Quasimodo ran up and down and around the bells of Notre Dame, pretending to be a child again, pretending there was nothing in the world bothersome – no demands being made of him other than to ring his beautiful, beautiful bells. He stroked the nearest one… So friendly, his bells. He danced for them and they sang. He rubbed them down and they shone, and they gave the world of Paris their beauty and their music…

I don’t know much about the history of Notre Dame other than what I’ve gleaned from Victor Hugo, but I know the austerity of it through Quasimodo and Esmeralda’s eyes. I fully expected to be overwhelmed by a dreary and depressing example of Gothic architecture under deep grey skies, but Notre Dame was breathtaking. The outside was equally as impressive as the inside, from giant towers and flying buttresses to Rose windows and stained glass chapels. What should have been – would have been as heartbreaking as The Hunchback, was stunning. The bells were particularly fascinating. Thinking of dear Disney Quasi scampering over the gargoyles and sliding down the buttresses brought a smile to my face; I imagine he rang them with great zeal.

In more recent years, Notre Dame’s bells were declared too large to be structurally sound and are now no longer rung.

I spent countless hours of my childhood reading about, talking of, and dreaming myself into Paris’ Louvre. What better dream than to spend an entire week in that Museum of museums with my sketchpad and pastels and canvas? The Louvre did not disappoint; every moment was a new exhilaration, a new reason to catch my breath. But… why did no one ever tell me about the Musée D’Orsay? The Impressionist paintings are stunning; the artists were inspired. The masterpieces housed there moved me beyond comparison to those residing in the Louvre. Don’t get me wrong – the Renaissance artists knew what they wanted, and ancient nations created great beauty with what tools they had – but the brushstrokes, the different styles… The feelings on those “impressioned” canvases were real. The sculptures are men trapped by the Gorgon mid-thought. Van Gogh and Rodin each captured moments and forms with his eyes and set them free with his hands. The amount of emotion and reality and pride that is made tangible via a bit of oil paint and an old brush is astounding. Unreal. Unbelievable. I loved it.

Photo of Venus de Milo taken in the Louvre.

I have such a weakness for books. The more worn a book is, the more I love it, because I know its owner before me loved it. There’s nothing quite like the smell of an old book or of new paper or of overflowing shelves. Shakespeare and Company was salve to my soul. Years of history and love and knowledge were crammed into that curvy, cozy, hole-in-the-wall shop. There is a staggering amount of beauty and thought and wisdom, foolishness, hope, disaster, trial and error and advice and memory written into those cherished volumes. They brim with anticipation – each with his or her own distinct personality. I view a bookshop as a room full of friends –some familiar, some new, some yet to be met, but every last one uniquely beautiful from cover to cover. Shakespeare and Company was not merely a haven of English in the city of François; it was an explosion of amity in the midst of foreign faces.

L’Arc de Triomphe: Napoleon’s masterpiece. His crown jewel to add to Paris’ splendor, set at the end of the Champs-Elysees. Yet for all its glory and renown, in the end it’s still just a big tower for me to go dance on. Napoleon’s conquests have been overshadowed by new victories, new heroes – a new generation. But isn’t it always that way? The great men of old are given their due respect, are given their applause, are given their dedicated history books – for a time – and then humanity moves on. Mankind is a voluntary nomad in time, constantly searching for home or the next rest or one more meal. Battles are won, peace is restored, new monuments are erected, and heroes begin to blend together. I suppose the summary of my thoughts is that time flows on; grasping at it is futile. As I stood on the Arc de Triomphe, I thought about beauty and friends and blessings. My eyes searched Paris as far as they could, heedless of history, enamored with the present – quite unlike the tendency of man to move ever onward. But as I climbed down, I thought of futility and of passing and of time.

Napoleon never saw the triumph.

Dachau. Now that I am a week removed from the experience, I feel I can write about the horror of it without being overcome. I’ve faced dilemma after dilemma while searching for the right words. There simply are none. What is the use of a word like “terror” or “atrocity” or “genocide” when the experience far surpasses the connotation? Five minutes in a death camp and I wanted to flee; two hours and my numb heart could barely function. I’ve tried several times now to write about the Sunday morning in Dachau, and several times I have failed. I could bleed raw emotion into these words. I could question the very basis of my beliefs. I could point accusing, angry, appalled fingers at God. I could give a history: “During World War II, millions of Jews, gypsies, and state enemies were brutally slaughtered in Nazi concentration camps while the remaining two billion people on the planet sat by and watched with their own hands over their mouths.” Or much more naturally, I could blame myself for events that transpired before I was born. But what would be the point? No one else on earth has found words adequate enough to describe a death camp. If those who experienced one cannot recount the horrors, I, certainly, will not succeed. 

