Chill

Some people just need to chill out sometimes and enjoy the spontaneity life brings. Today I was that someone, and I'm so glad I did.

Yesterday the parents of a new friend named David (the one that arranged with the owners of this house to let me stay here while they're away this summer) dropped in to check on the house and meet me. I had planned to put in an uber-productive day but was interrupted by their arrival. I spent about 2 hours with them and then went back to work, but only after they promised to come by today and bring lunch so that we could share a meal together.

John and Zakiyya are around my parents' age. They were both raised in Syria, but both were born to Christian parents that fled persecution in Armenia. They had eight children, two of which died, and the past ten years they have been living in the UK under asylum. Some of their children are here, and they were apparently so concerned when their son David told them I was here without my family that they wanted me to know that I can consider them as family. This is why today they made me lunch.

Actually, they came by around 1:30 and John fired up the barbecue - not with charcoal or gas, but with sticks and twigs left from the gardening he'd done when they came by here yesterday. Zakiyya and I worked on salads and skewered veggies while we talked about life and family and got to know each other. For a while I kept thinking about how I was going to get back to work, but somewhere around 2:30 I realized what a fool I was and told myself to chill and just enjoy the day. So I did.

I love moments like these, and so often I'm too distracted to treasure them as I should. Today I made myself chill out and embrace this experience and these new relationships as part of the new life I'm diving into over here across the pond. And later, when two of their sons and their son-in-law came by I found myself sitting around a table, surrounded by near-strangers, listening to a language of which I know maybe three words, and yet I felt so very connected to these beautiful people.

Part of my sense of connection is obviously just the simple fact of sharing life through a meal together, and some from the deep connection of a shared Christian faith, but there were a couple of other things as well. I was being invited to participate in a culture completely unknown to me. The only Arab people I've known back home were Muslim men that regularly met in the shop where I worked back in my Starbucks years. As a western Christian woman I could never have hoped to have the open conversation I had with David today about the Middle East, Arabic culture and faith.

As we sat down for the meal, John apologized to me because his English was limited so he had to pray in Arabic. I found it incredibly moving to listen to him pray in his beautiful language, knowing what that faith had cost him, his parents and his grandparents.

The other connection I felt was as one foreigner with another. Yes, the UK and the US have a common historic root, and are culturally very similar, but there is a strange sense of vulnerability that comes from being an alien. There is a sense that part of you will never quite be like everyone else here, but things at home will continue to move on without you, so home will never be the same either. You feel part of everything and part of nothing somehow at the same time. Although I haven't had the language barrier that this family has had to work through, I suddenly realized that I could relate to their experience of adapting to a new culture in a way I never could have before. As different as we are, I found myself feeling more like them than I ever anticipated, and I found it unexpected, beautiful and a bit moving.

Today was a beautiful interruption and a gift from God. I'm so glad He helped me chill out enough to savor it.

Solstice

I got back yesterday from my adventures in the north. It was so very good to see everyone and to get some extra time with my friends Chris and Anneleen in Edinburgh. It was a bit of an adventure because my first two nights were on my own in Edinburgh before heading down to Gateshead for Saturday and heading back to Edinburgh on Sunday morning for one more night.

I drove up with my buddy Pete who was going to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) for a bit of a personal retreat, so we stopped there for a bit. The place was amazing, and it was just as a storm was passing and the light was turning evening with the amber tones. So unbelievably beautiful!

I had a bit of fun wandering around with my camera. On the left here are some of my favorite Lindisfarne shots. I could see why people have come there for so many centuries for pilgrimages and retreats. A place that beautiful makes you feel closer to God.

It was truly wonderful to be in Edinburgh again. I have a serious crush on that city, and every time I'm there I feel more certain that I will live there at some point in my life. Sunday night was summer solstice, so to celebrate I went on a nice long walk with Chris and Anneleen Lindsay (with whom I was staying, and also some of my favorite people) just as the sun was starting to go down. It doesn't get completely dark there until nearly midnight this time of year, so we had plenty of light even around 10:30pm when we got back to their flat. I have never walked along the shore there, and we discussed whether we should call it the front of the city or the back of the city, and my vote was for the front. Anneleen and I took plenty of pictures (of course). Below are a few of my favorites from Edinburgh.



Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures in Gateshead, but it was so very, very good to be there with friends old and new and hear all the amazing things God is doing in the UK through a bunch of every-day, normal people who want to love God, love each other and serve their communities in whatever way is needed. I'm so blessed to be a part of this movement and to see that God really does answer prayer.

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend.

