19 Days - History

It is becoming apparent to me that this trip is mostly about history. Each place has a different history to tell, but it is all history nonetheless. In Washington DC it is, of course, all about United States History. There are memorials to the great men that shaped our nation. There are memorials to the men who fought and died to preserve what our founding fathers began. There is art that has shaped our country's culture. There are tributes to science, to government, and much, much more. Many times in DC Colby said, "I feel like we are walking by so much history that we don't even know!" The history oozes from every crack and crevice in this place from the preserved Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the meticulously placed tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery.
And now we are sitting in the country that, in a way, gave a painful birth to ours. As Colby and I walked to the neighborhood where we are staying, we realized that there countless buildings here in London that are older than our country! Talk about history! It is mind boggling to think of the generations that have occupied these buildings, even the building where we are staying. Our "old" buildings in Washington state are laughably young by comparison. Of course London also has its national history, but it is so much different. It has so much more depth in time and lavishness with royalty. It has castles and cathedrals that simply can't ever be in the United States, both because of time and a different view of government.

And then there is Iceland. There is a Nordic history to the island which is celebrated, but the beauty of Iceland lays in a totally different kind history - a geologic history that is pressing right up against today. The beauty of Iceland's history is not in buildings (at least no the buildings themselves), but in the glaciers of accumulated snow, the numerous volcanic eruptions and lava flows, the rivers flowing from the glaciers and carving out what the volcanic eruptions created. It is a history built on ancient events, but they are in a constant state of alteration by more current events. All of it works in a magical way that, if you choose to see it, is a fantastic tribute to God's creative power.

Yet to come is France, which, for me, holds a different kind of history. I am not going to Paris and I am not taking in many of the traditional sights of France. For me the trip to France is much more personal, a chance to see where my father landed on Utah Beach in World War Two and to talk to my son about what his grandfather did in the war. It is an opportunity to remember the sacrifices of my father and his family, not to mention many families like his, by visiting the memorials and museums in Normandy.

The personal history theme will continue in the Netherlands. There I will meet and stay with a distant cousin, linked by a common ancestor five generations ago. A very different kind of history that allows total strangers to share a common bond because a distant familial link. There is something especially cool about that and I have only now come to appreciate it. I will also be able to visit a gravesite that few in my family have been able to - the grave of Bill Wayenberg who I was never able to meet because his plane was shot down over Holland in World War Two. Visiting his grave was the last thing my father did before returning home after the war. I can't imagine the emotion and anguish he must have felt and it is sobering to think that Colby and I will stand in the footsteps of my father, where his war finally came to an end.


I take history for granted far too much, all kinds of history, probably most of us do. It is a huge blessing, though, that this trip is making it all much more personal and meaningful to me. Being in these places is helping understand not just its importance, but it's beauty.