Glendalough

Glendalough

The new cover picture on my Facebook page is capturing the imagination of some people. In fact, one viewer is making a meme out of it.

That picture was taken at Glendalough, an ancient monastic settlement in Ireland. The day my church group and I went, it was raining and cool, as was usual in October. After alighting from the bus, we struggled up a grassy path and at last reached the top of the mountain. We were in a cemetery where some headstones were upright, some had succumbed to time and lay on the ground. A monk’s round house sat in the cemetery and there was where we Baptists congregated, the rain falling outside, and sang “Amazing Grace.”

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I was thankful for my raincoat and umbrella and glad I had my camera, as I usually did. The picture on my Facebook page, seen through the open window of a crumbling wall, was used as a bell tower, a storage for food, or a watch tower to warn of approaching visitors. It had six floors within, a window on each floor. At the top were four windows facing the four directions.

Yew trees dotted the cemetery here and there, low bushes, green grass everywhere, and in spite of the crowd of tourists, all around me was the peace of many centuries of devout people who had escaped to this place to study, to meditate, and to be close to God. I was there, I was a part of it and perhaps some of my ancestors had walked these very paths. I loved it all.

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http://pen-l.com/Mystery.html

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