TRAVELOGUE

 TRAVELOGUE

There is a lawn mower buzzing and a jet flying overhead as I start this narrative on a Tuesday afternoon before embarking on another adventure with my favorite traveling buddy. By the time you read this I will have returned home with a new appreciation for the family of humankind that I didn’t have previously. The appreciation always happens.

One of the reasons I love travel is the exposure I get to other cultures, their mores, and behaviors. I get to see the world through different eyes and to practice love of humanity with a new level of curiosity and respect if I let go of the fear of the unknown. Each time I experience a culture different from my own, my strength and weakness in flexibility of thought is exposed. I have a growing respect for my ability to honor and retain my beliefs while honoring the beliefs of others. I can acknowledge the differences and similarities without feeling diminished or diminishing others.

Striving to practice this respect of others and myself has required that I relinquish the thought and especially the verbalization of, “I have never seen it done that way before or we don’t do it that way or that’s weird.”  We travel to experience what we have never experienced or to break routine.

It is common to see the typical American fast-food joints in other countries. What amazes me, however, is the number of my fellow countrymen who frequent the joints and follow up with a complaint that it is not as it is back home. No judgement but an observation – why eat a cold processed meat sandwich or burger on foreign soil with the expectation that it will mimic what is already known. I am not the most adventuresome eater, but I know one of the best ways to experience another culture is through food and the nuances of preparation.

“Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight.” Rumi.

I am a jar full of delight as is every other person that I meet. They will not experience the full delight of me or I of them if either of us is unwilling to screw the lid off the jar.

Unscrewing the top of our jar is how we came to meet a female power lifter from Wisconsin in Norway. It is how my travel buddy and I became the guest of a Tennessee musician at his first ever concert in Stockholm, Sweden. It is how we came to share Indian Cuisine with a Norwegian friend and former colleague in Oslo.

Travel is another opportunity to be opened by others, to have others open to me, and to experience the diversity of humankind.

Psalm 121:7-8

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” St Augustine