Unplanned Journeys 7-14-9

Dante’s Inferno

One of my great fascinations with airports is the variety of places that are connected together by a single one of these. Last night I was in the world’s busiest airport waiting for two hours to collect the suitcase full of stuff I never used on my recent circumpolar wanderings. While there at one baggage carousel I noticed that suitcases were erupting from the floor of the terminal that had but a few hours earlier been in the Dominican Republic, Paris, London, Guatemala City, and a couple of places I had never even heard of. I wondered what brings all of those diverse people to be standing together waiting for their little canvas refuges in a mobile world. Holidays? New jobs? Marriage? Beginning of another school term? I know that I am drawn to far flung places so I can ‘collect’ them with photographs. For me travel is almost an entirely visual, nearly holographic delight. For some it is the taste of new food, or exotic music. For me it is eye candy.

I just added another reason to hop on planes fast. Surgery. Surgery? Yeah. I hopped on a plane yesterday so I could get back to a place where my health insurance works and have some surgery without being made destitute. Why else would I want to leave the cool floral paradise of summer in England and come back to Dante’s Inferno? I told my traveling companion that I had ‘obligations’ that I needed to take care of. She knew very well that I did not want to come home and instead wanted to rent a car and disappear into Wales for a month and then go the Lakes District of England. My ‘obligation’ was, is, to save my eyesight. She offered to go home and leave me to my Celtic wanderings. I knew driving blind in Wales was not a good plan. I told her I would see her through the London Underground to the airport and so I did.

My travelling companion became quite dependent on my eyeballs working and knowing where we were in the twisty labyrinths of medieval cities. She also depended on me knowing which of those little colored lines on the London Underground plan would take us to the Emerald City. I was not about to tell her my eyeballs were going off line and that I hoped I could make it home to get my eyeballs rebooted before the batteries went bad altogether. She knew about my on-going electrical challenges with computers and cameras. She knows nothing about what is going on in my eyes. She never had to share the angst with me. She did not sign on for that.

Some weeks ago I was in a magical brick cathedral in Rostock, Germany ‘collecting’ the place by taking myriad pictures of it. I was walking into the center of the sanctuary and did not notice a 5 inch step and walked down very hard onto the floor and jarred my head solidly; almost biting my tongue by stepping down so firmly. The next night I was in a theater and started seeing bright almost strobe like lights. A pit of dread ran through me when I realized these lights were not on stage or the ceiling but emanating from my retinas. The next day I started seeing chunks of things floating in my visual fields. Having been to medical school and having had retina surgery in the distant past, I knew I was in deep you-know-what. I debated aborting the journey and making an emergency flight home. I gambled and stayed the course for weeks, taking pictures, climbing all over everything climbable in these magical ancient cities, eating everything in sight, but having wisps of dread slither through my core every time I saw dark shadows on the world. The one prudent thing I did was to refrain from taking any exercise in the fitness facilities available to me. This was hard as I greatly enjoy hard exercise. Seeing unimaginably beautiful places in the world while knowing my vision could go off line at any second was an ultimate stressor. I probably was not very good company the past few weeks. Each minute I wondered if I was going to be forever cut off from the delicious visual feast before me.

I got home late last night after time jumping for weeks and had a fitful few hours of thrashing on the bed. At 8 AM I was on the phone to an ophthalmologist. My hyper-alert brain is still on 4 PM Soviet time so I was able to easily punch through before the office phones clogged up with people still groggy. By lunchtime my semi-amateur diagnosis was confirmed and tomorrow I will be having retinal surgery. Right now I am staying in cool dark rooms doing fiscal damage assessment of my weeks of overseas wandering and spending. On another hot day I will get to do an economic damage assessment for eyeball surgery.

We are told in the ancient writings of the Old Testament that there will be times when we
are lead by the hand and taken places we do not want to go. I would rather be driving around in Wales photographing castles than sitting in my house waiting for surgery. Yet, it has been during the unexpected detours, even times when I was quite lost, that unexpected blessings of the highest order occurred. The reality is that I am still seeing around the chunks in my eyes writing and sifting through my trove of images from paradise and have the good fortune to live in circumstances where it is possible for me to get on the phone at 8 AM and have been evaluated and scheduled for surgery by lunchtime. Refugees in concentration camps in Rwanda, Thailand, Darfur, and dozens of other places would simply go blind for sure. I am getting a second chance. I am reminded of GK Chesterton who often expressed great gratitude by wondering why he should get firsts, let alone seconds on the good things in life.

I am reminded also of the ancient verse that says, “I know the thoughts I have for you, thoughts for good and not for evil and plans that will give you hope and a future” even if it means coming home to surgery instead of a welcoming party at the airport. Life is good. I have a bowl of hot split pea soup and oyster crackers I am going to indulge in.

Organic Immersions 7-10-9

Trafalgar Square, London

To have an overwhelming sense of the present moment; to be caught up in the human experience, one only needs to emerge from the Underground and wander into Trafalgar Square on Friday night during the summer. There the iterant observer will find countless thousands of people engaged in all manner of pursuits in the splendid context of immense fountains, classical architecture containing the greatest art in the world, and a few hundred businesses representing a thousand entrepreneurial dreams and cultures. Tonight I waded into this organic seething mass of tempestuous life and was completely caught up into an expansive moment of mindfulness of the highest order. I was thinking about nothing besides my present experience. Suddenly I felt like I had waded into super charged life at its best.

At the northeast side of the square near the impressive St. Martin’s Church, a fellow was doing an elaborate chalk drawing on the paving stones in exchange for odd change. While pre-occupied with his mural, he kept one hopeful eye on his upturned Frisbee ring, trusting for generous benefactors who appreciate street art. Tourists have a curious habit of getting rid of ‘play’ money before getting on airplanes to go home. By tomorrow night many of the people in the square tonight will be dispersed ten thousand miles on jet streams.

Another fellow near St. Martin’s was concerned about the eternal fate of our souls and had a curious array of large flash cards with crude lettering on them. While speaking in a frenzied tenor, he swapped out these cards to create his story lines; standing them up around a milk crate. I wonder if the Holy Spirit actually speaks through such forms of public speaking and delivery. Perhaps the likes of Martin Luther and John Wesley in their days were thought equally strange. Perhaps this fellow thought he had something important to add to what comes from the venerable pulpit at St. Martin’s Church.

