Every book eventually turns its final page. Every sunset eventually releases its final ray on the spreading darkness. And every trip eventually leads to the final day with only an ocean to cross before returning back home.

I'm glad that day has come.

It has been one more incredible journey to add to the past few years of stories and as this one comes to an end, I am leaving having gained more friends then I ever thought possible to obtain in such a short amount of time. From the old spanish man I shared a sleeper car with on my first overnight train to our disney tour guides that lead us through Italy. From those that I shared a meal with during a Turkish circumcision festival to the incredible small group I found myself surrounded by in Taize. This summer has been full of people; incredible, beautiful and diverse people.

And in gaining this new set of individuals to lean on and trust in, I have deepened the most important relationship I have in my life, the one I share with Christ.

I have come to realize that true love is found in communion - communion with god and communion with friends. When we open ourselves up to expose those inner most frustrations, joys, pains, and dreams, we then begin to live life to its fullest. We begin to live the life that god intended for each of us. The challenge is to learn how to open ourselves up to not only our friends, but to god as well.

Standing raw in front of god is not the fluffy picture I sometimes imagine of Jesus sitting under a tree and welcoming all the children to him. Exposing ourselves entirely to god invokes a lot more emotion, such as when Lazarus died. In the story, Jesus goes to where Mary and the others are mourning the death of Lazarus. There, Mary exposes herself, hiding none of her frustrations or feelings, entirely to Jesus.

Mary came to where Jesus was waiting and fell at his feet, saying "Master, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him. He said, "Where did you put him?"
"Master, come and see," they said. Now Jesus wept.

Just as with the kids under the tree, Mary finds herself running towards Jesus and falling in his lap. But not in happiness and joy as the children might be experiencing, but instead in complete frustration, exhaustion and sadness over the loss of her brother. Rather than leaping into Jesus' lap, Mary finds herself collapsing at his feet.

That's what communion requires, that's what a relationship with Christ looks like at times.

Each step along this summer journey has helped me uncover what that relationship looks like for me; each city and town teaching me something different.

As I pack my bags and jot down the final email for friends I plan on keeping in touch with, I have realized that sometimes the simplest of revelations take the longest to fully understand. But of everything that this summer has taught me, one of the most important lessons is this:

Count your days in neither minutes nor hours, but rather smiles and conversations.

It's amazing how quickly I lost track of my time while traveling this summer. In the beginning, I was concerned with how many days I had left on my train pass and when I needed to get from place to place to meet up with certain people. But as time passed, and those concerns disappeared, I began to forget about how much time it had been since leaving Sweden or before returning back home. Instead I found myself dwelling on conversations and smiles. Fortunately, I was able to record a few of those conversations, specifically about sustainability, here. The smiles I will have to work a little better on documenting, but trust me, there were plenty of them :)