Of the cities we’ve been to so far, Belfast is the only one I feel like we didn’t see enough of. Belfast is just budding and just booming when it comes to tourism. The Giants Causeway, coastal castles and castle ruins, and the Irish Sea coast itself are far worth the trip. And the city is coming into its own as well. I could see Belfast becoming like Prague or, to me, Budapest – the kind of city that doesn’t get talked about a whole ton until all of a sudden it does and it becomes the new jewel of Europe.
I loved Belfast immediately because it is a city of wander, a city of longing. C.S. Lewis spent his childhood in Belfast and so I thought it appropriate to get “Surprised by Joy”, his autobiographical story of coming into faith. In it, he talks about the hills surrounding the city of Belfast and how they were the first to elicit longing for he and his brother.
The port of Belfast does the same thing. Most of the cities we’ve been to have rivers through them that you know end up in the sea, even if you can’t see the sea. Belfast is different. You can see the river Lagan open up, it is part of the landscape. Barges and ferries await to wisp you off to places unknown just as readily as they arrive from places unknown. The Titanic was built in Belfast and the assembly of ships has been a part of the skyline, the industry, and the imagination of this city for years.
These are the kinds of things that made me fall in love with traveling. It is the beauty of a place and the hint of Something More. The realization of longing and a desire to see the diverse manifestations of glory within the global borders of this world.
For example, the City hall building in Belfast is one of my favorites we have seen so far. Kylie knew about and somehow didn’t drag me to it but held her cool and casually suggested a couple turns. And then, there it was, the kind of beauty you don’t even know you are looking for until you turn just the right corner.
One of our racers asked me which place on our trip through Europe I was most excited to see. And I told her that I most excited about the places I had no expectations for, the turns that would take me by surprise. City Hall was one of those and it is, in my opinion, the best kind of beauty, the kind you didn’t even know you were looking for, the kind that takes your breath away.
Belfast reminds me of my relationship with my wife, in that way, and of my journey with the Lord. It is more diverse and more lovely than I am ever prepared for it to be. How can the same place be full of such hospitable welcome, like a home, and yet at the same time, so full of a suggestion, of a nudging, as in the call for exploration?
Belfast has it all. The green hills pop up in the distance between certain buildings and remind you of things too beautiful for man to have made. The sea both beckons you outward into adventure and inward into the safety of home. As a city, Belfast does that most difficult and humblest of things, it says “this is who we are, come and see”, while at the same time saying, “there is a world bigger than here, can you imagine what it might be.” It is a strange dichotomy, but a lovely one. And I think we both felt it while we were there.
One of the hardest things about Kingdom living is the tension, if it can be called a tension, between being thankful for all this moment is and desperately desiring more. We felt this in Belfast, thankful to have been there at all and for the amazing sites we saw (the Giants Causeway day is one we will never forget), but also unsure how many days it would take in Belfast to feel like we had had ‘enough’. We are thankful and we long for more, such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