A short distance away by the remodeled old entrance to the National Museum a very street-battered unshaven fellow with a full mane of disheveled hair was finding courage from his beer to protest the deployment of British soldiers in the mountains of Afghanistan. He found some material refuge between two crudely made sandwich boards of old cardboard which demanded that Her Majesty’s government do an immediate withdrawal of all British military personnel. Perhaps this tormented soul had been deployed over there in the mountains and returned with a less romantic view of war than the one so often created in films. I wonder if he hears bombs in his head despite all the happy frivolity going on around him here in the square.

Just in front of the hallowed halls of the British National Gallery, a tall lanky Euro-African was playing to his own music in exchange for a few errant coins. I wondered how he managed to drag his large battery powered amps and other bulky paraphernalia out into this ocean of humanity. He did add his own pleasant ambience to this region of the world. I think the guy protesting the presence of soldiers in Afghanistan was actually gaining some fortitude from the upbeat music.

On the northwest corner a couple thousand young idealistic people were herded around a large bully pulpit on which a young girl was expounding on behalf of some sort of child advocacy program. A band was playing and the thousands of people were dancing themselves into some kind of group consensus. I had a sense that a good work was going on here. I found myself wanting to get a web site address to find out what this was all about.

I had the sense that most of the participants in these assorted activities were at least interested in issues larger than themselves; be it child welfare or the welfare of soldiers with PTSD who find refuge in the bottle. It felt almost sacred to wander right into this undulating mass of people and become a pseudo-participant. I was reminded again of why I so often feel like I am missing out on life when I am sequestered in a small South Carolina town. All of these incredible European capitals have such immense concentrations of humanity and activity and I think about them even when I have been isolated for a long time in a place where there is no public gathering of the masses except for a few Thursday evenings in the summer and the Christmas parade. It is energizing and uplifting to be in these grand public spaces where there are these evanescent bits of community.

Around the rim of this vortex of preaching, living, celebration, activism, and loving that was going on, observers, mostly tourists, were taking pictures with small cameras and cell phones. At least one nearby wondered out loud if something violent might happen if the people got worked into a frenzy about something. I wondered how such a thought could occur in this rich happy experience that was going on. Fear is the great spoiler. Curiously, I felt absolutely safe and serene and could have stayed in this place for a very long time. I knew statistically that I was far safer in this dense crowd of people than I am when in relative isolation in my own town. Perspective is everything.

Around the great fountains in the center of the square love birds were oblivious to all but each other. It has always intrigued me how two people can be so intimate in public spaces and completely unaware of anyone else or how their sexual behavior might come across to those engaged in less instinctive activity. I guess love is blind in more ways than one.

As the great British neurologist Oliver Sacks noted, observation does grant an amazing perspective to the human experience. As he entitled one of his articulate books on special aspects of the human experience, tonight I felt like an anthropologist from Mars. I wonder if my powers of observation will yield new findings when I return to my own version of Mars in the American Deep South.

Where East Meets West 7-9-9

Greenwich, England

Perhaps the coolest thing in my uncertain childhood was going to the George Ellery Hale Observatory or the Griffith Park Observatory. On one occasion I even wandered around in mute awe under the dome of what was then the largest telescope in the world - the 200 inch Palomar instrument near San Diego. Astronomy and space sciences had to be the most wondrous inventions of mankind. A kid could really escape from an environment of alcoholism and drug abuse by losing his head in the stars. It was my great fortune to have grown up in southern California where the likes of these great observatories and Jet Propulsion Lab were but short distances from the stucco jungle we inhabited.

I only had a vague idea about sidereal time, Greenwich Mean Time, and the importance of knowing EXACTLY what time it was. Catholics gain their bearings by looking to the Vatican and the dome of St Paul’s Basilica in Rome. Astronomers, physicists, astronauts, and all other true stargazers look to a little town on the Thames River for their bearings. Here people are paid well to know exactly what time it is and where they are. All time and navigational references in the world are oriented to this small town on the Thames where latitude, longitude, and time had their births.

In the quaint picturesque village of Greenwich one finds the stuff of childhood dreams - a magical observatory with huge old brass telescopes on top of fanciful Victorian brick buildings, wondrous mechanical clocks with exotic moving dials, planetariums, astronomy museums, and stores that sell telescopes, mechanical clocks and space art. It was better than anything I had ever seen. One can actually arrive at this town by small boat as the royal astronomers did hundreds of years ago. The one hour journey afforded a commanding overview of the major role the Thames has played in this city for more than one thousand years.

I was in a state of pre-adolescent entrancement the whole of the time I was in Greenwich, especially when on top of the hill at the Royal Observatory where east meets west. A stainless steel plate in the cement demarks the boundary between the eastern and western hemispheres at zero longitude. People were lines up for thirty minutes to get a photo of themselves standing with one foot in each hemisphere. I just crossed over from east to west without waiting. Some things just get lost in the translation. Pictures don’t always work.

What pictures did work for was the former campus of the Royal Naval College located between the observatory and the Thames River. This meticulously manicured campus became available to other educational institutions when the Naval College was moved elsewhere. The Trinity School of Music and other university programs are now ensconced in these august halls. Some of the structures have been retained in their historical state for their great aesthetic values.

Here one can find a couple of imposing treasures, little known on the greater grid of tourist attentions. The so-called Painted Hall is a vast officer’s dining facility that is built in the grandest of classical traditions. Here for centuries naval officers took their meals on great oak trestle tables with large sterling candlesticks providing light. The walls and ceilings are decorated in grand images of maritime conquests. Perhaps best of all was the gracious demeanor of a knowledgeable docent who made me feel like a welcome dinner guest rather than a mere camera-toting tourist collecting images. I almost asked her for her number but thought better of it.

Located across the quad in a nearly identical building is the Royal Naval College Chapel. Here one finds a very quiet meditative ambience with fine music playing and equally gracious docents attending to my curiosity. The interior is decorated with carefully executed ornamental plastering and friezes, and large scale painted images of biblical proportion. I am wondering what it is about being at the junction of East and West that makes people so very hospitable and pleasant to be around. Maybe they have their bearings in life sorted out, since they know exactly where they stand.

For about $10 I was able to take a boat to Greenwich, scamper through the things that make childhood work better for uncertain little boys and meet some of the nicest people in the world. Now that I know where it is and where I am, I will use my GPS next time and plan a longer stay in Greenwich and do some serious star gazing.

