One of the best parts of my trip involves… just floating by. Yesterday, we sailed past Spitz, a small Austrian town, with a great deal to notice as we moved down the river. The houses and churches surround a large hill with vineyards. That hill is called 1000 Buckets Mountain. In ancient times, it was a good year if the mountain produced 1000 buckets of wine. That is how it got is name.
Opposite 1000 Buckets Mountain lies the ruins of a castle from 1100s, known as Hinterhaus. It’s astounding to find structures in Europe that are so old.
So with a lingering glance from a river, I got to see these, and I thought, “There are thousands of unknown stories.” I love to ponder places because they contain communities across time, not only with big, heroic moments, but thousands of unknown stories with mundane experiences.
And some of them probably involve those buckets of wine.
Yesterday, I had a very special day in Vienna. After practicing German daily for nearly two years, I was able to put it to use, and that was very satisfying. But most important to me, in the present moment, I enjoyed the city in a way that resonated with the past.
Austria is the first country I ever visited outside of the U.S. During the summer before my senior year, my high school choir visited four cities in Austria on a tour, including Vienna. At age 17, was enamored with this city.
And I had some special moments here personally as well. Our choir sang during a service at Karlskirche (St. Charles’ Church), which is one of the old churches in the Vienna. Opened in 1737, it is much younger than the St. Stephen Cathedral, constructed from 1137-1578. Both churches are gorgeous. During that service at Karlskirche, I was deeply moved, and I made a decision for my college direction. I decided I wanted to go to music school. Later, I did that exactly and attended the University of Louisville School of Music. And that decision, made under the dome of this cathedral, led me in many adventurous directions.
Yesterday, 25 years later, I returned. I was able to go into the balcony, right where we sang. The view below was lovely. I sat there and thought about the last 25 years — music made, of course, but most of all, relationships and communities — and I was grateful.
Later, in the evening, we went to a Viennese Concert, and sure enough, it was also in the same space where I attended a concert at age 17. I remember that night well because I felt very youthful and excited for the future. Last night, I felt like age-17-me and age-42-me got to attend a concert together.
When time and place meet, we are not only in relationship with those around us and those that emerge from those experiences. Life rhymes, and we can also be in relationship with parts of ourselves.
The nave of the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation in Bratislava.
Greetings, Friends, from Central Europe.
I spent yesterday in Bratislava, Slovakia, and it was a glorious day of discovery in a tremendous city. I enjoyed it very much.
While meandering about, I walked toward a gothic spire in the city until it revealed the larger structure of a church. I walked inside, and when I did, I discovered the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation, built in 1297. It’s stunning to sit inside a space so old.
I sat down in a pew, and others had done the same. Interspersed throughout the building, all sat in silence, reflective. This is a space where it makes sense to pray, and I might have done that in a traditional way, except as I sat there, I found myself reflecting on prayers of people who built this church building. I don’t know if they could have imagined the year 2024, but I do assume that they thought, imagined, and prayed for a future beyond their own lives when this nave would hold space for people they would never know. I thought about how more than 700 years later, we are some of those people.
And then I thought — and was this also a prayer? —
How expansive can our hopes become, and how might they hold others well beyond our own time?
The Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe.
Greetings, Friends, from Eastern Europe.
Yesterday, I spent the day in Budapest, and I had the occasion to see the Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe. Its architecture towers beautifully in a highly populated neighborhood with restaurants, shops, and people walking about — both residents and tourists.
That very neighborhood is, of course, painfully, the area once known and experienced as the Jewish ghetto. Before Hungary was occupied by the Nazis, 825,000 Jews lived in Budapest, but during that occupation, half of that population was deported and systemically killed in the Holocaust.
As we walked through the neighborhood, I was struck by the contrast of remembering and honoring the reality that people were restricted to this very neighborhood, grieving for loved ones while knowing that their own death was imminent, yet today, it stands as a bustling location of life and memory, with a synagogue that remains and people pausing to honor loved ones, eat, and shop in that very neighborhood. Today, that feels like a miracle, yet hundreds of thousands of Jews lived a markedly excruciating and contrasted reality right here.
I thought of Jewish loved ones who I hold dear, aware that today, anti-Semitism continues to be a threat in my country and around the world. We must speak out about this when we see it and hear it.
