Reflections on Bruges: Lost and Found

As a result of my travels, I have decided there is great value in being lost (even though, let's be clear – I'm not a fan). I can't thoroughly articulate what the value is yet: something to do with a tolerance for the unknown. How well such tolerance may serve us, being that all of life is an unknown. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does not leap with wild abandon into the unknown. I am learning, however, to push myself into it (or sometimes it pushes me – and while painful and difficult, I find there are many gifts waiting for us on the other side of courage.

Despite these musings, I was so relieved to find myself in Bruges, where it is hard to lose your way. I enjoyed a much-needed, four day respite from the hard work of being lost (which was often the case in Amsterdam). The Belfry of Bruges, her bells ringing faithfully every quarter of an hour and her elegant face stretching high into the sky, visible from any point in the city, is like a mother beckoning the lost ones home. Between the Belfry and the canals (Just follow the canal, I was so often told) you can always find your way in Bruges. With such a sound center, the freedom to wander the city's intriguing streets abounds. By contrast, in Amsterdam, I was constantly photographing street signs so I could refer back to them, and confusing one church tower with another, though by the end of my time there, I had learned my way around. It strikes me now that only because I was willing to be lost did I ever find my way. Could this be a fundamental part of the amazing grace we often sing of:  If we are not willing to be lost, how can we ever be found?

                                                                                                       

If forty years have taught me anything, it is that there is no single map for life – instead, we make our own and it is only the wisdom of experience that teaches us where to draw our lines. Even when we think we have found the perfect map, life is all too ready to reassure us otherwise. God, for me, is like the bell tower, immovable and forever positioned at the center of the city of my life – a refuge and a guide for me as I wander afoot. How comforting it is to have a center to which you can constantly return when you find yourself feeling lost in life. Are we not all constantly trying to find our way in the world? 

One night in Bruges, I made an intentional journey to the train station. As you might understand from an earlier post, I was determined to have less train stress on my way back to Amsterdam. So after a mind blowing plate of lobster smothered in garlic butter and herbs, served with plenty o' wine (okay, I had to bribe myself onto the bus with a fancy dinner) I headed to central station in the dark. After purchasing my train ticket, I realized the bus was running way less frequently at night. Despite my misgivings, I decided to walk back, having faith that the Belfry would show her face at some point and sing me back home. Indeed, after a left turn, I heard the bells and ten blocks later, I spotted the tower, which guided me back. Isn't it true that we often have to step out into dark and foreign streets on faith alone to find the answers we are looking for? That we sometimes have to wander quite a distance in a new direction before we even know where we are headed?

The Belfry and Market Square

Triumphantly, I made it to the Belfry, where a mysterious blessing awaited. Something different, something amazing was happening in the square that night, where hundreds of chairs were set up facing the Belfry. Instead of its usual time-keeping chimes, the music broke out into deep, thunderous chords of everlasting song. Come to discover, it was an hour long concert, played on a carillon in the tower (this is where the bells are played sort of like an organ on a special keyboard by an actual person). The music rung so deeply and so profoundly, carrying my soul in waves to heights of grateful passion with bold crescendo -- later followed by diminuenco, where my heart was afloat in a peaceful yet remarkable sea. Longfellow describes it better in his poem, The Belfry of Bruges*:

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,

With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sang in the choir;

And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

From a remote bench in the courtyard, sprawled out on my back, I gazed up at the tower – my amazing grace, my source of profound
joy – the joy of not only having been found, but surprised, yet again, by the goodness of God.

*Find the entire lovely poem here: http://allpoetry.com/The-Belfry-Of-Bruges