Into the Squall Line of Life 7-8-9

Straits at Kattegat

The Baltic and North Seas are separated by narrow straits that divide the extensive archipelago that makes up Denmark. At some points the waters are a mere twelve feet deep, rather problematic if one’s boat draws thirty feet of water. These waters are notorious for their ability to be stirred up into a bone jarring frenzy. The shallowness puts them at much greater risk for being tumultuous on the surface. For weeks these waters have been glassy and benevolent to those striking out for the delimited adventure that tourists want. The waters have been described as ‘calm with ripples’ in the maritime grading algorithm - perfect for those claiming no pretense at having sea legs.

Today we had a subtle reminder that the waters (or those that stir them) will ultimately decide whether we have a good day or a bad one. A squall line from somewhere up near the Arctic Circle pushed down and stirred things up to what is classified as ‘moderate seas’, waves seven and a half feet with some underlying swells going on. The winds were sustained at 37 knots. Not dangerous by any consideration but enough to make one not feel like being social or going to the trouble to make a better word in a scrabble game. There were not many people out looking for something to eat or walking outside on deck. I was outside by myself during the afternoon.

It occurs to me that these seas are a perfect metaphor for active effective faith that will see us through the hard times. Waters that are deep are much less troubled by outside disturbances. An underwater earthquake is a disturbance that will generate a massive tsunami that can kills millions. The only reasons tsunami kill people is because along shallow coastlines the water piles up on itself and rushes inland over land at phenomenal speeds. In deep water a tsunami wave moving at 1,200 MPH is barely detectable. There is somewhere for water and kinetic energy to be transferred.

If we have built a deep abiding faith during clear sunny days when life is good and problems are but faded memories, then we are much better prepared for the affective tsunami that wash onto our shores - things like cancer, unemployment, death, bankruptcy, failed dreams. It is difficult to build deep faith effectively when a downpour is being blown in upon us and flooding our basements. It is difficult to learn to manage panic in a fox hole. One needs to learn how to manage it before going into the fox hole. Doctor’s offices, courtrooms, and funeral homes are not the best places to begin building one’s faith. As the old adage says, ‘make hay while the sun shines’. Adversity rarely comes with an engraved announcement.

The Baltic Sea and the North Sea will intermittently be smooth and tranquil and raging and dangerous. We can gain the skills of good seamanship that will enable us to safely navigate their waters in smaller boats. A bit less skill will be needed if one is in much bigger ships of 100,000 tons. As the water becomes more enraged, ship size will not much matter. One better be completely prepared or plan to stay on shore.

Our life tsunamis don’t often give us a safe shore to go hide on and we rarely have a vote on our participation in life events. We are challenged by the ancient writings to be prepared for those events that will determine the mettle of our faith. Living life is risking business but I reminded by these gray waters that ships were meant to be taken out of the harbor if one wants to make it to the far shore. The apostle Paul variously describes his experiences with ship wrecks, imprisonments, sickness, and persecution of diverse sorts. He was able to weather a lot of life adversity because he had stayed busy on sunny days instead of lying about in the sun getting a tan.

Are we doing the things on sunny days that will enable us to walk up on deck on those leaden days when the waves are at fifty feet and the sustained wind is 60 knots?

Islands of Possibility 7-6-9

Stockholm, Sweden

Looking at blue dots on maps and wondering what a city looks like is such a grand form of imagination. As pleasant as this can be it, there is little comparison to the physical realities that we sometimes find ourselves in. I’ve always thought of Stockholm as probably feeling very northern, somewhat severe in its sensibility and personality, and being sited on very flat terrain. How very wrong our preconceptions about places and people can be. I’ve never so misconstrued the personality and appearance of a country or city as completely as I did this grand Baltic capital that is described as “gentle and handsome”. And so it is.

To arrive at Stockholm by water one passes through an extensive archipelago of forested islands for perhaps seventy five miles or more. The pristine beauty is inspiring and the appearance of urban Stockholm is almost overwhelming. An admixture of rocky cliffs, jetties, islands, and rivers are cloaked with an astoundingly well preserved collection of neo-classical buildings seasoned with newer ones of grand modern Swedish design. The intact centuries-old architecture of the Gamla Stan is fanciful, beautiful, in pristine condition, and would make a fine backdrop equally for emotive romance novels, fanciful fairy tales, and epic historical fictions. The skyline is punctuated with an abundance of green copper clad spires that have reached upward for as many as 800 years. An ample number of grand rotundas protect vast interior spaces from the ravages of long dark winters in the far north.

The highest points in the city and the largest structures were often built to remind citizens of where they should place their highest trust. True of many of the great cities in the Western world at one time was the emphasis placed on the ecclesiastical aspects of life, and this emphasis can still be easily seen in the architecture that survives from prior centuries. All of the Baltic capitals have skylines highlighted by the great rotundas and spires of heavenly-minded builders.

The white and gray palette of life near the Arctic Circle is warmed significantly with a palette of ochre, rust, orange, pink, green, even Wedgwood blue. To my surprise, the Swedish people are not afraid of color. Many of the small islands have summer homes on them, the traditional ones being painted red with white trim. Throughout the Baltic region I have been surprised by the rich palette of color freely splashed across the capital cities. I wonder what would happen if we suddenly started painting our own buildings and house in various shades of pink, red, rust, even cerulean.

I joined Jim, a fellow I met in St Petersburg, and between us we took four cameras and hiked the whole of the old city for seven hours. We were like two little kids in a candy store; ‘collecting’ many grand structures and street views in our mass storage devices. Jim’s wife has long adapted to his photographic penchant after 45 years of marriage and humored us greatly, even being careful to stay out of our line of sight. Between us we took some eight hundred pictures of a Baltic paradise. We visited the Royal Palace, Stockholm Cathedral, City Hall, Katrina Church, St Gertrude’s German Church, the oldest bank building in Europe, and walked ten miles or more of streets ranging from epic grand boulevards containing large scale government buildings and academies to streets so narrow vehicles could not pass through. At some places one could nearly touch the walls of quaint shops on both sides simultaneously.

