wrapping it up

Dang: How to wrap up two weeks of awesomeness in a single blog post? Maybe I’ll start with the assignment.

So, the first question I wanted to explore had to do with how “Lutheran” the Icelandic Church is and to what extent the people express that identity. I learned through my reading (here I’m referring to Haldor Laxness) that the church became Lutheran sort of overnight with a change of government. Given that, I wondered how seriously people took the adjective “Lutheran.” Turns out, things weren’t quite as simple as Laxness’s characters and narrator seemed to imply. We learned that many people in Iceland were excited about the news of the Reformation and were keen to implement some of the changes. I won’t delve too deeply into issues I don’t understand, but there were some beheadings of Catholic officials at Skálholt related to this. The curious reader can look this up. Interesting history. In any case, the mass conversion seems to be a bit of a mixed bag, but over time, people seem to have more or less “gone with it.”

I don’t know that anyone would necessarily call himself Lutheran, per se, nor did I find many people referring to the Confessions (bless you for that, by the way, Icelanders!). Furthermore, church structure seems more “Catholic” than what I am used to seeing in the States (i.e. the dominant model is concerned more with parishes than with congregations, bishops seem to have more “authority” there than here, the liturgy would be considered very “high church” to the American Lutheran observer).

In the end, I’m not sure how important it is to the everyday person to think of himself as a “Lutheran,” as such. I observed genuinely Christian diakonia, hospitality, and (in terms of the Haitian crisis) readiness to respond simply because it was the right thing to do. I think that’s more important than being a Confessions-quoting Lutheran. Not mutually exclusive, for sure, but priorities must be observed.

My second question had to do with the role of traditions (such as food) in terms of shaping national identity. Would Icelanders lose something if they didn’t “get” to eat rotten shark, rams’ testicles, whale blubber soaked in sour whey, smoked tongue and sheep-head cheese? As an outsider, my inclination is to say that the only thing they would stand to lose would be the common experience of being culturally “hazed,” like some kind of a frat-prank. But as I think more about it, and after talking to Gunnar, it seems deeper than this. When Gunnar told us that the taste of the whale fat took him back to childhood, I made the connection. This is a deeply ingrained tradition – a continuity over time that reminds people of where they came from. These are survival foods, and I think that there’s something primally important about remembering how close we all are, in spite of modern technology and sensibilities, to survival mode. It’s a close tie with the land and the sea as resources for life. And the way the Icelanders shared these traditions with us was beautiful, even if as insensitive Yanks, we couldn’t always fully appreciate it.

My last question had to do with maintaining a sense of identity in the face of modernization and the tension between staying traditional for the sake of drawing tourists and the desire to have the “finer” things. To a large degree, this question was ill-conceived. Icelanders, for the most part, are city-folk. Tradition remains in the language, the foods and customs mentioned above, and things of that nature. It’s not the same as in Ireland where one thinks of stone fences and thatched rooves (OK, spellcheck: “roofs.” Whatever.) as cultural holdovers from 2 centuries ago. Certainly both countries draw tourists based on the natural beauty of the landscapes. I also saw some parallels between how Ireland’s west coast has been commercialized (see my post on the Cliffs of Moher and the ridiculous “virtual cliff experience” in the unnecessary visitors’ centre) and how some of Iceland’s naturally stunning areas like Gullfoss and Geysir (and the whole concept of the Blue Lagoon) are somewhat defaced by tourist shops where one can buy a crappy hamburger from a guy whose only two languages are Russian and English. But I think, for the most part, this question was a wash. I owe it to my ignorance of Iceland prior to my trip. Now that I think of it, I’m still quite ignorant. More trips in the future will be necessary to right this atrocious wrong. Anyone want to help me fund some travel?

So, for good or ill, those were my 3 questions. But even more than those things, what will remain foremost in my mind is the generosity of the people we met (in the face of economic uncertainty), the welcoming hospitality of those same folks, the companionship of my fellow travelers, C3PO getting his picture taken at some of Iceland’s holiest sites, our hosts’ sense of humor (Q: “Where are we?” A: “Well, first you’re on Earth, then you’re in Iceland.”) and a bajillion good memories of the faithful people of God’s church in Iceland. I hope it doesn’t conjure too many negative connotations when I say, "Guð blessi Ísland.”