It was August 1979. My mother had taken me to the Atlanta airport to catch my flight to London. I remember sitting there, staring out the window wondering, “What have I done?”
For a boy who had grown up in Cherryville, NC, a small town of 5,280 people this was crazy! I was comfortable going to Charlotte. I had even been to Atlanta and Baltimore, but this? I was doing this alone, and I was terrified!
I had been a freshman at Wake Forest University when it was announced that the university was adding a house in London to its international stable. When sign-ups began my sophomore year I went and added my name to the list—much like I did for ACC Basketball Tournament tickets! You didn’t expect to win, but….
In the spring I was invited to a meeting with Dr. McLeod Bryan, a professor in the religion department who was going to take the third group to London. I thought it was an information meeting, but it was a meet and greet to all who were going! I was going to London!
But now, sitting in the airport all my anxiety were dancing in front of me! I could be at Pre-School Retreat with all my friends! I could be getting ready for football season! I could be back home where I know everyone and know my way around!
Instead I was going to London, England. To a city I had just read about. To 9 Steele Road, up the hill from the Chalk Farm Tube stop. That was pretty much all I knew, and truth be told if not for the kindness of two men who helped get me from Gatwick to Victoria Station I might have spent the semester at the airport!
It was the beginning of my world exploding! I divide my life into pre-London and post-London. After London, everything changed! My view of the world, my theology, my life.
The next few months were a time of putting my life back together. It was as if my theology was spread out on a table and I would pick up a piece and see if I wanted to keep it, or throw away. The end result was a theology that was mine. Not perfect, but mine!
And now we are going back. It isn’t the first time, but this one is special. Anita and I are returning for my belated birthday trip. There are some anxieties. I get them every time I fly to another country. (It has to do with my passport—another terrifying/hilarious story!) But this time it doesn’t feel like I am going to a strange and foreign land. In fact, there is a sense that I am going home.
After a few days, it does feel like home! Anita and I went up to Hampstead whereI lived in Worrell House, a gift to Wake Forest University where we lived. We walked in with some parents who had come to visit their daughter who is studying there this semester. We were allowed to walk around and see the changes, the the things that haven’t changed a bit! We dropped in at Sir Richard Steele, the pub that was our relaxing place, where every evening my roommate, Gordon Skeeter, and I would go to have a pint, and throw a game of darts, talking life. We walked around Belsize Park where I bought groceries, went to the library, even went swimming. And with each step I remembered.
And I was home!
There is something about crossing borders that can change your world—if you are open. That is what I have found in all our travels. From London, to Bali, to South Africa, to Prague, to Beirut, to Beijing, to Australia. Each of the places opened my world, my mind, my wonder. Each has taught me something new and different about myself, my thoughts, my theology, my world. Each trip, each place has changed me.
In the memorable words of Louis Armstrong, it is a “wonderful world!"