Stockholm is an urban area that has given a third of its land area to a fine assortment of city parks of all sizes. We visited several of these on our wanderings, one of which contains a huge public library of neo-classical design. Throughout the city we found all the public spaces clean and cared for. At a number of points we found no-cost public bicycles available. Many European cities have made bicycles available at no cost for their citizens to make use of. One can easily navigate any of the Baltic capitals on a bike, using the abundant, safe, and well marked lanes reserved for them. Bikes are considered legitimate forms of transportation throughout the entire Baltic region. Bike lanes are not for inattentive pedestrians, as Jim found out the hard way.

As is the case in all the Baltic capitals, water plays a major role in city life. Fishing and sea trade were and continue to be important in Stockholm as well as the other capitals of Copenhagen, Helsinki, and Tallinn. Stockholm, Helsinki, and Copenhagen have developed elaborate systems of water transportation ranging from small open boats providing one hour harbor cruises to large ferries capable of hauling thousands of people and heavy trucks for two and three day runs to remote reaches of the Baltic and North Seas. There are also abundant facilities for large cruise ships of 100,000 tons or more. All of these capitals all have picturesque facilities to handle commercial and recreational water craft.

Most impressive about all of these capitals, and especial Stockholm, are the vehicle free districts given over to pedestrians. One can walk for hours in intimate spaces designed for humans. Even in areas with dense vehicular traffic there are well demarcated crossings, signal lights, and the infrastructure needed to allow vehicles and pedestrians to safely cohabitate.

Perhaps the most important lesson that one can gain from walking the streets of these grand cities is realizing that other cultures have grand strengths and people in other traditions will often do things as well or better than we do in our own. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is to sit home in one’s little apartment watching black and white TV and refusing to acknowledge that an opportunity might exist elsewhere to view a high-definition color panel covering the whole wall of a neo-classical palace. Walking the streets of the Baltic capitals allows one to have a high definition experience of the highest order.

For me travel is about gaining knowledge and experience and bringing it back home to my own culture and sharing it with others. Overseas travel is an expensive and sometimes very challenging opportunity that is a privilege. Keeping my experiences and pictures to myself is not an option. I think of the time I was paid the highest compliment I have received in my lecturing to assorted audiences in myriad venues. “I would rather see the world through your eyes than through my own.” I hope I can remain faithful to this assessment. Fair warning - I will come home armed with 7,000 pictures to share with you slowly, one at a time! I have a couple of transit days by boat back to London and am using this time to index all of these images.

Urban Reflections 7-5-9

Helsinki, Finland

I went to Helsinki with very high expectations and a very good attitude. I have long known an artist in my home town that originally comes from Helsinki and she is one of the nicest people I know. She has been a rather good ambassador for her city for a very long time. She told me to expect a beautiful city and such is what I found. My first impression was formed when the bus driver refused my $14 for the fare into town. This must be a very generous place. A later ride on the bus system and the electric trolleys yields the same response from the drivers.

Like all of the Baltic capitals, Helsinki is ensconced on a complex shoreline and an archipelago of nicely forested islands. A ninety minute boat ride around the water fronts provided a fine overview of the spatial arrangements of the city. There are many pristine islands with enclaves of houses and structures of historical interest. There is a strong ethic of environmental preservation and conservation of green space. Helsinki has many spacious parks and greenways evident from the water.

A highly developed marine infrastructure includes everything from large cruise ships to multi-day ferries to private yachts to pedestrian ferries and cruise boats like the one I am on. This one is most pleasing, having a large saloon with restaurant and bar in a warm mahogany interior with draperies at the windows. This proved especially meaningful when I got caught topside in a very cold sudden rain. The commentator who described the sights was by far the best commentator I have heard in any context whatever. Usually, I pay no attention to these and focus on photo-imaging only. I managed both this time.

Unique here in Finland is a substantial fleet of most impressive ice breakers. For four or five months a year they sit idle. When the unimaginably long cold winter sets in and all the water ways freeze solids these boats function to keep the waterways open and to allow the city to function during the long polar night.

Like many European capitals, this one has large districts where pedestrians have the upper hand and vehicles have to give sway. Walking in Helsinki is a delight, as it is nearly everywhere in Europe. A long wandering all the way across the town center landed me in a bucolic university botanical garden featuring a nice series of Victorian glass houses with colorful gardens planted around the outer walls. Before one of these a fine reflecting pool contains lilies in the peak of their blooming cycle. A rather attractive young and demure Finnish woman was captivated by the brilliant flowers and collecting them in her camera as I was doing. Her smiles were captivating. I wondered why it is that some of the most intriguing people pass our life orbits only tangentially, never to be seen again - one of the more haunting aspects of long distance travel.

The influence of Russian orthodox experience is very evident here, primarily in the form of the great Uspensky Orthodox Cathedral on its commanding perch above the market square, Kanava Terminals, and marinas. This splendid church is a repository from grand iconic art and the structure itself is a fine example of ornamental brick work. I happened into the sanctuary for a Sunday morning service and would have stayed, excepting that the three women I was chumming with for the morning were not interested in going into the church. I ended up striking out solo for the remainder of the day and went back to the church at leisure later in the day.

The large expansive Senate Square is enclosed on three sides by interesting multi-colored facades in the ‘usual’ ornamental neo-classical design that make photography so very easy. The fourth, northern side, is unusual in that it consists of a steep set of some 40 granite steps that run the entire length of the square, forming a wall-like sense of enclosure. On top of what feels nearly like a Mayan plinth is the vast domed edifice that constitutes the Lutheran Church. There could not be many more commanding contexts for a great church over its city.

It is abundantly clear that Helsinki is a prosperous, clean, well organized city with abundant opportunities for its communitarian minded populace. I could only wish that I could get a one way ticket there and discover the magic to be found in this northern oasis of civility. I can hardly wait to see my artist friend and give her my assessment of her hometown.

Returning to God 7-4-9

St. Petersburg, Russia

For many years I have been awed by the visual creative genius of the Dutch master Rembrandt. Some twenty five years ago while in a Saturday flea market in Vienna I had the astounding good fortune of finding fifty three of his copper plate etchings under a pile of clothes on a table by the railroad tracks. I was nearly weak kneed when I realized what I had come across. The feeling must be identical to that which a prospector has when he realizes the rough glassy rock in his hand contains a huge gem-stone quality sapphire that will make him wealthy for life. For forty years I have collected art during my travels and these Rembrandt etchings have always been the center of my visual world. Some of them are now in museums and eventually all of them will be where more people can contemplate Rembrandt’s genius for themselves; not enough people are viewing them in my non-descript suburban house.

