A Street Called Straight

(It's hard to imagine I'll be home in two weeks!)

So, today around 9am I headed back into E-burgh. I'd planned to see four free shows at the festival, but I brought some reading material along because the train ride is around an hour long. I brought Ravi Zacharias and a handout from my Iona Pilgrimage book on Celtic Long-Wandering prayer (that is, how we can do what Paul says and "pray without ceasing"). I bought some (awesome!) presents for people back home, but now I'm going to have to figure out how to send stuff home - my suitcase is actually too heavy for me to be able to deal with on Iona.
Instead of seeing the shows, I found myself wandering through the streets of E-burgh, totally unimpressed with what man can do, especially when they use otherwise glorious talents to glorify everything else except for God. I also found myself struggling with the equivalent of road rage while walking on a sidewalk. It makes me REALLY mad when I'm always the one that has to move out of others' way, when people stop suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, when people walk REALLY slowly, when people don't look where they're going (or they don't care), and when I've got to weave in and out and in and out on a perfectly straight road. I also don't like all these people shoving fliers in my face about their show - which, of course, is the best, the can't miss, the new and improved. I know, all of this is my own "stuff" - I'm just pointing out that I'm becoming more and more aware of just how deep my impatience goes...
I'm sort of startled by my own dogmatism, too, but I'm starting to learn that it's not - neither philosophically, experientially, or even in terms of science - an "option" to believe in God or not. There IS absolute truth, we CAN know what it is, and a lot of people really can be wrong. Truth is not "what you make it", and moral relativity is not only wrong, it's dangerous.
I sat in a park in the wind and rain (Scotland appears to be taking it upon itself to get me used to Seattle weather a few weeks early...), tried to pray, read: I was reading about Saul and how lucky he was to be felled by the Risen one. I wondered how people can be satisfied with all these festivities, all these shows that seem to go nowhere, or ones that actively engage in blasphemy ...but I don't want to judge. In some ways, I feel just as lost. So, I went home to read another letter, do some more studying, and read the Bible.
In other news, I LOVE bagpiges (this little band was on Princes Street - the main street where the bus and train stations are).
Now, the adults and I are watching "Happy Feet" and it reminds me of the time I watched in Pennsylvania, about this time last year...
and I can't help thinking about Paul, on his face, on that road in Damascus...

(I just received an e-mail stating that the short story I wrote about my grandfather's death actually won the contest I entered it in. Wow. That's for you, Pop!)