Everywhere you ventured (within the old city) there was an over-arching feeling of transcendence. The city seems to have established it’s independence from the rest of the world – emitting a perpetual feeling of timelessness. I was wowed by centuries-old architecture drawing influences from many cultures and time periods. Dark, shadowy towers and intricate gothic spires stretching into the evening sky. The plethora of inimitable restaurants and bistros with coloured awnings and blazing patio warmers were just as varied in offerings as they were in style. Sweet melodies – from classical to musicals – were on offer daily at various locations around the city. It’s to be expected from a city which drew many of the composers we refer to as ‘great’ in our day. In its own way, Prague daily pays homage to those musicians that enriched its borders for so long.

There’s a dark side to the city too. It’s one that draws tourists, albeit
possibly not as many as those who come for the ‘lighter’ attractions on
offer. There are unbelievably packed cemeteries with rough-hewn
tombstones marking the graves of so many Jews that died in the city, along the Vltava River. It’s sickening to observe the irregularly placed,
overlapping grave markers. Respect for the dead, or those who mourn
them, gave way to expediency and racial discrimination. It’s said that
Hitler, in his sick, twisted interest had planned to create a museum
dedicated to ‘an extinct race’ in Prague. He had planned to ‘honour’ the
Jews after systematically killing each and every one. By deliberate
action, and a sort of psychological posturing, we strive to make sense of the past by dragging it again and again into the present.

What impacted me the most as I strolled the streets of Prague with my wife and daughter was that I will soon be gone. It was a somber and incredibly sobering five days. A very ‘Ecclesiastes’ experience. There is wonderful profit being reminded that we are but wind passing through the fingers of God . . it’s called perspective. A cold shower first thing in the morning has a similar effect. It’s when you tell yourself you’ll soon be food for worms and that everyday from this point on MUST mean something. Near the end of the film Pulp Fiction, Samuel Jackson’s character has a similar experience when he describes what he called a ‘moment of clarity’. Those few moments we are granted are like diamonds in the hand. Precious. Valuable. To be treasured and protected.

It’s simply too easy to be wound (or to tightly wind ourselves) into
irritable, explosive, dissatisfied people. Too easy to get ‘stuck in a
moment’ that doesn’t give us more life, but steals it from us. Too easy
to settle for lives that are so unlike the lives we were meant to be
living. It’s far too easy to squander the precious, short-lived gift
called ‘living well’. If we’re honest with ourselves, we have grown too
attached to the small lives we lead. Maybe it’s fear of the unknown that holds us back from really living. Maybe it’s our misconceptions about
what really living will really be like. I have few answers and a nagging
hunger for more.

Quoting Paul, Eugene Peterson has re-dressed a portion of the Bible in his opus called the Message which speaks tomes to me. “I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as
plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live
openly and expansively!” (2 Corinthians 6:11-13). We were meant for so much more. The lives many of us live are often times only shadows of the life that Christ intends - that kind of ‘God-infused life’ He pours into those who are like empty cups waiting to be filled.

San Diego band Switchfoot address this issue in their song ‘Meant to Live’: “We were meant to live for so much more, have we lost ourselves, have we lost ourselves . . maybe we’ve been living with our eyes half open, maybe we’re bent and broken . . and everything inside screams for second life.” The equally inspired song ‘Dare You to Move’ adds this to the conversation, “. . the tension is here, the tension is here . . between who you are and who you could be . . between how it is and how it should be . . .”. Thankfully artists like Switchfoot have captured our fleeting moments of clarity in sonic ‘aide memoirs’, which can be the voice of God to those who are listening.

My brief visit to Prague was worth far more than a simple Christmas
get-away. There was a far greater reward that came from it than watching my daughter chomp the head off a chocolate Santa on Christmas morning. It was the gift of a higher viewpoint . . like a cliff edge from which I could see my life with a wide angle lens before re-joining the race on the plains below. It was a little bit of ‘God vision’. These moments come and go like sun between the clouds – but they’re so sweet when they come.

I want it to be true of me as it was of David; “For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep. . .”(Acts 13:36).

What decisions are guiding your life?

He travels throughout the Republic for the Church of Ireland Youth Department [ www.ciyd.org ], spending his spare time working with ‘Dreamers of the Day‘[ www.dreamtoday.org ]. Shane can be reached via the websites or at dreamingbig@hotmail.com