Immersion

I had meant to write this post a day or two ago, but during those last few days it was hard to take time away from conversation with our Icelandic hosts in order to blog. That means that this post is coming to you from Dubuque, Iowa, and not from Iceland.

Paul told you in his last post about how Pastor Guðný Hallgrímsdóttir, the pastor for people with disabilities in the Icelandic Church, took us for a swim in the sea at Nauthólsvík Monday night. That experience was both an actual immersion and a cultural immersion. For some Icelanders, swimming in the sea is a regular thing, and the hot tub at the beach (they have hot tubs at the beach!) was almost full with people relaxing, and then occasionally putting on neoprene booties and gloves and walking down the beach to take a dip in the North Atlantic (35° F). For the record, Guðný and her sister, who was also there, both said that we Americans were “heroes” because we went into the sea without gloves and socks. Anyway, the point of the story is that we were able to experience something that was very foreign to our culture, but a part of Icelandic life.

Throughout our trip, we were privileged to have that kind of inside look into Icelandic culture and the Icelandic church. As guests of the National Church, and of Pastor Gunnar Sigurjónsson (the world’s strongest priest!), we were able to visit pastors (or priests, to follow the Nordic usage) in their homes and at their work, and talk with them about life and the church. We were able to worship with them, and we even were invited to attend a funeral. Going to a funeral was an important part of the experience, since we had been talking quite a bit since our visit to the funeral and cemetery office about how the Icelanders seem to have a much healthier and more natural attitude toward death, with none of the chemical embalming and fancy concrete vaults that we in the U.S. use to deny the reality of death. The funeral of Sigríður Jónsdóttir at Bústaðakirkja, even though none of us knew her or anyone else at the funeral, was crucial to us having a more complete picture of life in the Icelandic Church, and it was moving to be surrounded by strangers, and at the same time sisters and brothers, grieving and celebrating the life of a loved one.

A couple of us were further immersed in a different side of Icelandic church life and culture when we were invited to a party with theology students from the University of Iceland, where all potential pastors in Iceland study. It was a pretty typical student party, except that shortly after we arrived the students held a house blessing, because the host of the party had recently moved in. There were a few prayers, a scripture reading, and some hymns, including the immensely popular “Heyr, Himna Smiður” (“Hear, Heaven’s Creator”), which we heard in several different settings over the course of the trip. It was written by a chieftain named Kolbeinn Tumason shortly before he died at the Battle of Víðines in 1208. In the U.S., we rarely sing 800-year-old hymns at parties.

Some of us even got first-hand experience with pastoral care in Iceland, by receiving it from Gunnar. Gunnar was not only our host, teacher, and tour guide for the time we were there; he was also our pastor.

In the public swimming pool, the Blue Lagoon, Gunnar’s hot tub, and the icy sea, we were immersed not only in water, but in the community life around us. It’s fitting that a group of seminarians traveling to learn about another church in another culture should spend so much time in the water: we have been called into community with our sisters and brothers in Iceland through the waters of our baptism, and that so much of our trip was spent in, around, and thinking about water in one way or another is a powerful reminder of that. With that in mind, my next, and probably final, post will be about my top ten water-related moments of our trip to Iceland.

God of all people, we praise you for the gifts of cultural exchange, conversation, community and communion. Draw us together across all boundaries, and grant that the bonds we have formed with our sisters and brothers in Iceland may grow stronger, even as we find ourselves once again far away. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.