Atlanta knows how to celebrate Juneteenth. As God would have it, I am here in the midst of it.

It started with my best friend wanting to see the Amy Sherald exhibit at the High Museum. And since we were here, why not add a WNBA game on the next day? And somehow missing in the midst of the planning the significance of our travel dates.

So here we are. In these days of America pausing to reexamine the truth of who we are in our 250th year.

It may be fighting cages on the lawn of the White House. It may be corporate sponsors of national events. It may be about starting a war costing billions of dollars and with more lives lost than we can count instead of funding health care.

In Atlanta, I was reminded of what else the truth of America is.

It’s a city full of people wearing a diversity of shirts celebrating the sin of “owning” people finally being abolished when all had been informed of the law’s enactment two and one half years before.

It’s a museum offering free admission for all and filled with people in colorful dress. My very best friend and I were almost the only pale skins in a rainbow sea.

It’s viewing an exhibit of art created by a woman from a small Georgia town honoring the people too often overlooked.

It’s people pausing with deep emotion to view portraits of our former First Lady juxtaposed with one of a woman murdered by police when they entered the wrong house.

It’s going to a women’s basketball game where the players have epitomized what it means to be strong women and who have worked to make sure those opportunities are available to all, particularly through voting.

It’s singing Lift Every Voice And Sing after the National Anthem.

America. The Beautiful.

I have a friend that when he calls he almost always first asks if I’m in Iceland. Others ask what is it about Iceland that draws my best friend and me to return and return yet again.

There is the obvious:

So. Much. Beauty. (Insert 5 million photos from my phone here)

Puffins, of course.

The coffee and the food. (Insert several thousand photos from my phone here)

The respect for the world we’ve been given. Clean air due to thermal power. Naturally pure hot and cold water from the tap. The culture of reuse, recycle, repurpose.

The people: almost all that we meet are friendly and ever so wanting to help. Give a moment, and we launch into delightful conversations. The children are taught English in school, and that not only makes it easy for those from away to get around, it’s also part of the culture of openness and adaptability that thrives here.

It’s not my home, but Iceland is a place that allows me to center in order to face the challenges of home when I return to the United States.

I had a sense of the healing this country gives me on this trip.

When I was here after Hurricane Harvey, I was battered and bruised. Something about the sound of the rushing water at Godfoss broke open a locked place inside me, and I had quite a melt down.

Yesterday, I went and stood in the same place where I had fallen apart in 2017. I felt peace-filled joy, and gave great thanks to God for God’s healing—given with generosity in so very many ways, including this place in God’s own creation.

This is part of the “why Iceland.”

Eastertide travel has begun:

Sewanee, Tennessee

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Kingwood, Texas

Sugarland, Texas

And now Baltimore, Maryland, on my way to my

Seventh! Trip! To! Iceland!

My first trip was in 2016, just days after my home flooded in the Tax Day flood.

My second trip was in 2017, only days after Hurricane Harvey, and my newly restored home had flooded. Again. The parish where I was serving encouraged me not to plan another trip to Iceland.

My third trip, 2018, entitled, “Not Iceland,” were shorter stays bookending my first visit to the Faroe Islands.

The fourth trip, 2021, was another bookend to my return visit to the Faroes.

The fifth trip, 2022, was the one where I learned about Icelandic hospitals as my trip home was delayed due to Covid.

The sixth trip, 2024, was the one where my flight from Chicago to Keflavik was cancelled after a lengthy delay, and a new way had to be found two days later out of Minneapolis on a different airline.

I’m waiting for my very best traveling friend to meet me here in Baltimore. Our flight to Iceland leaves this evening. Of course, it being Iceland, nothing is certain until it actually happens.

But somehow, it’s always wonderful.

It was heart-tumbling to hear that we are at war, again, as I drove past the Pentagon on my way to Arlington National Cemetery and the Women’s Military Memorial to serve as the clergy presence at the celebration of life of my beloved cousin Colonel Patricia Ann Hess Jernigan.

My cousin, Pat, died on the Feast of the Epiphany. There are few women for whom I have greater respect. The celebration of life was put together by her huge community of women veterans. The final internment of her cremains will be in over a year at Arlington National Cemetery. Sadly, there are many deceased veterans and those killed in action ahead of her.

We gathered in DC on Friday and had an evening with family that was full of story telling and tears and laughter and even first steps of one of the youngest members of our family.

The day of the service we met at Arlington National Cemetery, going through security, and then taking the short walk to the Women’s Military Memorial. Our first view inside was of Pat’s photo and military biography which was featured at the entrance to the museum.

I don’t have enough words in my vocabulary to express the emotions I experienced as six remarkable women veterans told stories about the extraordinary impact that Pat had on our nation’s freedom. With even more accounts from family and friends during the open mike, our time of honoring Pat lasted nearly two hours.

My conversations with Pat in the last few years, such a woman of integrity and truth, had grounded our talks about the state of the current goings on in our country. As a woman who had served our country with such generosity, her perspective mattered greatly to me.

As I fly back home today, taxing and lifting off past the Capital building, the Washington Monument, and the National Cathedral, my heart is full.

Mourning with my family and the extraordinary women who have served faithfully at the loss of a woman who epitomized the best American values.

Grieving wholeheartedly the decisions being made by the leaders of our country which are contrary to those best American values.

Grateful for the laughter and conversation with my beloved family.

Knowing that my hope is in God. And God alone.