of it in a non-English-speaking environment. But Hungary was a humbling place. Their language is not an Indo-European one, which means that I was completely clueless the entire two weeks I was there. This meant that I had to depend entirely on my English-speaking host to interpret every word of what what going on around me. This dependency was a source of a powerful lesson: If I felt so completely dependent on her while I was visiting, that was only a pale hint of my total dependence on God for literally everything, from my heartbeat to my intellect, from my faith to my friendships. Everything. So the experience in Hungary was not so much humbling as it was enlightening in that regard.
Here are a couple of places I found awesomely pretty:
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| Lake Bled in Slovenia - it's actually prettier than this. |
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| Pannonhalma Abbey, Hungary. concelebrated Sunday mass |
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| Kylemore Abbey - attended mass with the Benedictine sisters |
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| Cliffs of Moher, Ireland |
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| View from where I stayed for two nights in Slovenia |
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| Fishermen's Bastion overlooking Budapest - had a cup of coffee here |
So, I thank the Lord for this incredible experience, and for bringing me home safely. Amen.
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