Northward

This picture is for all my Mac-lovin' amigos here in the Land of Eng, in honor of the journey northward which kicks off tomorrow and brings me back to Reading on Monday evening. I shall spend some lovely time in Edinburgh, both roaming on my own, and then back on Sunday to see the Lovely Lindsays. Somewhere in the middle (Saturday, to be precise) I'll be in Newcastle for a 24-7 UK Network Day. I'm so looking forward to it all! Hopefully the sun will shine and I'll get lots of lovely pictures. Updates to follow...

Friendly

I must be friendly because I'm making some seriously great friends here. My new "little sis" Andrea (pictured) just turned 30 and we had a fabulous night out to celebrate, complete with the homemade cake also featured in this lovely picture. She tried really hard to conceal the fact that she was turning 30, but we're too bright for her, and we made her come out with us! Andrea is quite possibly as crazy as I am...maybe even more so! I feel like I've know her all my life, so she must've been meant to be my self-appointed little sis. She's had some rocky times, but her courage and determination are more inspiring to me than she will ever know. She also loves birthdays, as you can see plainly from the photo.

I love all the beautiful Brits that have brought me into their lives and are letting me make them a part of mine. I miss my friends and family back home - more than I can say - but I am absolutely loving getting to know all these fun, funny, beautiful, real people. Like Andrea.

Monthiversary

Today is my third monthiversary. Or maybe it was yesterday. It depends if you count March 4th, the day I left, or March 5th, the day I arrived. Regardless, it's a good excuse to make a cup of tea in my honor and in honor of the dozens and dozens of cups of tea I've had since I arrived, and the hundreds I have yet to drink.

To England!

Pub

Pub culture in the UK (which you can read about here) is fascinating to observe. It is so very different from how we socialize back home - at least in my part of the motherland. If you told me when I was getting ready to leave three months ago that a good night out in Reading would consist of sitting around a pub table nursing a pint of something brewed (cider is my drink of choice) for several hours with people I didn't know well - and that was it - I would've thought that I needed to show these kids a thing or two about having fun! But in reality I've learned a thing or two myself.

Things here aren't as slick and easy as they are at home. I've yet to be in a house with a tumble dryer, and many more people have cars at home than they do here. Yes, there are dance clubs, theater, live music, movies and lots of other amusements, but I think (generally speaking, of course) people here prefer simplicity to making things "easier" or more "convenient", and as a result I think people here tend to participate in life in a way we don't really do at home. People would rather walk or ride a bike to work because they can enjoy the outdoors more. People here grocery shop more frequently because food is less preserved than it is back home, and though it doesn't last as long, it tastes better. Even houses tend to be smaller, rooms in houses tend to be smaller and certainly back yards (they call them "back gardens" here) in general are smaller as well. Something many Americans have yet to learn is the perspective I've noticed in England: spacious homes and gardens are well and good, but not necessary to be content.

Observing this pub culture, I'm finding there is something really settling about having no "plan" for the evening other than just to be, and to do it together. My first Friday night here I went to the pub with my buddy Pete and spent the entire evening (at least three hours, but I think more) in an old leather-seated booth with three other guys that have been meeting up for Friday night drinks with Pete for about ten years.

I think the thing that surprised me the most was how contrary to the (rather unfair) stereotype of English emotional disconnection this whole way of life is. This is much more relational than many of my fellow Americans ever get. It's sharing all of life, but just doing it one pint at a time. I think the closest thing we may have is the neighborhood coffee shop, but somehow it doesn't seem the same to me. In the case of my buddy Pete and his mates, and with many others over here, they have had all kinds of life conversations in that little local pub. The conversations I've been a part of the couple of times I've joined them have touched on anything from work to trivia to relationships to food snobbery to American culture, and many other things. One could maintain a certain superficiality for a while, but you couldn't keep it up forever. With a lifestyle like this eventually people become very much connected for a very long time, and all by simple proximity.

Renee, Kathleen and I would often meet up at the Rose & Thistle back home, but we already have nearly a decade of friendship between us. The point was getting together somewhere for dinner with good fish and chips and outdoor patio seating in the summer, not just being there because it's the local pub and that's where our worlds meet up. What if I were still in Portland and just started being at the Rose & Thistle every Friday night, hanging out with my pint of Strongbow and waiting to see who turned up to join me?

So I've gone for it now and decided to adopt the English pub tradition, and I hope this simple form of community stays a part of my life forever. When the day comes that I go back Portland I will let you know which fine establishment I decide to make my "local" and you will all be invited to join me every Friday night.