I am posting ahead this week in an effort to avoid gaps in the posting but knowing that the weekend is going to consume me once I am into it. So while this may be coming out on Tuesday I am writing it on Friday. I hope all of you have adjusted to the time change with Daylight Savings upon us.
Ailsa has asked us to show:GRACEFUL
You can discover loads of grace by going to
http://wheresmybackpack.com/2015/03/06/travel-theme-graceful/
Here are my thoughts on the subject
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. I John 1:5-7
When I get to Heaven I expect many surprises. I get more than most that there are things about Christianity that just don’t make sense within the current context of a fallen sinful world. We have never known anything but this so how could we expect ourselves to understand something that is totally other than this?
For instance: How do we work out the concept of eternity (the absence of time) in a universe that measures everything in time. How do we rationalize having complete free choice under the auspices of a completely sovereign God? How can innocence ever return when the knowledge of good and evil is so deeply ingrained within our race? AND how can Something or Someone be entirely light in a universe that is only able to measure light by the amount of darkness it dispels?
We cannot fully explain these things now but we Christians must firmly hold to them because God has taught them in His Word.
As Amanda and I mosied from Moher along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, we traveled into a place called the Burren.
A veritable moonscape splattered along the Western coast of Ireland, the Burren is the badlands between the green spaces of Kerry and Connemara. Amanda and I were struck to silent wonder as we twisted the corkscrew roads down into the nothingness and back up and out again towards the bay of Galway. Always in our travels there was this light in the midst of the lonely terrain that reminded us that magic and mystery can exist side by side with the natural man.
The sun was setting over the Bay of Galway as we pulled into the SaltHill Hotel along Ocean Dr. As it nestled itself to sleep under a haze of dark black cloud I was reminded that I may not know how time and eternity, sovereignty and free will, innocence and knowledge, or light and darkness can exist perfectly side by side, but there are a great many things I do not know or have not seen; My not knowing them or not seeing them does not make them any less so.
What parts of God’s Word do you struggle with because it doesn’t seem to match up with what you have experienced?
We left Killarney and headed towards the coast and the Cliffs of Moher. It was Wednesday. Once again our GPS directed us on some of the smallest roads I had ever seen through rocky countryside that makes my country town feel like a veritable city. It felt most times as thought we were miles from civilisation and that Ireland was all but empty of human life.
We arrived at the visitor’s center at Moher around 11 A.M. and discovered that a boat tour of the cliffs was launching at three from the town of Doolin some twenty minutes down the road. Since we had the option of making our own way we decided to eat our lunch atop the cliffs and make our way to Doolin for the three hour wait.
I suppose while we saw many grand sights on the Emerald Isle it was the little things I will remember most, those things that made the trip truly unique: The smell of peat burning as we passed through villages in the countryside, the fact that pharmacies in Ireland are depicted by neon green crosses, the mirror at the hotel room in Galway that didn’t fog in the middle, the color of the buildings, the way the country roads all have a strip of the greenest grass growing down the center. It is the little memories that made the place stand out, that made it all so magical.
Ailsa has challenged us to send autumn out with a bang at her blog
http://wheresmybackpack.com/2014/10/31/travel-theme-autumn/
Check out how others have done just that by visiting after you view my tribute to the season of harvest!
Autumn Roads in New England
Autumn Rainbow In New England
Autumn Skies In New England
Ross Castle along the Lower Lake
Please understand I write this post entirely tongue- in- cheek. I don’t believe in Faeries (somewhere in Neverland Tinkerbell just died). But while in Ireland, the unequivocal center of all faeridom, Amanda and I did have a very strange encounter on the early morning of October 7th as we made our way to Ross Castle.
The morning mist was just winding its way back into the primordial forests from which it had come and the road ahead was becoming more clear by the moment. We were about a mile from the castle on one of those quiet country roads we were becoming so use to driving in little Mii.
As we rounded one bend, the road became straight and visible for about a quarter of a mile and I sighted something in the road ahead. At first I thought it to be a large black dog. But as we drove closer both Amanda and I could see that it was far to large to be any dog but still too small to be a horse. It looked at first like it was carrying something in its mouth but as we moved closer (we had slowed down to about 10 MPH at this point) we saw that whatever it was, was not in the creature’s mouth but jutting from its forehead and the “whatever it was”, was big, maybe four or five feet in length.
