The water crashes on the boulders beneath me in no particular order,
Each wave, colliding violently with the immovable force in front of it.
The water churns below and frequently demonstrates its all-encompassing power.
 
Yet in the crashing, colliding, and churning,
A glimmer of sunlight reflects off of each crest.
A shimmer of beauty in the middle of repetitive violence.

Off the coast of Cinque Terre, Italy

I wish we would learn how to see those shimmers of beauty more easily, but sometimes we get such a sensory overload from the violence in the world that the beauty seems to disappear. I think this is one of the keys that I have come to learn from Taize. By developing a lifestyle of simplicity and communion with god, I have come to see those moments of beauty so much more clearly.

After leaving Taize, I traveled south towards Italy once again. I stayed a night in Torino, then met up with a friend of mine in Genova and then spent the following day hiking Cinque Terre - five fisherman villages all within hiking distance along the cliffs on the ocean. I have really seen the beauty in simplicity here at Cinque Terre. As the sun was setting and the small towns were quieting down, I found a secluded area of rock along the cliffs and laid down to watch the sky paint itself over. As I laid there, a single fisherman paddled his small boat out into the open water and when he was far enough from the town, stopped and laid back to watch the setting sun. I don't think he even noticed me along the coast as I watched with him, but it felt like I was sharing that moment with a good friend, even though we didn't talk a word and knew nothing about one another.

My time traveling alone has been an incredible experience, and one that I will cherish for quite some time. But as I sat on the cliff, with the fisherman and his boat drifting out in front of me, I realized the importance of sharing these moments with close friends and family. Perhaps that is why I enjoy writing posts for this blog so much, so that you all can share in my experiences.

After my time in Cinque Terre, I traveled briefly to Pisa to see the tower and then flew off to London to help a friend with a workshop at an Arts and Music festival in England. I think this experience in itself needs its own dedicated post, but it has been filled with creative and whacky people. But in the middle of the hecticness, I also found myself in a tent where Ian Goldin, former VP of the World Bank, was giving a speech on humanity's future in 2050.

With any presentation on this subject, it had it's fair share of scary ideas and possibilities - from pandemics to conflicts, and climate change to population rises. Yet in all the violent images and scenarios presented, I managed to find peace in knowing that their will always be a simplistic beauty to be found in all of those situations. Beauty will continue to flourish, despite the number of weeds that may try to crowd it out.

I wish I knew the secret that would change our society from one which thrives off of negative ideas to positive ones, but it seems that news programs have done the research and found that we for some reason prefer negative and conflicting stories to those which are uplifting. Perhaps we like hearing about all the crap in the world because it makes our own personal crap seem not as bad. But in always presenting the crap, we forget to look for the beauty.

Maybe the secret is simpler than I thought, and is simplicity itself. If we learned to slow life down and focus on simplicity, then we may learn to trust more fully in God and see the world as he intended it to be created.

Maybe simplicity is the secret...