Some years ago I became aware of the writings of the beloved Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Catholic priest who could articulate the challenges of the human experience as well as anyone who has ever put pen to paper. While on retreat nine years ago I read several of his books and found his The Return of the Prodigal Son to be stunning in its clarity and relevance to my own spiritual journey. He opens this nurturing text with a transparent description of his own life challenges and how he found a visual metaphor that transformed his life and inspired his writing of this given book. Carefully, he describes his first encounter with Rembrandt’s epic painting of the same title via a poster image of it on the back of a colleague’s office door. This encounter would ultimately lead to his to sitting in a chair in the palatial galleries of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. I knew that one day I too would have to see this painting with my own eyes. Perhaps I would, too, have a defining moment in this same gallery.

I gambled about $4000 on this possibility and have just stood before this epic painting for myself, along with at least half the people on planet earth, or so it seemed. What immediately surprised me about the painting is that it is about four times the size I had expected. I cannot say that I had some kind of epiphany or defining moment but what I did have is another powerful reminder that God has given me the health and substance to be eight time zones from home standing in what is regarded as the greatest museum on earth and experience the fulfillment of a long-standing wish. It was no doubt immature for me to think that I could invoke a spiritual epiphany by recreating the circumstances that were meant for another’s journey, yet I believe something will germinate from my own experience of this visual image of unconditional love.

There are 668 gilded galleries filling the interiors of five palaces from the Tsarist days of vast royal excess. These galleries and their attendant archives contain more that 3.3 million of the world’s most important works of art. I was guided by an articulate Russian woman quite knowledgeable in the visual arts to the one work of art on earth that I wanted to see more than any other. I was even permitted to make about fifteen time exposure photographs of it.

There are four museums on earth that the leaders of the art world consider to be the greatest of the great. I have now been allowed to wander at leisure through the vast halls of three of these. A fleck of paradise has again washed up on the shores of my life, at a great distance from home. Having the good fortune to visit Rembrandt’s house in Amsterdam reinforced my sense of his creative talents. Standing here in the State Hermitage Museum viewing twenty two of his greatest works amplified my appreciation of his abilities immensely. His talent spoke deeply into the psyche of Nouwen, as it has mine.

Nouwen often described his struggles with feeling homeless and unloved. He often spoke of having lived a disciplined life, never having wandered off to a far land to dissipate the family inheritance on riotous living. Yet, he struggled with why he should feel so discomfited and disconnected despite living above reproach. It was while sitting in front of Rembrandt’s evocative canvas that it occurred to Nouwen that he was far more like the eldest son and not like the younger one who strayed from the fold. Somehow his soul connected the dots and as was the case for the elder son in the gospel of Luke, Nouwen was able to gain assurance that he was truly loved by the Father. Nouwen did not have a quick fix but his experience with the Father via the imagery of Rembrandt’s brush set him off on a new direction that brought him into deeper healing of his human condition. It inspired him to write the most helpful book left to us as part of Nouwen’s legacy.

In several weeks I will be on retreat in the very same Benedictine refuge I was in nine years ago. I have been directed to read several of Nouwen’s books including The Return of the Prodigal Son. Perhaps it is appropriate that I would be reading this here in St. Petersburg after having just viewed the great painting of the same name. Perhaps while on retreat the dots will connect for me. It just may be that like Nouwen, my dots are scattered across about eleven time zones and may take some time to connect. Perhaps the physical journey across the world to St. Petersburg is preliminary to an even greater journey I will make in my old Toyota to a place in the Appalachian Mountains where I may experience the ultimate fleck of paradise washing onto my shores - a true conscious awareness of God in my little life. Suddenly $4000 seems pretty trivial as the price of admission.

Eyes have not seen, ears have not seen, the heart of man has not even imagined the things I have prepared for you.

Soviet Images in the White Night 7-4-9

St Petersburg, Russia

Here in the far north we are having what are called white nights; it never gets dark. At 1 AM the western sky has a hot pink rim and athletes can easily engage in sporting events and sports enthusiasts read box scores in the newspaper without benefit of anything besides the strange luminosity of Russian night. In this surreal pink midnight I am watching the proletariat manipulate the industrial output of the former Soviet Empire.

I am all by myself on a high place about 1 AM, some one hundred feet above a large expanse of concrete that extends a couple of miles in front of me. It is perhaps a third of a mile wide. It is forested with dozens of cranes that look remarkably like praying mantis. These green and blue ferrous creatures are quietly crawling around on tracks hauling all sorts of semi-finished metals - slabs of rusting iron plate, immense ingots of bright aluminum, and vast rolls of iron sheet. I almost expect to see these animated beings consume their various metallic burdens.

A container lift operator is hauling sea containers towards me and is building a temporary wall of these. These giant building blocks have a mixture of Cyrillic scripts and Chinese characters on them. Soviet-Sino relations are certainly different these days. About one hundred of these containers have been built into a wall four hundred feet long and thirty feet high. The operator has clearly constructed thousands of walls in the distant past. He stacks these corrugated steel bricks more precisely and easily than I ever arranged my toy wood blocks as a child.

On either side of my field of vision, ancient battered railway cars that might have once had more dubious uses, inch their way along sidings to disgorge their contents into the bowels of rusting ships. I wonder what is so important that it needs to be moved in the middle of the night. An ancient ship is slinking away into the night, as covertly as is possible to do when it is still daylight after the stroke of twelve. Shouldn’t the people animating this ferrous landscape be in their beds dreaming about something better?

The lack of night is disorienting in a very strange way, especially on top of eight time zone changes in ten days time. Perhaps after enough time one learns to find internal equilibrium and function independently of the cues given by night and day. I expect to flee back south to normal nightfall before I have a chance to find my own internal circadian patterns. I have enough challenges with normal sleep without night going away. Even more disorienting than the lack of night is the lack of spiritual points of reference that can keep us out of spiritual darkness.