“A unicorn?” I asked out loud.
Amanda chuckled and punched my arm but I was seriously nonplussed by the sight.
The lakes of Killarney do add a certain magic to the air.
We were now within about 15 feet of the creature and it lifted its head from the ground. It was a six point buck. I had never seen its like. Its neck was ruffed with black fur as if it had just stepped out of winter somewhere. Its face and horns were darker than the rest of its body. Bracken was wreathed in and out of its antlers.Twisted into the natural fibers was a four-foot piece of rotting log. As the buck looked at us it supported the piece of wood like some giant spear pointing it directly at little Mii. Then it whacked the wood once more against the ground and leapt off into the bushes carrying the log with it in its antlers.
Amanda and I almost wept at the sight of this majestic creature so trapped and tortured by its burden but within a few seconds the creature had melted back into the forest mists from whence it had come.
Now I do not suppose this was some faery critter. But were I of a different persuasion and maybe a little more Irish I think I could be forgiven for thinking perhaps… just perhaps it was.
Morning Mists On an Irish country road
While we truly enjoyed Blarney Castle, Amanda and I were glad to be shed of the traffic of Cork. I have to admit I get a little excitable in heavy traffic and Cork had no shortage of that. Add the whole left side of the road thing and forgetting which side of the car to look out of as I entered incoming traffic and you can just imagine how our sense of inner peace was challenged.
Things got better, though, as we headed toward the Mangerton Mountains and the town of Killarney in Co Kerry.
The word majestic is apropos’ here. I cannot suppose it is the size of the mountains or even the color. Yet there is no mistaking the otherworldly quality of the place that makes you feel you have entered the domain of kings or of the King. There again,was the sense of loneliness that became so familiar to us as we traveled the island. Yet, there was something else too as we drove into Killarney, a sense that somehow God was sharing with us some secret key to His own majesty. Many times as I travelled through Ireland I was struck by the truth that here in this place I was having a unique experience, one I could not have anywhere else in the wide-world.
The questions and truths of Psalm chapter eight seemed to echo through the landscape and somehow the terrain itself called back the answers.
1 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
Your glory is higher than the heavens.
2 You have taught children and infants
to tell of your strength,
silencing your enemies
and all who oppose you.
3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?
5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God
and crowned them[e] with glory and honor.
6 You gave them charge of everything you made,
putting all things under their authority—
7 the flocks and the herds
and all the wild animals,
8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,
and everything that swims the ocean currents.
9 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
We left The River Lee behind sometime shortly after sunrise on the fourth day and headed up through the busy winding streets of Cork towards Blarney Castle. The tour bus was pulling into the castle lot just ahead of us making Amanda and me groan a bit as we looked at the long lines we would have to stand in just to get onto the grounds. We groaned, that is, until we heard the tour guide tell the bussers that they had just one hour on the grounds before the bus pulled out. It was not the first nor the last time I was glad to be on a self-guided tour. Amanda and I may not have seen as many hot spots on this trip to Ireland as the bussers did, but what we did see we actually had time to process.
We spent four hours at Blarney and could still go back to see more. All in all we felt bad for the people on the bus tour. They didn’t so much kiss the Blarney stone but miss the Blarney stone and so much more. My sister commented on the fate of the bussers when we were explaining it to her. She told us in Europe they call it seeing the world as an American, which means you go to a place, step out of the vehicle, snap a picture, get back in the vehicle, drive away and then tell the world you’ve seen it.”
I have been thinking this is how I often do life and maybe just maybe that has to change.
The Rock Of Cashel
“According to local mythology, the Rock of Cashel originated in the Devil’s Bit, a mountain 20 miles (30 km) north of Cashel when St. Patrick banished Satan from a cave, resulting in the Rock’s landing in Cashel. Cashel is reputed to be the site of the conversion of the King of Munster by St. Patrick in the 5th century.
The Rock of Cashel was the traditional seat of the kings of Munster for several hundred years prior to the Norman invasion. In 1101, the King of Munster, Muirchertach Ua Briain, donated his fortress on the Rock to the Church. The picturesque complex has a character of its own and is one of the most remarkable collections of Celtic art and medieval architecture to be found anywhere in Europe.[2] Few remnants of the early structures survive; the majority of buildings on the current site date from the 12th and 13th centuries.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Cashel
A sense of abandonment fills the air at Cashel. As I wandered the crumbling remains of this ancient worship center my heart was stirred with a sense of sadness at what had been lost to war and apostasy.
