The day we arrived, they sent us out on
our first Race, a scavenger hunt in Dublin with our teams. The race day served a dual purpose of getting a chance to see Dublin’s many tourist attractions and also the very important task of keeping us awake. Not an easy thing to do considering we arrived at 6 am, 10 pm in California.
We saw a lot in Dublin, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin Castle, but my
favorite was the Book of Kells, not the book so much as the history
behind the book.
“[The young monk], [15 or 16], received a tonsure, or shaved head,
which in the secular world was the mark of a slave.”
“He also received
a new name.”
The Book of Kells was written on the skins of about 185 calves.
The most expensive and exotic pigment, Lapis Lazuli, used in the
Book of Kells was known to be found in only one place in the world, a
mine in northeast Afghanistan.
Snakes were considered a symbol of Christ’s resurrection because of
how they shed their skin.
Peacocks symbolize the incorruptibility of Christ because of the
belief that their flesh did not putrefy after death, and also because
of the fact that their feathers come in the spring.
But it wasn’t an easy day. Most of us
were running on two or three hours of sleep. On the coach ride back,
my teammate Matt’s head was drooping down slowly until eventually his
neck was parallel to the floor.
In the dining room of a nearby hotel,
we collapsed in front of a meal of lasagna. We talked and laughed and
ate, but all in a desperate, tired sort of way. Despite all of this
though, this was it, the beginning, this was what we had been waiting
months for, what we had been praying for, what God had called us to.
Jimmy, one of the leaders of the
program, reminded us in the midst of our jet lagged exhaustion, “You
guys are going around the world. Don’t forget that that is awesome!”