There are different types of history to see and experience. First, there is the type that teaches you man’s faults. It is the type that asks you, begs you, to learn from his mistakes and to spare the Earth more sorrow. Then there is the type that makes your heavy heart light as you call on the memories of golden childhood afternoons to surround you with their unrestrained joy. Salzburg was the second type. The entire city is drenched in The Sound of Music, which, though wonderful as a child, is even more enthralling as a film now. Seeing the mountain Julie Andrews ran down (only to be tardy to the abbey), Mirabell Park where she sang her “Do Re Mi”, the quaint gazebo, the Von Trapp house – it was lovely. I walked under the trees she and the children hung from like monkeys. (They’ve grown quite a lot in forty-five years.) I ran down the path beside the yellow wall, my heart singing all the while. Salzburg, Austria was a good place to be. Despite the undertones of World War II, its history left me feeling full.

What do you say to a man like Hitler? Do you rip the glory of the mountains out from under his feet? Do you go stomp on his grave in righteous indignation? I have no words for him – only disdain and disgust and a deep desire to remove myself as far from his character flaws as possible. Yet, for all the anger I feel, I cannot point fingers at his sins as if they were greater than mine. I see the majesty of God’s handiwork where he saw… what? What did Hitler see there? I know I am not the first to ask this question; I will surely not be the last. How can the same view that inspires me to worship lend to desires for power so strong they annihilate an entire race of people? I cannot say that the Eagle’s Nest moved me to tears, but I can say that it moved me to question and it moved me toward answers. I believe God has a purpose for each of His creations. As the mountains glorify God, as they stand tall and mighty, as they call for the human soul to recognize its Creator, they fulfill their purpose. I fulfill mine as I live in love and worship. I fulfill mine as I lift my hands in praise on a mountain.

I’ve walked in and out of a good many libraries throughout my life; let’s face it – I was the worst of the nerdy bookworms. Cozy hometown libraries, libraries that go on room after room, libraries barely big enough to turn around in, libraries boasting millions of books, libraries proud of the few shelves they have attained. Yet for all the libraries I have fallen in love with, none has held treasures comparable to those in the British library. The Guttenberg Bible, copies of Beowulf, handwritten notes from Austen, Milton, and Brontë, the original compositions of Beethoven, scraps of paper with Beatles’ lyrics – each world-moving, every last one comprised of drops of ink on paper. I could spend years perusing those pieces of paper made sacred by men’s desperate attempts at preservation. And just think – at one time, every one of those sheets was blank, crisp, and clean. Paper unwritten on can hold a child’s scribbles, a husband’s love letter, or words that will leap generations, pervading all of history, gaining immortality. It can hold a passing thought, the key to a man’s freedom, or enough power to shake the world by its very roots. There is so much beauty in the potential of blank sheets of paper.

As I walked around the giant blocks that make up Stonehenge, I thought of a number of spectacularly unimportant things. First, why I was not allowed to touch the rocks and climb them. Second, how often they cleaned the bird poop off of them. Third, whether I preferred the story of the giants creating Stonehenge best or the one of the aliens or of King Arthur. Fourth, how mystical the whole setup seemed. (Granted, it was a windy day already boasting an eerily overcast sky, but those mammoth stones made me feel positively elvish.) However, I did manage to consider one item of merit: whether it was possible for the builders of Stonehenge to have used phi in their construction calculations. A bit of research and I discovered it is found in the ratios of the concentric stone circles, increasing by a proportion of phi with each ring. Phi, the golden ratio, approximately equal to 1.618, can be found nearly anywhere in nature, and is put to good use by artists, architects, photographers, designers, and composers. Not to mention, it comprises the ever-fascinating Fibonacci sequence! The golden ratio hides everywhere from the Egyptian pyramids to the veins of a leaf to Stonehenge. Here is the beauty: math permeates nearly every aspect of life, whether it is hidden or plain. There is truth in math and there is safety. There is a constancy, designed by God and woven perfectly into His creation, that cannot be denied. Math is unchanging, trustworthy, and secure. Perhaps, that’s why I love it.

What’s in a mummy? A dead body in any other wrappings would be as gross. But really – what is in a mummy? A dead body, though nicely preserved, devoid of life and soul and animation. A dead body with a bit more pickled skin left than most of its contemporaries. Walking through the Egyptian exhibit of the British museum on Thursday, I read a lot of things about mummification that I already knew and read a lot more that I didn’t. Ancient Egyptians possessed a view of the afterlife that was so closely intertwined to their present life it was as if they refused to die. As Christians, we have a catch phrase along the lines of “came into this world with nothing, and we’ll talk nothing out of it” – nothing but our souls. These people tried to take their jewels, their food, their pets, their slaves, and their wives! The Museum holds mummy cats and mummy ibises. Really? I can’t help but wonder what eternity these priests and pharaohs opened their eyes to… Almost every civilization, culture, and religion through history has reached toward the hope of immortality in one form or another, but this type of reaching strikes me as especially narrow-minded. Eternity ought to be much more than the life I have now or it will be very disappointing. 

