Safe Home

It's the first day back to normal life after the trip.  The weekend was too hectic to be called normal.  I had to write a sermon and participate in funeral/memorial services for a lady who had passed back before we left.  Certainly not a trial, but it left me with little time to think or process the re-entry phase.  I'm still in that phase where I notice all the small comforts that you so easily take for granted, like my own shower, the ability to actually cook a meal, a familiar bed and the simple pleasure of just sitting in front of the normal TV shows to which you are accustomed.
It is such a great privilege to be able to travel as widely as we do in these days.  The old things that you encounter in Europe remind you of the rather remarkable place you occupy in the history of humanity.  This mobility that we have is such a very new thing.  People that left Ireland for the United States in the last century, left with the knowledge that they would probably not be able to return easily.  Before the age of flight, visiting across the ocean was an extreme luxury, perhaps even a once in a lifetime sort of thing. This helps me to understand the mythology that has sprung up among the descendants of immigrants about Ireland and Scotland.  You could tell that much of the tourist industry caters to the longing that Americans have for roots in those places.  Little books about the clans, magnets with family names, at Stirling Castle, there was little place set up where you could have them look up your family name and trace it back to see if you had ancestors connected to a place.
I'm still puzzling over why this seems to be such a fascination for some.  I guess it is that feeling that you get at Glen Coe, or at the Cliffs of Moher, that there is something sort of mystical about the place.  However, there is something mystical about the Grand Canyon, or the Shenandoah, or the Smoky Mountains too.  Natural beauty can't be all there is to it.  There has to be something else, maybe it's the desire to feel like there's a bit more to your story than just the relatively short time you happen to be alive.  For those of us who are mostly of the Gaelic persuasion, the United Kingdom is the geographical resource to tap into that feeling.
It's easy to get misty and idealistic about those places, but here's some things I noticed about the UK that seemed pretty familiar:

1. Traffic still sucks, even on the other side of the road.
2. Most of the really attractive/interesting places get crowded in a hurry.
3. Immigrants do a lot of the service jobs (they're from Eastern Europe instead of Mexico).
4. There is nothing particularly romantic about everyday life, if you take off your tourist glasses for a second.

Don't get me wrong, traveling is great, but it is a process, and it is a learning experience.  If you don't notice things and you don't come home with some different awareness, what did you go for in the first place?  It really is good to be home, not because the trip was bad, but because home is the foundation from which you launch and, wherever you go, home is the place you ultimately want to return.

The more exotic your destination, I suspect, the more you will learn about where and what you left behind.  The longer your journey the sweeter your return.  The more differences you find, the more you will appreciate your familiar place.

The Irish will tell you when you leave, "Safe Home."  Get where you're going, and get back to where you came from, maybe not the same as you left, but safe and sound, that is the point of the journey.