Good Directions

Greetings from Saintfield, Northern Ireland! I'm here with Sally and Terry. Which brings to mind the beginning of that worn out  joke - "So a Buddhist, a Catholic Priest, and an Episcopalian walk into a bar". ( I know that was lame but I just had to say it!)

 

Yesterday was the end of the Spiritual Direction conference in Dublin. I'll talk about that when I return home but for now I want to tell stories.  Something I learned at the conference was this line:  "all stories are true and some of them have actually happened." 

Traveling alone gives a person constant opportunties to take relational risks.   You have the choice to engage with other human beings or not. Sometimes i have to force myself to approach a stranger as it's easier to step into an unknown situation and stick my nose in a book (plus our technology gives us ample opportunites to keep arms distance apart from one another).

When I walked into the restaurant yesterday morning there was only one woman sitting there.   I walked over to her table and introduced myself. She invited me to share our meal together and that is how I met Sister Pat, an Anglican nun, who lives in Arizona. During the course of our conversation she invited me to grab a taxi with her to attend the 8:30 Eucharist at a nearby Church of Ireland. Great idea! So we called for a cab and as we slid into the back seat, Sister Patricia handed our young driver the directions the woman at the Reception desk had written out for her. He read it several times before asking if we had any other information. We did not.  He said he'd never heard of the church but off we went. 

Within 5 minutes we were in a neighborhood that our driver seemed to be familiar with.  Right before depositing us inside the church gate he grabbed a pen and wrote something on the top of the directions. Handing it back he said, " When the next driver comes to pick you up to take you back to the hotel,  tell him that this place is right across from Moria's pub. That should make it a lot easier to find!!!" :)

(the photo is of Sister Pat in front of St. Bridget's in Dublin.)