I thought of loved ones who are connected to people around this world where violence, genocide, restriction, and starvation are underway now. Can our collective memory and collective life move toward collective action to protect them?
Over 40,000 people have died in Gaza in the last 10 months — 1 in 55 people — and many of them are children. Nearly everyone is displaced while the basic infrastructure of life has been destroyed across the Gaza Strip. Learn more here.
Over 14,000 people have died in Sudan in the last year, and many of them are children. 8.6 million people are currently displaced from their homes. Learn more here.
All of these loved ones deserve our collective action now — our speaking, our honoring, our interrupting, our protesting, our caring, our financial giving, our policy-crafting, and our protecting.
We all know that to-do lists can be helpful. And sometimes… they can take over our lives, and we may feel like we need some freedom from them.
Would you like to try something different?
Make a To-Done List. (I know that doesn’t have the same ring). That being said, these can be very helpful. Instead of writing down things you need to do, write down the things you have done. This is a weekly habit that has been very helpful for me. I keep track of these at work, in particular, because in addition to helping me feel accomplished, I can look back and see what I did and which week of the year it happened. This helps me plan for the next year.
And it’s fun to see a list of things that are done! Just something to try.
Purple Background, White Writing — Call & Connect Network: Support groups to connect you to those who understand what you’re going through
My workplace hosts five Call and Connect support group. Four of them meet over Zoom, but one of them — the OG group — started many years ago as a conference call.
And this particular community of adults who live with epilepsy still like that format. Once a week, they call the same phone number and love to be on the same line all together. You might be surprised how a once-per-week phone call could turn into a robust sense of community.
These folks playfully grumble if anyone calls them a “group.” “We’re a family!” they say. And they are. They call each other throughout the week outside of the group time to check in on each other. They’ve gotten together in person to do fun things. They’ve gone over to each other’s houses to fix each other’s appliances. I’ve witnessed all of this in my six years with them.
They also love to give verbal hugs.
When someone is having a difficult week or if someone has a special celebration, someone will eventually say, “Let’s give [name] a family hug.”
“Okay, one, two, three!”
“Mmmmmmmm!” “Squeeeeeze!” “Eeeeeeeeee!”
they all say verbally over a phone line.
I’m about to go to go on a trip for a while (more about that soon) and as I was about to end the call today, I heard,
1) Whew, it takes a lot of work to step away… This isn’t a new thought, but it’s one that I’m living and thinking about all over again. This week, my whole life has transformed into a to-do list. (Not totally healthy).
“It shouldn’t be this hard take yourself off the grid temporarily,” I’ve thought many times. A lot goes into that preparation. And I’m also not going to be totally off of the grid. It’s not as if I’m packing a tent and rations or something. I’m just getting myself ready to disconnect from work and additional, typical rhythms to take some time off with lovely plans. (Very healthy).
2) Wow, a lot of life passes around and through us… This isn’t a new thought, but it’s one that I’m living and thinking about all over again. This week, my life has been connected to a lot of other lives and activities as I make these preparations.
I’m not so central. All of this stuff currently hustling and bustling through my lists, doesn’t live on a list. It’s just life. It’s people with names. It’s community. It keeps moving. I need not over-give or merely ration my time. I am a part.
Responsibility and life — two sides of the same coin.
A colleague and I lead a monthly Zoom meeting called “Mindfulness Moments.” My role in this exercise is very easy — remarkably relaxing, in fact. My colleague, a tremendous therapist, leads us in a twenty minute mindfulness exercise. I get to start the Zoom meeting and take it all in. Then I lead us in a ten minute discussion.
Last night, during this mindfulness exercise, we did a body scan, checking in with parts of our body and inviting these parts of ourselves to experience relaxation.
“Now, rest your nose,” she said. Rather than feeling a change in my nose, I smiled. I don’t know that I’ve ever tried to relax my nose. I was surprised by the challenge. But you know what? I tried it, and it can be done.
A relaxed nose, like any relaxed part of ourselves, is pretty delightful.
So if you need some relaxation, rejuvenation, and repose, just remember a serene schnoz is a satisfied nose.
Smuggling Grace 