What Is And What Should Never Be

We walked off the plane and straight to the bank. Not quite, but almost. When we arrived, we had a list of things we needed to get done and we figured we'd get them done right away. One month and four attempts later and finally have a bank account. Now to get funds transferred to it.... Things that we thought would take a morning have taken days and things we thought would take days have taken weeks. I'm not exactly "chill" under these circumstances. It has given me a new perspective on how hard it is for anyone, here or in the states of wherever, who doesn't have an ID or a utility bill or a bank account due to any number of circumstances, because you basically can't get any of these things until you have these things. We love it here, but as we get settled and kind of before we get started, I keep feeling like we aredoing a lot but not accomplishing anything. So for my own morale and record, here are some things we have done in our first month in Ed

All of us need a little assurance. Each of us wants to know that we’ve made the correct decisions, whether large or small. Additionally, many of us want to know that when we’ve made poor decisions, there are still paths available to take us back to where we need to be. Each Sunday I sit in the center of St. Giles Cathedral as the congregation sings and celebrates her faith together. I often find myself captivated by the east window as my eyes and mind wander in search for something that will speak to me. It is the stunning window pictured below; a 19 th century stained-glass depiction of the ascension of Jesus Christ atop his crucifixion. The window falls within a series reflecting the Gospel narratives. Whether the craftsman (James Ballantine) understood the theological significance of the window, I do not know, but one would be hard pressed to find a more comforting and encouraging image to impress upon a congregation as they commune around the Holy Table each week. Nothing

Before Craig's school and work officially began, we took a quick trip to Iona. Columba is the dude (saint) most associated with Iona--coming from Ireland, he established a monastery on Iona, and is basically credited with bringing Christianity to Scotland. Iona is known as a spiritual place, even a "thin place" where, essentially, heaven meets earth. What I like most about the Abbey at Iona is that it is not merely a shrine to the past, but an active congregation very much engaged in living faithfully in the present. We visited on a very wet and windy day. After a very British-seeming lunch of cheese and onion pasties, the rain sort of let up for our stroll around the island, which was picturesquely gray and dreamy. To get to Iona, we took two trains, two ferries, and a bus! Our trains took us from Edinburgh --> Glasgow --> Oban, a small and charming seaside town. If you ever find yourself there, their distillery tour is a good one.

I was prepared to joke about leaving the country because of who was elected. I was prepared to be self deprecating about my American ways. I was not prepared for the amount of lament, grief, anger, and anxiety I'd be experiencing this year, or for how fresh these emotions would feel each week, sometimes each day, as one crisis then the next had me screaming into the void or on my knees in prayer. I was not prepared to be so grateful to hear Houston mentioned in prayer by UK pastors last week and I was not prepared for how shocked I felt to hear the United States strung together alongside hostile foreign powers in a prayer for peace. I was not prepared to feel so helpless watching from afar. I was not prepared for the sudden panic of wondering if something awful had happened during a span of hours while I was without wifi (news). In some ways I feel like we've escaped some sort of disaster by moving away and in other ways feel like I've abandoned my country--th

Hiya! To the family and friends wanting an update... rest assured, we made it, and with no hassle at all. The same cannot be said of the box we shipped to meet us here (it did make it but with all the hassle. Don't send us anything!! Expect cash via Paypal. We'll accept that ;) Here's us at the airport. We were laughing imagining ourselves walking with all of this through all of this (aka the Fringe Festival-- a month-long art festival that takes over the city and centers on High Street, which we live on the corner of.) image via scottish sun  Anyway, we wised up and took a taxi to our Air BnB for the night, which, unknown to me when I booked it, was literally across the street from our actual apartment! View of our apartment from the cutest Air BnB where you can stay there when you come to visit. Or sleep on our living room floor. There's a cot and an air mattress but we haven't tested them. In the picture, our apartment is the blue door bet