Many times in Ireland I was struck by a sense of loneliness that seemed almost to breathe out of the landscape as though something that once was there had left and the land itself longs for its return. Nowhere was this greater than in Cashel. Here stands a reminder that the essence of the Divine can be easily lost if not constantly attended.
Ancient Monastery seen from the Rock Of Cashel near Tipperary
After visiting the ruins of the medieval church at Cashel Amanda and I made our way along the winding country roads to the City of Cork. Our hotel in Cork lay across the River Lee and gave us some stunning views of the city.
Amanda hated the glass walls and elevators in the ultra modern River Lee Hotel. I think she felt like she was going to fall right out of the building. But in light of what the Spirit had brought to mind in Cashel, I took some time for an afternoon devotion looking out over the city from this chair.
It turned out that while we were taking a bit more circuitous route through the country than the bus tours we were tracking with them and meeting up with them at the hotels. It was kind of neat to see the same people at every hotel. We made friends with a couple of retired school teachers and made a practice of checking in with them almost everyday. If your reading Mrs. Schumaker, “Hi there!”
We learned very quickly though that because we were tracking with two bus tours and since those same tours had set reservations with the hotel restaurants while we did not, it behooved us greatly to get into our hotels early to make dinner reservations before the general public could book up the seats. Some of the other self-drivers never seemed to learn that lesson and would walk into restaurants in the evening even after twelve days and be appalled that they could not get seats in the hotel bistros.
The sky over the Mountains of Connemara and the lake called Pol A Cappel
Well I seem to have done it again and mixed up my days. Since I posted Sunday’s post (Seven Word Sunday) on Saturday, I figured it really wouldn’t hurt anything if I posted Friday’s post on Sunday. Ahh there we go the balance has been restored.
My fellow Americans, there are three things you should know if you plan a driving tour of Ireland. Well there are probably more than three things but let’s start there Okay?
1. Think small! I don’t care if you are from Texas, bigger is not better in Ireland no matter what Hertz rent a car might tell you. Starve yourself, practice yoga, do whatever you have to do to get into a small car because the roads are TINY!!!!!And the parking garages at hotels are even TINIER!!!!
Amanda and I named our car “Little Me”. It was an Mii and I praised God everday for that car as I watched other self-driving tourists curse their mid-sized sedans.
Amanda and Little Me
2.For goodness sake don’t be bold and order a standard from the rental car company. Driving on the left and having to drive backwards on rotaries is hard enough without having to remember that you are shifting with your left hand and backwards.
3. Rent a GPS from the rental company or order maps of Ireland for your GPS. One of the advantages of taking a self-drive tour over a bus tour is that you can drive into places where buses cannot go. Driving the little mountain pathways or heading out into farm country is half the fun but unless you are a cartographer and can read directions from the position of the stars or the incline of the sun in the sky a map will be of little help. It becomes even less helpful when you have to read it while driving corkscrew turns down mountain roads at 80 KM an hour. Oh and if you happen to rent maps for Ireland from the Garmin do not use the elf. He couldn’t direct you out of the North Pole. Use the woman voice. She seems to know her way around (not even kidding here).
This is not really point four but I am very thankful that I did not have to start driving until Sunday morning. It seems the whole island sleeps in until about 1 P.M. so I had about five hours with the road all to myself. It was a perfect transition to driving on the left and going backwards on rotaries. I am not sure if I have the touring company or God to thank for that wonderful transition so I guess I will thank them both here and leave a word to the wise. Sunday is a great day to cut your teeth on Irish roads!
Amanda and I left the tour buses behind and headed off the beaten path through Killkenny and down through Port Laois into Tipperary so we could see the Rock of Cashel.
The rock of Cashel was once the ancient seat of the kings of Munster. Around the year 1100 they gave the rock to the church and it became the seat of the bishop for hundreds of years after that. The Rock today is a ruin of the once great cathedral that overlooked the countryside.
Me on the pathway up to the rock
Ancient Monastery seen from the Rock Of Cashel near Tipperary
A Celtic Cross in the cemetery atop the Rock of Cashel
The song this day’s drive inspired came as we drove into the region.
Lillie-Put 