Travel Bucket List #1: Ireland

Drumroll, please...Behind door #1 for the Travel Bucket List: IRELAND.

I have to admit that even upon thinking of writing this entry, tears come to my eyes.  I do not know if there is one solely amazing thing that captivates me about Ireland, but I do know that the sum of the things I admire about her makes me deeply captivated.  So, I will attempt to express my admiration in this entry...and maybe sell you on a  trip there yourself.

  

(*Note: To make my blog more legit, I want to note I wanted to visit Ireland before P.S. I Love You came out :)

The main reason I want to visit Ireland is for its Beauty in Serenity.  It goes back to the very first blog entry I posted regarding simplicity.  When I look at pictures of Ireland and look at their culture, it exudes serenity, or simplicity.  Green grass, open meadows with a single shed, sheep and cows roaming everywhere, and stillness.  In this, I see much beauty.  Creation untouched by industry, life uncomplicated by busyness & high expectation, space and time uninterrupted.  I hunger for these things.  And while people who live there may say my perception is not reality as they walk in the day-to-day there, the amount of time I would spend there would be just enough to taste these things I perceive before reality would make it seem ordinary or mundane.  Of course, I have lived life long enough to know that the grass is indeed not greener on the other side and things will be different than I see them now at a distance (for example: I think of walking across a perfect meadow, but when I get there the grass will probably actually be very itchy and have bugs...blah)...but, there are many things that I think would be just as I imagine them to be, if not better, there in Ireland.

Here is an example of the Beauty & Serenity of Ireland:

Cliffs of Moher

(Photo courtesy of my friend T.Er.)

A second thing that allures me, are Ireland's array of incredible castles.  I'm fascinated by most architecture, particularly anything of archaic nature.  I want to visit Ireland and see as many castles as I can - whether they are renovated to fancy hotels, or they are eroding from war and weather over the centuries, or if there is essentially nothing left of them but a stone and a story.  These castles have character and history which add a captivating uniqueness to Ireland in and of themselves.

Top castle on my list to visit:

Dunluce Castle

As I mentioned above, there are things about Ireland that I hunger for.  It is important to note, however, that though I long to visit Ireland because of what I see in her, I believe I have a hunger that would not be satisfied solely by visiting.  I desire to visit Ireland, but the hunger I have runs too deep for anything in this world to satisfy.  This goes back to what I wanted to shed light on in at the origin of this series, "I submit that it could also be because we are all sojouners of this life, and are on a journey to find the remarkable."  Why do we seek to find the remarkable, the things we are in awe of?  Because Ecclesiastes 3:11 says "God has put eternity into man's heart".  Our hearts know that there is something greater because God has put in our hearts the desire for it.  Ultimately, we will never find this in the world because it is a longing for eternity, something we can not quite comprehend but something we long to have secure.  However, people spend their lives trying to find eternity in everything but the source.  Let me tell you, although Ireland is amazing and I deeply want to visit, because I have a relationship with Jesus Christ I get to see glimpses of eternity often and can rest assured that if I never travel anywhere again I get to spend eternity seeing things that are glorious compared to things in this world. 

 "The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” 
- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Travel Bucket List #2: Israel

Welcome, 2012 - - Hopefully you will be the year in which I post more often :)

I am going to continue on with my Travel Bucket list as I am super excited to get to #1...and even more excited to start writing about more things I have been learning/observing lately. 

Here we go: Travel Bucket List #2 - Israel the Holy Land.

In all honesty, the main reason I want to travel to Israel, is to see the things that I have been reading and learning about in Scripture.  From what I do know, I would not personally be interested in going for the food or smells (like I did for Italy) or for the architecture (although the obvious conflict and history within the architecture would be well worth the trip)....it would be to understand the culture Christ grew up in and to see where He walked when He was on earth.  The times that the Jewish culture has been unfolded for me to help enlighten me to something in Scripture, it makes me want to see it in real life even more.  Not only that, but to see things with my own eyes that I am reading about - it only makes sense that it would connect dots that could not otherwise be connected without seeing them - it would be life-altering.

Walking where Christ Himself walked would add so much to my personal walk with Him I think.  There are things the mind can imagine when you read them in Scripture, but again, seeing it in a tangible form would bring it to life in a new way for me.  I think the best way to go would be to go with someone who could explain what we see in great detail corresponding with Scripture references.  To note things like "Here's the Sea where Peter and Jesus walked on water" and to walk the road Christ walked would just be awesome. Truly, awesome.

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  - Saint Augustine