The gospel of John warns us to not get lax lest darkness overtake us and cause us to lose our way for lack of light. The Soviet Empire has recently conducted a seventy-five year experience of wandering in the darkness. The spiritual laxness of the 18th and 19th centuries and the very early 20th century led to the vast abusive excesses that seeded the Bolshevik Revolution. Darkness overtook the Empire. For seventy two years official policy declared God dead and closed for business. Atheism was official national group-think. The world watched as one of the great superpowers struggled with rates of alcoholism pushing 50% and irrational central policies that squandered natural and economic resources, the environment, people, and their dreams. The collapse of authoritarian power in 1989 did not dissipate the shadows that had long hovered over the masses. Western free market dynamics and capitalism were not the panacea for the working classes or millions of pensioners long dependent on the cradle to grave attention given to them by an overbearing communist planned central economy. Some power brokers got fabulously wealthy but most people simply slid further down the economic scree.

What has been sobering is the persistence of negative attitudes towards God and spiritual life. As I have made visits to regions progressively further east in areas of the former Empire I have found increasing of evidence of a completely Post-Christian culture. It has been twenty years since the iron curtain fell off its tracks and melted down, yet most of the churches I have visited are maintained strictly as museums or music venues; devoid of any congregations or spiritual life. Most of them have been made into sources of desperately sought hard currency from the West. It cost me $229 because of odious bureaucratic red tape to gain access to two cathedrals for perhaps an hour of time - frantic time to try and photo-document the buildings - no time for meditation or contemplation. The fear that thrives in godless landscapes embraces bureaucratic power for an illusion of safety and control.

As I sit in the luminosity of white night wondering where experiments in communism, atheism, and free market enterprise have taken 300 million people, I can’t but think that God might actually be in business and have a better business plan. After all he does declare “I know the thoughts I have about you, thoughts for good and not for evil; plans that will give you hope and a future.” Perhaps one day these people will inhabit their own churches again and instead invite tourists to come to Sunday services and Wednesday dinner. The turnstiles will be taken off the front doors of the churches and the tired and poor will again be offered refuge.

Perhaps I will go home and have a greater appreciation for the light in which we still are operating in the West. But we better be paying attention. Spiritual night is a whole lot worse than polar night and it lasts longer.

Russian Tales of Hope 7-3-9

St Petersburg, Russia

I did not have a childhood that anyone would wish to emulate. It was drab, unhappy, and quite devoid of people except for a raging alcoholic who insisted I call her “mother”. “Mom” was not acceptable; it was too familiar in her tormented mind. We never had vacations or any seasons of equanimity out from under the influence of an intense admixture of alcohol and primitive but dangerous psychotropic drugs. Yet, there were those occasional specks of life that washed ashore for me and my brothers.

One of those flecks of paradise that the great English theologian GK Chesterton often spoke of washed ashore in my life at about age twelve when Mother, in a rare lucid moment, decided to haul us to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the newly built Los Angeles Music Center to see a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Swan Lake”. For unknown reasons, the sounds and visual imagery of that performance have stayed vivid in my memory for forty-five years. Perhaps seeing performers and musicians doing things they loved to do and doing them really well spoke into the recesses of my unsettled soul. Perhaps the fairy tale imagery told my young mind that there could be something more for me than my gypsy life through the drab stucco apartments of Los Angeles with an alcoholic mother who could not stay still.

Tonight I find myself reflecting on “Swan Lake” once again. I have just experienced an entire performance of it by Russian dancers and Russian musicians in the gilded Baroque interiors of the Palace Theater in St. Petersburg. There could hardly be a more quintessential experience of the great Russian composer Tchaikovsky that to see his best known work performed by the Russian Ballet and his countrymen in his beloved Baltic city. While viewing the magic of fine staging and dance, the forty-five years between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Palace Theater melted away. The surreal costuming and staging accompanied by the fluid magic of fine dance carried me away to a mythical land where there is no gnashing of teeth or angst in the night. The depictions of autumn in the great northern Baltic forests and the tranquility of winter carried me far away to a cognitive place I have not visited in a long time.

It is often said in the therapeutic world that one needs to close loops, tie up loose ends, ad infinitum, in order to gain closure and healing. I can’t but wonder if some healing actually was taking place for me while watching the luminous winter scenes of the third act of this grand performance. During the intermissions I roamed around the public rooms of this gilded dance shrine and admittedly took on the role of gawking tourist and photographed all of the public rooms. No one would believe my descriptions of the mirrored halls without some tangible evidence. Yet, while wandering about, even when going out to the plaza to stare into the white sky of Russian night, I wondered what God might be doing in the trivial affairs of my life.

I have heard it said that the queen of emotions is gratitude. Perhaps the lesson here is very simple. Despite what tortured detours I might have taken through life, I can safely say that God has allowed me to come to a defining moment of experience for which I can be grateful. I can be and am grateful that my journey has brought me into gilded halls where anything is possible. Gratitude is perhaps the most potent elixir to be found, the one true antidote that will relieve virtually all of our affective griefs.

It is so true. We get God’s best when we let him do the choosing.

Rebuilding the Walls 7-2-9

Tallinn, Estonia

The medieval town of Tallinn in Estonia still has about two miles of the original town walls built in the 13th century. Much like the walls of Rostock, these have significant gaps in them and a number of the tower gates are now missing. I could not help but again wonder what it would have been like to felt the safety of the intact walls centuries before the invention of black powder.

Tallinn is a magical place, a medieval oasis that has managed, like Rostock, to survive the onslaught of rampant materialism, tourism, communism, socialism, and other assorted isms. This Baltic jewel contains a treasure trove of architecture and other photographer’s delights. It took only five hours to consume the equivalent of twenty rolls of film. Much of the town wall and a dozen of the gate towers are intact and create a very cozy sense of enclosure for the warrens of cobblestone streets that entwine themselves between hundreds of fine medieval buildings. The terra cotta tiled conical roofs on the towers and the linear tile roofs on the wall make the stuff of stunning calendar photos. I had the good fortune of finding my way to the top of one of these towers and filling up a good bit of space on a flash drive with the grand images found up there.

Several structures give definition to Tallinn. The ancient Town Hall is one of these. This grand old very medieval looking structure complete with towers and dragons on the crenellated parapets has been prominent on the Raekoja Platz for 605 years. For one that loves to use stair climbers in the YMCA, the 75 meter high tower of this hall was compelling. Neo-classical facades in a variety of brilliant colors enclose the other three sides of the large plaza which was being set up for a three-day music festival held once every five years. The musicians I heard were really grand and the timeless sensibility of the plaza added much to the melodic ambience of the festival.

