Left: Mount Blanc
Fragments
Like:
June snow.
River bathing.
Dislike:
Haven’t seen Toy Story 3.
Church
One of the activities that I look forward to every week has been getting to go to church in different countries. Noting the differences of how different church bodies worship God across Europe has, to say the least, been an encouraging/fruitful experience. The church that we went to today was the International Church of Lucerne. There were many ways in which the service was conducted much like a service in the States; but the differences were notable.
Walking in to the church we were greeted and given a hymnal, and the bulletin. Our group of 45 took up maybe a third or more of the seats in the small sanctuary. From the very moment we stepped into the church I felt welcomed there. This sense of familiarity might have come from the fact that the church was conducted in English and the majority of the congregants spoke English relatively well. Being that it is an International church I was able to meet people from England, Eritrea, Switzerland, and even some from Chicago. Starting the service, the pastor made a point to introduce the visitors (a.k.a. our group) along with other visitors that were present from various countries. For example there was a family that had just moved to Switzerland, and a pastor and his wife that were there visiting from Philadelphia.
In Relevant Magazine (May/June 2010), Bear Grylls tells about why he does what he does:
“It’s what I love. It’s what I’ve always wanted – I never wanted to be very smart or rich, I just wanted to follow my dreams and have loads of fun. And I am really lucky that I have a job that involves climbing trees and getting covered in mud.”
I can only hope to be as lucky.
The article goes on to say:
And this is what’s clear – both from his words now and from his rather evident (if preposterous) delight on the show – this is a guy who hasn’t lost the joy of childhood. For Bear Grylls, life is still and adventure. Trees are meant for climbing, cliffs are meant for scaling. And every turn holds the promise of a new treasure – whether that be a frozen caribou, a tangled mess of twine or a pile of elephant dung (“It might not be pretty, but it will keep you alive.”).
The part of the article that resonated most with me at the current moment is:
“The magic of the big expedition is that life becomes more raw,” Grylls says. “The fluff that we live with – the pettiness – it all gets blown away. What really matters comes to the front. I think the challenge for us is to keep that raw essence of faith when we are back in the fluff of life. “At the heart of it, it’s about finding home.”
Talking about finding home, I think I found a little part of home in the Swiss mountains. We took a long 2.5-hour lunch break in Lauterbrunnen: a little village tucked in between the mountains, nestled beside a river, and waiting to be explored. During that time, I snuck in a run. Ha. Dean Karnazes runs during his lunch breaks, so why can’t I? We were right by a river that ran down from the snow-covered mountains and there was a winding trail that paralleled the river. The run seemed like a roller coaster because the whole way out was uphill, building my anticipation of the drop. And like a roller coaster the uphill seemed to creep by like the many snails that I passed on the ascent. Getting up higher the trail went from a paved road, to a gravel road, to a muddy gravel road, to a single-track rock strewn path. There were a surprising number of people that I passed, even relatively high on the path. I passed horned cows, sheep that were reposed on a rather steep cliff, and I passed some quaint log cabin style houses. I went a total of 40 minutes out, in hopes to arrive at the snow, but I fell short by 100 to 150 vertical feet. On the descent it was increasingly difficult to find good footing. At the altitude that I was at there was a lot of snow melt and it had made the path quite muddy. I think of the descent as trying to hop from stone to stone in a river, the difference being it was one really long river!
At one point I stepped in the mud and my whole shoe sunk into the muck. When I arrived back at the bus, I went down to the river and had to wash my shoes completely off. But to wash my shoes off, it was easiest to get my feet wet. And when I got my feet wet, I decided to wash the mud off of my legs. The easiest way to get the mud off my legs was to soak my sweaty shirt in the water and use it as a washcloth. I decided to then wash the rest of my body with the shirt. By that point, my lower body had become numb to the water so it didn’t feel all that cold (even though it was probably less than 50 degrees F). So I ended up just laying down in the river to wash my whole body off. Refreshing. Now if I only had a kayak to navigate the rushing waters.
After drying myself off, I ventured downstream for a few minutes. I found a large boulder, and looking all around it for a good position to climb it from, I spotted a slackline and wondered, “what in the world is this doing here?” I then saw what looked like a makeshift shelter, a fire pit, and for some reason there was a bike tire hanging from a tree that reminded me of Salvador Dali’s painting with the melting clock. At that point I wished that time could melt and I could have waited around for the person who had constructed the dwelling; I hoped to find Huck Finn somewhere near. I didn’t, but I did try out the slackline.
We then passed an almost familiar sight: Lake Geneva. Except it was much bigger than I remember. And I do not remember Lake Geneva having mountains around it. There are some familiarities/similarities though. At our restroom stop there were some painted cows. And the dairy products here are well known. If I was going to the familiar Lake Geneva, it would be with Timber-Lee friends, and we would probably be seeing Toy Story 3 there. Nevertheless, it is a Tuesday; I typically go to the familiar Lake Geneva on Saturday.
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