Some of my favorite moments as a tour leader are watching the expressions of our travelers as they first encounter some of these wonders. There is a particular corner where I like to skip ahead just a little so I can savor the expressions as the group rounds the corner and sees the magnificent Eiffel Tower towering above them in all its glory.
It was a really hot day and Kaldi the Ethiopian shepherd was resting in the shade. He looked up and saw that his goats were acting strangely -- it was like they were dancing. He then discovered they had been munching on some nearby berries Kaldi didn't recognize. To his chagrin, the goats didn't particularly want to sleep that night.
You wouldn't be wrong if you called me a fair weather fan, whether it be for our Tennessee Titans or our Nashville SC pro soccer team. But when the World Cup comes along every four years, I sit up and pay attention, perhaps more this year than ever before.
Very few of us would argue with the idea that we're shaped by our culture. Just ask the parent of a kid who spends hours and hours playing video games. And why do we feel the need to dress in style? Where did the phrase "You do you" come from? Culture is based on ideas. And these ideas had to come from somewhere. At some point, someone had an idea rooted in a value -- something they considered important and worthy of devotion.
I've heard a number of people say they've stopped listening to the news because it's so depressing. I get it. If we are tempted to look back on a time that seemed particularly peaceful to us, it might be because we personally weren't facing challenging circumstances, or maybe because things were relatively peaceful in our surroundings, including in whatever country we live in.
One of these great issues of our time is the worldwide refugee crisis. Don't let anyone tell you there are easy answers to the refugee question, let alone the broader, pressing immigration issue. Where we come down on the issue with our students, whatever theirs or our political bent, is this: If they're here, they deserve our kindness and respect and have stories we can learn from.
I'm sure your attention has also been captivated, as mine has, by this week's passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning monarch in the history of Britain. I would be out of my league trying to fully explain the reasons for our fascination with the Royal Family and its accompanying pomp and circumstance; what follows are simply some random thoughts as I process the week's events.
My wife is rereading the second book in the series to prepare for Louise Penny's upcoming novel in which she apparently alludes to things in the earlier books. One of the great things about marriage is having someone to share gold nuggets with when they are discovered. My wife shared this nugget with me this morning, which resonates with me as someone who is consistently burdened by the polarization of our culture.
It's back to school time, and my wife and I are looking forward to welcoming a new group of Global Studies students. One of the requirements of this course, which we designed ourselves a few years ago, is a certain number of what we call field hours. Field hours are local experiences that take them not only outside their normal routine, but more importantly, outside their zone of familiarity.
How much music do you listen to? Do you wake up to it in the morning? Do you listen to it as you drive? Do you like going to concerts every now and then? The city where I live, Nashville, is not called Music City for nothing; the city is awash in recording studios, live music venues, and singer songwriters practicing their craft.
Now imagine a life, a country, where music is outlawed.
In 1996, Christian leader Lynn Green walked with some apprehension into a mosque in Cologne, Germany. He was leading a group of 125 Christians intent on retracing, all the way to Jerusalem, one of the routes of the 13th-century Crusades, making a formal apology to Muslims along the way for the suffering their forebears endured at the hands of the Crusaders.
I imagine you heard the story on the news: First Lady Dr. Jill Biden was speaking at a gathering of UnidosUS, a large Latino advocacy group, meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
I was listening to an interview yesterday with founding executive editor of Wired Magazine, Kevin Kelly. While many of his thoughts are way above my level of intellect, I find it inspiring to listen to big-picture, forward thinkers like him. What struck me about this 70-year-old is his insistence on staying astonished.
As I write this, my wife and I are getting ready to fly to Rome, ahead of the group joining us for the first World to the Wise Cultural Tour since pre-pandemic 2019. We are grateful not just to be traveling again but to be able to take curious souls along with us….. But my feelings this time, as I prepare to leave, are more complicated than usual. I can't deny that my spirits are somewhat dampened by the events of the week.
Ukraine was again in the international headlines this week, not for the obvious reason of its ongoing defense against Russian agression, but because it came out on top in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest.
You meet a girl, you fall in like with her, then in love. You get to know her pretty darn well before committing to spend the rest of your life with her. But what you didn't see coming, just a couple of years down the road, is the awakened enormity of a mother's love, the ferocity of commitment to move heaven and earth to provide a nurturing environment for the new life.
Yes, I take great joy in taking people to some of my favorite places in Europe, and plan to continue doing so. As we speak, we're gearing up for our summer tour after a corona-hiatus. But as I look back at my somewhat lengthy life, I realize some of the experiences that have marked or formed me the most have not been in Western Europe, but in one developing country or another.
I recently saw this John Steinbeck quote at the JFK airport. It immediately resonated with me. Don'g get me wrong -- there are so many destinations that are worth the trip just to see them. But that is a one-dimentional view of travel. This world is made up not only of physical wonders and unending beauty; the very definition of culture is how people see the world and what they make of it.