Another structure giving visual definition to the old city is the Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral. The locals consider the building to be of no historical or architectural significance because it is new by regional standards. The beautifully painted exterior is only 120 years old and locals probably wonder if the paint has even had time to dry properly. For those of us living in a land of temporary vinyl and OSB houses with tar paper shingles on them that barely last as long as a fifteen year mortgage, I felt the masonry and copper Nevsky Cathedral to be beyond magnificent. Its brilliant onion domes and exterior gilded mosaics make for a commanding structure that is much like the staggering St. Basil’s Cathedral to be found in Moscow. Happily, I was traveling alone in the old city so was free to linger, buy a candle and put it on the altar and watch it burn down, select a fine icon for my own chapel - to actually experience this grand place as a church rather than a mere tourist magnet. I did capitulate to my overwhelming tourist urges and discretely photographed the interior and exterior without flash. Little is worse than trying to experience a grand sacred space as exactly that and being reminded by flashing cameras that the tourist imperative often takes precedence over the ecclesiastical. The Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral is definitely a destination and not an intermediate stop.
Tallinn is one w those places that must be magical to children. There are passageways, archways, narrow stair cases, high walls, towers, and all manner of intriguing things to climb on and over. A good way to relive one’s childhood or to even live it for the first time is to visit the old city in a good pair of climbing shoes, and so I did.

Tallinn is an example of a small town taking its dusty old relics, blowing them off, and creating a magical space that enthralls children and adults equally. After happily scampering about the old city for the day I wandered through one of the gates to the east to find myself in a flower market - a street where the shops and street vendors were selling radiant botanical delights at nearly magical low prices. If I thought I could possibly drag some of these plants half way across the world and get then through the gauntlet of customs, immigration, security, and agricultural check-points, I would have some of them in tow. I can’ help but be heartened to know that once very gray soviet satellites are now bursting forth with the bright colors of freedom and hope. Tallinn has made a very successful effort to rebuild the walls in ways that really matter.

When people are allowed to own their own land, propagate flowers, and then sell them in their own shops to western visitors, many grand possibilities will germinate and bear fruit for the citizens of Estonia.

Standing in the Gap 6-30-9

Rostock, Germany

Our journey towards St. Petersburg found us making a call at Warnemunde on the Baltic coast, which was once part of East Germany in the Soviet days. Warnemunde has basked in the great prosperity of the western political and economic tsunami that washed over Eastern Europe beginning in late 1989. Prosperity included enough capital for paint and flowers to cloak the entirety of the town in freshness and pleasing color. This small unknown town has become a major shipping port, looking like many all over the world with its myriad container cranes and terminals.

Modern public transportation is abundant and fairly priced. Clean new electric trolleys, busses, and trains provide connections throughout Germany. We chose to hop on one of the new double deck trains in Warnemunde and make the short pleasant journey to Rostock, a full-featured town about ten miles distant.

Rostock is one of those beautiful towns that compels one to look back a few centuries and contemplate life in its simpler forms. Certainly life was much harder in many ways, but it certainly had far fewer complexities. I was hoofing it around the old town center for six hours, trying to capture as much of the city as I could in jpg files on my flash drive. I don’t feel like a place is really ‘mine’ until I have carefully documented my experience of it in photographs. Verdant parks along the city walls made my circumnavigation of the terrain a delightful experience and a street vendor selling bratwurst gave me the energy I needed to keep on trucking. An eight-hundred year old town hall, four grand churches of just slightly newer vintage, and the considerable remains of defensive walls with tower gates around the center begged for my consideration. I did wonder how all of this antiquity survived the ravages of several world wars and the seventy year onslaught of Soviet thought.

The western medieval Kopliner gate is immense and imposing, even when competing with the glitz and lights of a prosperous shopping district once fueled by the dynamic growth that took place in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet world and before the economic swine fly struck the world in late 2008. As I climbed some 150 steps to the top of this gate tower and took in a commanding view of what is now a large sprawling urban area on the Baltic Sea, I wondered about what would have been visible from this same vantage point 700 years ago. Would I have looked out on a protected village and seen those four churches with sky-piercing spires and their cloistered monasteries functioning as obvious centers of activity? Would bells herald the beginning of a mass or service; would the faithful be seen making their way to their respective sanctuaries. Would true sanctuary for the souls of the faithful be found in these churches rather than the dreary dusty museum exhibits of a church history that has been truncated and cut off? As best as I can tell none of these once great churches conduct services or have congregations. As I continue on my journeys throughout the world I find that many churches and cathedrals have become little more than museums functioning as tourist attractions, complete with ticket kiosks and extensive gift shops. For the first time, on my present journey, I have seen vested clergy actively engaging in practices once found only in the marketplace.

Since these churches were built and since they were safely enclosed by massive stone walls with two dozen towers and gates, gun powder was invented; rendering the walls ineffective at providing real protection from marauding invaders. With the invention of the telescope and the subsequent articulation of a mechanistic cosmology, much of the perceived theological order of the universe collapsed into a black hole of uncertainty for many adherents to the faith. To this day many struggle with the meaning of life and the nature of the universe. Countless ‘proof texts’ have been written, trying to keep God included in an ever more secular cosmology.

I can’t but wonder if maybe in our post-Christian post-atomic age, we might not be as smart as we like to think. Is there something important we might learn by going back and listening to the wisdom of an age when virtually everyone was illiterate? At one point very near the great Kopliner Gate the former protective wall comes to an abrupt end and there is no longer any illusion of protection from outside forces that might have once overrun the town. That gap renders the great western gate utterly useless. I wonder if there are not major gaps in the foundations of our ‘modern’ belief and practice that put us at risk for being overrun by forces that we are ill equipped to cope with. Perhaps this medieval oasis in a post-industrial landscape is begging me to climb up on a high place and look down and see if there are gaps previously untended in my life. I know I have some gaps that need major attention.

We are encouraged in the very ancient writings to ‘Be still and know that I am God.” We are also told that God will not forsake the work He has begun in us. He will perfect that which concerns us and will not forsake the work of His own hands. If we allow Him, he will rebuild the gaps that have opened up in our faith and practice. Then we will have reason to feel truly safe, wherever we find ourselves.

Stairway to Heaven 6-29-9

Copenhagen, Denmark

There are few things as breath taking as being on a very high place without an enclosure to provide a sense of safety. Once I was on top of the CNN tower in Toronto, standing on a glass floor 1,300 feet above the street but I got to that floor on a glass elevator that was fully enclosed. The wind was blowing at that great height but I was fully contained and felt safe. Today we arrived in Copenhagen on our eastward journey that will have us in Russia at the weekend and I embarked on a vertical detour that took my breath away.

