I took this picture of Lake Balaton, "the Hungarian Sea" on an afternoon when
passing showers stippled the water's surface with doubt, and ivory-sailed
sloops raced before the storm winds. It's hard not to look at a map of Hungary
without finding your eye drawn naturally to this immense body of water in the
western half. The blue of the map fails to do justice to the temperament of
the water, however: we watched the lake flow from greys and silvers through
turquoise and every potential shade of dark blue we've known. Our Hungarian
friends took it all in stride: a popular bathing resort and vacation
destination for people hailing from as far away as Germany, Balaton is a
resource many Hungarians appreciate in terms of its economic potential. From
the eyes of a gringo traveling not only from the New World but from West
Africa, it was a jewel the color of jade and the scent of daisies. It was as
dynamic as the magnificent Lago Atitlán in Guatemala, but far grander, and it
seemed to me to have the spiritual feel of Lake Okeechobee in Florida, without
the gators.
We found ourselves at the Abbey of Tihany (pronounced roughly, Tee-Hañe),
on a geologic aberration on the lake's north shore. It reminded me of Xiloa in
Nicaragua, a peninsula jutting into a lake, cradling within its boundaries
another small, freshwater lake. The abbey itself dates, in its earliest
incarnation, to the 11th century, and the day we visited, was overrun with
tourists: almost all of them Hungarian. It's impossible to miss the abbey's
charm: who wouldn't want to be hunkered down over a stack of books, reading to
the shrill call of the tea kettle as the winter winds whipped out of the
grasslands over the lake? In solitude comes revelation, I've always found, and
Tihany whispered such promises under the veil of the summer breeze. We find
our God in Nature, and hear best when no one else is talking.
The abbey hinted at austerity that approximated the starkness we found in Rocca
Calascio in Italy, where an octagonal chapel suggested fellowship among
adversity. But it was hard to feel afraid when, on all sides, the warm,
welcoming waters of Balaton beckoned. Even on Pentecost Sunday, at the feet of
crosses set on the hillside to invoke the Crucifixion, Tihany was welcoming and
warm, never mind a summer shower.
