For all of us, does Austria becomes a place of depth, richness and transformation? We hear this from testimonies, but how do our stories truly begin?

In my travels last year, whether on pilgrimage or mission, the question burned: why do we travel?

There is no textbook answer. But for me, it begins with a realization that I heard in my art class: that it is possible to speak of the “heart of a place.”

Had I ever thought of a place opening its heart to me? On a train ride to Munich, Germany, I remember letting my eyes roam the German countryside…the rolling hills and the European-style white and red houses nestled in the valleys. Quite literally receiving them into myself. It was as if the German countryside was extending me an invitation. If the hills could speak, they would have said~ come know my heart.

In my philosophy class, we talked about what it truly means to know a thing. To know a thing…it means to receive something into yourself and let it become a part of you. To truly know something, then, begins with the opening of my heart.

Walk with me through Munich. This is the first trip that we have fully planned by ourselves. Booking the train tickets, running from the school-led tours throughout Salzburg, Austria into a place completely foreign and new to us, but we are the foreign and new.

My surroundings strike me, every moment an encounter, every experience an invitation to know. Walking through the old town marketplace eating a fig… laughing with friends drinking our German beers… playing violin in a tarp-covered Airbnb, some of us still wet from plunging into the river running through the tea gardens at the center of the city…

Open my heart

As these experiences seep in, I receive the invitation to know the heart of the land I am welcomed into. Now, as I am welcomed into the glorious, arcing temple structure within Munich’s St. Peter’s Cathedral, I find my heart drawn out of myself and into something greater.

Open my heart…

It wasn’t until that cathedral, cathedral St. Peter, so luminous and spacious, that this truth became known to me. Known to me upon encountering a temple that communicated the dwelling of the most High, triumphant gold enshrouded, sunlight streaming in to every German corner and pew. Here I am, taking breaths in a new space. A new space… suddenly, like the light filling the expansive cathedral, the light breaks into my heart, the truth becomes so clear; I have the opportunity to be just another passerby in the crowded space of my own thoughts, or I can lay me down and open my heart. To this place, to others, to You.

And so I start praying the Hail Mary in German, attempting to learn. And so simply, I feel the German Hail Mary coming into spaces in my heart that it’s never been… and a new love is born.

Open my heart… to Love.

How hard it is to embrace this love, when assertiveness and chaos is the air we breathe! When we resist instead of receive, when we assert instead of accept. Overwhelmed by the Marianplatz of Munich, I am thrust into a whirlwind of accordion buskers and a piano man, of black-clad dancing girls and the clanging and ringing of massive bells brightly painted figures rotating to the tempo, of tipsy men crowding a band of bass players. How do I navigate this experience, of all things vying for my attention? My heart does not know where to turn.

Later that afternoon, we visited some tea gardens in the heart of the city. People dive into the river cutting through the gardens, and so do my travel buddies. We laugh as they struggle to hold on and keep their heads above water. There’s a waiting point in the river and they’re clinging on (to the rope and their pants) as the water rips, tugs, forcefully, assertively… before letting go ride the waves.

Is it too much to say that I see now the analogy for life?

All this emphatic force pressuring us breeds a struggle to hold on, a struggle for life.

And we feel the struggle as we hold on, forcing our way and missing the invitation to know, which is receiving instead of grasping.

So then suddenly, as a hand releasing a rope, we let go.

I let go quietly in that temple in the heart of Munich.

And we let go quietly in that temple in our heart of hearts.

Open, we receive…

We receive and accept that love that transforms.

Open my heart to Love.

How the heart of a place
Draws out my heart
What an honor the land gives us in
Laying its heart out before us.
In touch it with ours,
We find our heart.

This is only the beginning.

It is the beginning of a tale that ushers us deeper into our own hearts and the heart of Love. And this heart of Love is fertile ground. It is the soft and nourishing soil where our experiences take root. We are born again, delight and sorrow takes on a richer dimension. We have received life anew, beginning with the stirring of our hearts