Walkin'...walkin' down a "river"

Our lovely evening continued with a walk down Camden's little river and I got my first taste of homesickness. Camden has it's own set of locks and I realized how central the Ballard Locks in Seattle have been to my life. When I came to Seattle as an angst-ridden pre-senior (in high school) convinced I wanted to get as far as way from everything Colorado as possible, my dad and I visited the locks. I was mesmerized by them, and there was something healing about the rushing water, the flinging fish and the sighing boats. Then, 6 years later, I got to live by them - within walking distance - for two and a half years. Now, I'm in Europe, seeing their version - older, cuter, but locks nonetheless and I miss my home. It's not a comparison thing - they're BOTH good - it's a similar-ness thing.
Anyway, we continued our walk down Camden river - Carrie and I got a chance to catch up and chat, like we did in the "good old days" when we had our accountability meetings. She asked me about my spiritual senses of this place, of London, of Europe in general. I guess I have to say that Europe, to me, feels darker than the US, in a spiritual way. It's hard to describe, it just seems, I think, that the focus over here is elsewhere. Now, of course, I haven't been everywhere in Europe (and I wasn't a Christian and so wasn't paying attention to "that stuff" when I was all over Western Europe 6 years ago) but from what I remember, it was the same sort of feeling: the unknowing lostness, the blindness, the chase-after of other things...essentially idolatry. (Not that we don't do this in the US, it's just, to me, more blatant....)
This is all of us who walked down the river: (from left to right), me, Carrie, Marta (YWAM leader from Portugal but speaks in an English accent), Rebekah (from Edinburgh, Scotland, on Carrie's DTS), and Sara (from Minneapolis, on Carri's DTS). Carrie and I paused only for pictures, and continued talking about spiritual things (which was AMAZING. I LOVE this sort of thing!!) Carrie has said that she's felt a heaviness here in London, more so than in America. A friend of mine, when she got back from traveling the world a few months ago, said similar things: "In Africa, they're hungry for the Gospel. In Asia, they're interested in hearing about it. In America, they're angry at religion. In Europe, they're apathetic." What's great is that I used to be exactly like that - "Good, God can exist, but he can exist "over there" and I'll be "over here" and that's fine. We just won't bother each other." At least, if you're mad, it means you care, or you're paying attention. Apathy is really hard to work with. In Camden, though, it's different: we saw lots of Ouija boards, and I saw some tarot cards, and there is just more darkness, and a desperate sort of searching for something other than what any part of the world they know can offer.
It's ok, though, because God is still in this place. This is something I love about Europe - there is more freedom here, it seems, in some ways than in the country I'm from. This is a wax "seal" on a tree that says "God" on it - this was taken by Sara to mean that we SHOULD get on the strange Italian guy's little canoe who was convinced we were "going the wrong way"...but actually, there is this sort of thing all over the place in Europe. Not God, necessarily, but freedom. I was talking with Marta about some of the laws in Europe - especially in relation to driving (it really is a free-for-all beyond NYC in London when it comes to the roads...), and I was saying how "jay-walking" (which I had to explain to her since people dash across the street anywhere they please so much that there actually isn't a "rule" about cross walks, they're simply a "suggestion") is illegal in the US and I've known people to get tickets for it. She was horrified at this, and went off on how she's suspected that the US is more about control than freedom like it proports to be (she gave other examples, like how, if you declare a party on a voting ballot, you have to vote consistent with that party or something and our healthcare system...).
While I sort of disagree with that interpretation (I think it's less about control than it is about money, especially when it comes to healthcare - and it's not just the US), I LOVE hearing about what other people think about the US. I don't want to be ignorant of the world my country tries to police, and in which appears insensitive and apathetic to anything not of its own. I realize this can be an offensive position to take, but some of the stereotypes of Americans are not totally unfounded and I'm just glad that this all appears to be changing. A church elder and dear friend of mine told me right before I peaced out that since things could not have been worse for Americans overseas a few years ago, things can only have been getting better, especially since Obama became president (whatever you think of Obama, I've learned that the foreign opinion of him is generally VERY high, at least in the UK), so really, now could be a good time to go to Europe. I think, at least on the river walk in Camden, I agree...