The Church of Our Savior was built in a distant era centuries ago when the metaphor of ascension to Heaven was profoundly important to the faith of people living in a world that had a strong religious cosmology. Airplanes, hot air balloons, and rockets had not been invented when the black spire steeple of the Savior church was thrust 100 meters or more into the northern skies of this Danish capital. No one had ever orbited the globe or been much more that twenty feet above the ground. Today I found myself standing on top of the city, far above all the twenty floor buildings around me.

What was stunning about this ascension was the fact that the last half of it was made on the outside of a winding spire. A narrow copper clad set of stairs cantilevered on the exterior of this spire allowed me to go up in the wind and enter into a dizzying climb to the bottom of a low hanging cloud deck. The lower air was absolutely clear, affording a commanding view of what was once thought to be the known world. I have never thought myself particularly averse to being on high places and thought myself fairly height confident. This proved that illusion to be just that. I was nearly weak kneed on that tiny 9” wide step that was close to five hundred from the first one at street level. The strong cold wind made me more than a bit curious about the integrity of this wood structure that has been piercing the cosmos for centuries. I had visions of fumbling my new Nikon camera and having it disappear, only to end up as specks of glass and aluminum on the cobblestones far below. I did manage to hang on to my camera and my wits and get a complete panorama of the terra cotta world far below. I found myself having a new appreciation for people that hang themselves on high places like Mt. Everest for weeks at a time.

The New Testament passage in Thessalonians that describes the raising of believers into the clouds at the second coming of Christ and being united with their Savior suddenly had a new meaning. I can rest in the reality that I do not have to make a breathless climb up an endless staircase to reach my promised room in the Father’s house in Heaven. He will provide me a lift that will be even better than the glass enclosed capsule in the CNN tower. A church sign quipped that salvation is so easy for us because He paid so much for it.

I climbed down a series of narrow steps, ladders, spirals, and even conventional steps at the bottom and carried on with the usual ground level activities one would be expected to do while diligently photographing a splendid country, new to me. I photographed several miles of splendid canals, four palaces, three epic churches, the harbor, a brass band, about eight miles of streets with rather pleasing Danish facades.

As transcendent as that experience was on top of the black spire, I had one that was nearly as much so at sea level. I was walking back across the city centre after having photographed the four palaces of Amalieborg and the changing of the guard that takes place there. I found myself in proximity again to the great Fredericks Church which contains the third largest free span rotunda in the world. I went in. In late afternoon with the sun breaking free of the dense cloud above and illuminating the interior of this great space, I suddenly found myself entirely alone. Unexpectedly all the school classes, tour guides, and hordes of tourists were completely absent. The place was suddenly mine. The great organ suddenly erupted into gigantic major chords and I was transfixed. I was rooted to my place and experienced mindfulness of the highest order. Nothing else mattered. Perhaps the business and busyness of doing intense photographic work was being blasted aside so I could instead hear the still small voice of the Numinous. How easy it is to let the novelty and intensity of a project get in the way of the truly epic.

As grand as it is to climb the great spires of an ancient age and to be sole proprietor of one of the world’s great spaces for a short time, none of this compares to the sense that comes from conscious contact with God and the sense that he really is interested in our very small lives. That is the ultimate high.

Perhaps I can remember that when I go to two cities in what was East Germany and photograph several of the great medieval churches built along the Baltic Coast some 800 years ago.

Zoning Out - The Physics of Time 6-28-9

In the middle of nowhere

The best I can tell, we are somewhere in the midwestern part of the Baltic Sea, somewhere south of Norway. Oceans do tend to look a bit alike from their centers, especially with no visible reference points. There are no visible landmasses or ice floes to hint at what is under the rim of the horizon. For certain this sea is feeling really good at the moment. There has been no rain or wind during the past four days and the maritime air is a refreshing 61 degrees. There is not even the mildest of swells. No following sea. No chop. There is no sensation whatever of floating. Cerulean skies are making for rather pleasant wanderings on this floating city.

As bucolic as all this may be, I actually find myself working, paying attention to what I need to be working on, writing essays, lectures, and letters; editing, indexing, and archiving thousands of images. It is most satisfying to me, doing something that comes easily and well to me. During this timeout at sea I find I am tuning in and actually getting more done than I often do at home.

A timeout at midmorning found me wandering up to the twelfth deck to eat a gargantuan breakfast in the company of a retired English architect, Maldo, from London. We spoke a good bit about the interesting regulations that apply to building sites when archeological relics are found. Countries that have been around two millennia have such issues. We also spoke about how senior citizens really fare rather well in England.

Later in the afternoon at another break five hundred images later, I was on the bow sniffing a 22 knot breeze generated by the ship’s forward motion. I had an interesting conversation with a retired US Airways pilot. He was lamenting on how his pension had been destroyed by assorted corporate misdeeds. I was reminded of my need to remember the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. I will need to remember this especially after I found out what it is going to cost to do anything in Russia. Hard currency is highly coveted there and all concerned are making sure that the flow of it to the east will be maximized. It has been necessary to make some arrangements in advance and the fiscal realities have become a bit more self-evident. An ordinary tourist visa is more than $200.

We did find what seems like a grand experience for a reasonable price - tickets to see a full production of Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Swan Lake” at the Palace Theater in St. Petersburg. We will see this on Friday July 3rd in the evening. It sure will be a far cry from my more usual doings in Anderson. It is my plan to spend that day photographing the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood. This astounding structure looks much like the fabled St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow with its fanciful gilded onion-domes.

It is interesting going to a distant place by ship rather than airplane. These distant places acquire a real geography. I am gaining a sense of place and perspective that never would happen in jet ways and aluminum cans attached to jet engines. A whole new region of the world is suddenly coming into focus for me. I now understand that Copenhagen is south of Oslo and that Copenhagen is two hours earlier than St. Petersburg. I know Helsinki is northeast of here. The exotic is suddenly the tiniest bit familiar. I am not too worried about familiarity breeding contempt.

It is just lunchtime there where you are and it is nearly bedtime here yet the sun is high and bright. I have always found geography and orbital mechanicals really cool. Cheers.