If Christopher Wren had designed for Catholic churches instead of Anglican, I’m fairly certain the pope would have made him a saint for the beauty of his works. From Oxford to London, the quality of his architecture remains unchanged, but Saint Paul’s Cathedral is a world wonder in its own right. The building is tangible magnificence, glorious from crypt to golden gallery. I look at what Wren’s hands formed and wonder that any mind could create pictures so stunning, much less bring them to life. What changes would be wrought on our world if each human devoted himself (instead of to himself) to creating beauty in his own way, be it art or architecture, peace or prosperity, wells or words? If there were a world full of that much touchable splendor, it would be full of at least that many saints. After all, what is a Christian’s role if it is not to create beauty through his love and actions? The elegance of a cathedral can be compelling, but if a Christian is living in a way that reflects his namesake, every cathedral in the world will be a shabby display in comparison.

When I arrived in Europe I had no real ideas about the religious standings of the continent. Would I encounter country after country of devout Catholics? Or rather, cathedrals full of undeclared atheists admiring the architecture? I expected nothing and hoped for a faith strong enough to face the “something” that was sure to be there. So I step on the plane reading Yann Martel’s Life of Pi and step off into a mindset that questions every lasting world religion. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity: why do so many millions of people follow them? Why do I believe Yahweh and Allah and the Father of the Trinity are the same God, worshipped in different ways? Jehovah, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha: where is the difference? What element in any one of these religions so starkly contrasts the fundamentals of another as to cause strife and hatred vocal enough to disrupt the peace of our entire world? To set nation against nation? Ancient brother against his siblings’ posterity?

But then… I happened upon a small shop in Edinburgh, Scotland, bright and airy, smelling strongly of strange incense. The first items I encountered were runes inscribed on jewelry, common enough in Celtic society. The second, charms I was certain featured in commentaries on Salem witch hunts. The third and fourth, spell books and pentagrams. By this time I was beyond uncomfortable; I was ready to flee the shop, take a bath, and pray to God I hadn’t been either hexed or condemned just for stepping in. But before I could turn tail and run, I noticed the most unexpected of things and froze, stunned, enraged. A Bible. God’s Holy Bible sitting on the shelf. My mind revolted. “What sick joke was this?” Franticly my eyes searched the shop – prayer books, commentaries, and sacred texts from at least five religions, side by side by side, cohabitating on the shelves. Beside the Bible I located the Torah and Quran, books of Buddhist and Hindu proverbs. I shuffled out of the shop without seeing. Is it wrong for so many faiths to live under one roof? What law does that defy? It is a hard thing to conclude that “your” religion is superior to another, and it is a hard thing to conclude that “your” religion offers the only path to eternity, but far too many followers conclude just that.

As I wandered religiously through Brussels’ Royal Museum of Fine Arts, I happened upon this portrayal of Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert by François-Joseph Navez, painted in 1820. Compared to the emotion depicted in images of Christ and the fame of the various statues reclining throughout the museum, this particular painting would not be high on anyone’s list of must-sees. Yet, this insignificant work of art spoke to me more than any other creation displayed. Hagar and Ishmael are nomads: homeless and alone. The only safety they know has disappeared, or more correctly, kicked them out of its presence. Among other things, Navez’ masterpiece made me consider the implications of my time here in Europe. While I am here I am a nomad in both body and spirit, navigating through faith the same way I cross borders and walk unfamiliar city streets. Every second is uncharted, but each step takes me closer to a new life. These are the thoughts I believe Hagar and Ishmael experienced as they roamed the deserts in search of God and a place to belong. Every student here is changing, but new nations of faith will rise from the experience of youth.

Michelangelo moved me to tears.

I could have stared at Mary for hours on end; there was no need to move, barely any need to breathe. Several things I thought about while adoring the Madonna and Child of Bruges caused my brain to reel. The love flowing through Michelangelo’s hands as he sculpted this masterpiece from a shapeless chunk of rock. The fact that David came from those same hands at the same time. The look of resigned despair on the mother’s face. How that look is mirrored in her child’s. I saw in Mary the same look of pain that I have seen in the faces of friends, family, strangers, and acquaintances. It is a look that should not be on the face of any infant, especially the face of our Savior. I am bothered that Michelangelo chose to portray Christ as having the knowledge of His choice and its consequences when He would barely have been walking and speaking on His own. Yet, who can say He would not have known? It’s a big burden to bear for a soul so pure and vulnerable. I would like to have spoken with the artist about his choice. I would like to have known the child Jesus. I would like to have been a friend of His mother.