London, episode 2. In which I am given pause.

As I began this final week of the school year and the end of my 28th year in education, I also began looking forward to that great American institution, summer vacation.  I started the week reminiscing about trips I've been fortunate to share with Mari and trips to London and the UK in particular whose treasured memories I have been trying to stitch together to share with you.  Unfortunately, this same joyful week also began with news of yet another crime of senseless and violent hate in a country that I have loved from afar for so many years and that I've been blessed to visit and enjoy several times.

Our London2012 experience especially was unlike any other, meeting and celebrating with people from all over this precious planet, even as we often stepped on one another's toes waiting in line for fast food, (much needed) bathrooms, and secure admission to majestically manmade athletics venues.  Celebrating with people from all over our "pale blue dot" (more below).  Celebrating athletes' accomplishments and triumphs through seemingly superhuman strength, dedication, and discipline.  Characteristics celebrated individually and exemplified even more profoundly through humanity's ability to harmonize with and work with fellow team members to achieve a common goal.

That is why people from all walks of life gather together.

To celebrate life.  (Not destroy.)

To spread joy.  (Not hate.)

These are the reasons why I perpetually look forward to travels with my adventurous wife.

Too much beauty and bounty has been created and provided the world over not to share it with one another.

My sincerest compassion

for all victims (far and wide)

of this week's Manchester attack.

I look forward to continuing my look back at our London travels next blog time as much as I look forward to our upcoming London revisit, part of a sweeping summer adventure that includes visits to cities and countries gloriously ancient yet exhilaratingly new to us.  I am more excited than ever to embrace the unknown because I am always assured through our travels that the one certainty that remains steadfast in a world that appears dangerously uncertain is that you will always find warm welcomes from merry wanderers thrilled to exchange sincere smiles (and cameras) with you.

After seeing Voyager 1's 1990 "Pale Blue Dot" photograph of Earth in its immensely profound universal context, Carl Sagan referred to Earth as "a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark."  He poignantly postulated, "In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."  In Pale Blue Dot, his follow-up to Cosmos, Sagan reflected, "There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.  To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Amen.

Read more of Carl Sagan's reflections and examine the photo again to be reminded of our ridiculously miniscule place in the universe.

planetary.org/explore/space-topics/earth/pale-blue-dot.html