Street Art & Sacred Spaces

Saturday, August 25th  &       Sunday, August 26th

With the Fringe Festival in full swing, the city proves to be quite a shift from our sleepy little island. The streets are full of performers of all kinds: barely clad jugglers on giant unicycles, musicians with exotic outfits and instruments, ensembles offering sneak previews of their original shows. With 2500 of them to choose from, we head to the half-price queue and begin to map out our entertainment for the weekend. While some of us head out for bus, whiskey, and castle tours in this remarkable city, others of us fill our plate with a smorgasboard of theatrical and comedic offerings.

We head up to the Royal Mile to savor the sites and sounds – this is a city bursting with life and creativity – some of it bizarre, much of it fascinating and amusing. After wandering through a few shops and stopping to watch several street performers, we eventually make it to our first show, a fairly amateur production by a prep school in southern England. We had met the cast in the queue as they described their show to us and so we are invested in them doing well and they put on a good effort. The real treat of the day turns out to be Unmythable, a fast-paced, thoroughly entertaining romp through all of Greek mythology in just an hour. It is clever, the acting is strong, and we are amazed at both the versatility of this three man troupe and our ability to remember most of the stories. In both cases we are there because of the outreach efforts of the ensembles – it is the way of the Fringe – and I find myself longing for some of their evangelistic fervor to rub off on us reserved Bethesdans who, too, have an amazing story to invite others into.

We reconvene for dinner and after trudging along the packed George Street for half an hour, we discover that we are not the only of the thousands of tourists who are hungry and every pub and restaurant has a substantial wait. So we split ourselves into smaller groups to forage for food. The group I am with lands at a restaurant that serves chicken shwarma and kebobs and for a reasonable price, we are out the door refueled for the evening.

We do not get so lucky with our comedy choices for the evening. The Scottish Comedian of 2011 turns out to be fairly humorous but his bits are so regionally-based, that we feel like outsiders who don’t quite get all the contextual references or the jokes (the way I imagine some people experiencing preaching, my own or others, when it devolves into insider theological-speak). The midnight Best of the Best comedy revue starts out promisingly enough; there is an packed house and energized crowd and big name hosting. But it quickly devolves into pretty raw and coarse humor and while there are funny moments – a discourse on all the stuff we buy that we don’t need through Groupon, for example – I am ready to leave at the end without much material that I could ever use in a sermon or even readily admit that I was present for. Still, all in all, a really fun first full day in Edinburgh.

We reconvene the next morning for worship at St. Giles Cathedral, a breathtakingly beautiful space that dates back to the 15th entury (the simpler parish church that pre-dates the present structure was established by 854 AD). The cathedral, with its side chapels, carvings, and beautiful contemporary liturgical banners and paraments is a photographer’s dream and I had spent about an hour there on Saturday, taking it all in. But how different it is to experience the space not as a museum but as a place of worship. Of course, after a week in the 12th century Abbey on Iona, we are old hands at this by now, but it doesn’t grow old. The text is taken from John 6 ("Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.") and the sermon celebrates the staying power of words (a twitter reference in the message seems at once out of place and wonderfully real in this ancient church). The choir sings Herbert Howell’s Gloria in Excelsis as the communion elements are brought forward and we celebrate the Eucharist together, ringing the altar in two groups and drinking from a common (real wine-filled) cup.

 

The rest of the afternoon is filled with more touring, shows, and exploring. Our bus tour includes a stop at the International Book Festival (the third of three festivals that are running concurrently) and I buy the Sunday paper for two pounds twenty pence because it comes encased in a wonderful bag bearing this quote: Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well. In the late afternoon, my fellow UM pastor on the journey, Nicole, and I circle back to St. Paul’s Scottish Episcopal Church where we linger meditatively with our cameras and hearts for nearly a good forty five minutes. Now if you promise not to make to much fun of me, I will share with you that a group of us go to see David Hasselhoff Live (yes, THE Hoff) which turns out to be quite enjoyable. He both alternately pokes fun at himself and basks in the limelight, with iconic video montages of his days with Knight Rider, Baywatch, and singing at the fall of the Berlin Wall. We learn that the slow motion sequences on Baywatch were originally intended to fill space (they lacked production money), that his real dream was always to perform on Broadway (he finally got there at age 48 with a role in Jekyll and Hyde) and that he can actually sing pretty well. A very surprisingly enjoyable night spent somewhere I never imagined myself to be!

 

We regather for one final meal at an Italian restaurant and are quite happy when Anna, our Dutch friend from Iona who had traveled with us to Edinburgh (our new twelfth disciple following the defection of Mary :) ) finally shows up. It has been quite a pilgrimage and there is much laughter and reminiscing around our table. Morning will come quite early for all of us who are catching buses and trains and planes to begin the trek homeward. But for a few more hours and one last game of Flip at Deacon Brodie’s Pub, we hang on to the holy and rich time that we have shared together.