# Iceland Sojourn an Emotional Journey Into the Heart of the Global Climate Crisis April 21, 2023 - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) ![Iceland pilgrims at the base of a melting glacier](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/thememorialchurch/files/icelandslider2_11.jpg) *Members of a group of students and staff from the Memorial Church stand before Sólheimajökull glacier, which is receeding due to global warming. Photos by John Clayton Gehman MTS I, Harvard Divinity School.* ***By Courtney Godwin MDiv III** Harvard Divinity School Seminarian, the Memorial Church of Harvard University* In 2019, the Guardian posted an article about a funeral for Okjökull, which lost its glacier status in 2014, becoming the first glacier in Iceland lost to climate change. It was with this article in mind that 12 students and two staff members at Memorial Church undertook a pilgrimage to Iceland, to bear witness to climate change and grieve the many losses because of it, those in the past, the ones happening every day, and the losses we expect in the future. I experience climate grief and eco-anxiety regularly in my daily life, so much so that I’ve dedicated my masters’ thesis to processing these emotions through literature. Before the trip, I expected our Wednesday glacier hike to be the focal point. I thought that we would go up onto the glacier and hold a memorial service in our own way. I didn’t expect the joy and beauty interspersed with the waves of grief along the way. I sat on the right side of the bus from Skálholt to Sólheimajökull, which went across the southern coast of the country. It came as a complete surprise to me when the driver announced we could see the glacier on the left and I was watching the ocean roll in and out on the right. ![Iceland pilgrims receive instructions before exploring the glacier](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/thememorialchurch/files/icelandslider2_15.jpg) Before we could hike, we were fitted with safety gear- crampons, harnesses, helmets, and ice axes. From the parking lot and gear hut, it was about a 20-minute walk to the base of the glacier. The whole way, we laughed about how silly the bright orange helmets looked and how in all our layers we felt like Randy from “A Christmas Story,” unable to move with full motion. We could hear the ice creaking and breaking; it sounded like rolling timpani echoing through the valley. When we arrived at the edge of the ice, our guide informed us that as late as the mid-nineties, the time when I was born, the valley we had just walked across, and the adjacent lagoon had all been glacier. The parking lot was built at what used to be the foot of the glacier. But now, it's gone. In the years between 2010 and 2021 the glacier receded 408 meters, just under 1,340 feet, almost the height of the Empire State Building The beautiful lagoon dotted with ice caps grows by the length of an Olympic Swimming Pool each year. I still couldn't quite picture the magnitude. Sólheimajökull melts at a rate of 1.5 meters per week in the summer. Melt is measured in thickness of the ice, so closer to a measurement of height than distance across. Each week, each summer, Sólheimajökull thins by a measurement just under my height. At the top of our hike, we stopped at a science experiment conducted by the University of Iceland Institute of Earth Sciences. Last May, a group of students steam-drilled a wire into the ice to measure the melt in a year. As the ice melts, more of the wire becomes visible. In May the wire was taught to the ground. When we visited in March, the wire was about thirty feet stretched across. ![Sign marks the receding glacier](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/thememorialchurch/files/icelandslider2_9.jpg) I felt my knees go weak underneath me and my stomach dropped as if filled with rocks. My sight and hearing went momentarily fuzzy, and I vaguely wondered if I was going into shock. I sat down on the ice, needing to feel its solidity beneath me, needing its freeze to balance the heat of my tears. I had never seen climate change so tangibly in front of me. I have watched storms worsen and increase in frequency. The tornado watches that felt few and far between in my childhood became commonplace and normalized to the point at which they no longer faze me. As I sat on the ice, trying to gently coax myself back to the present, an outside force pulled me back to earth. Accompanying the music of the glacier, there was singing. The three UChoir members had brought a hymn, the oldest Icelandic hymn still sung today, with lyrics written over 800 years ago. I felt my heart lift, and let my spirit soar with their voices, echoing off the ice and the mountains. I later read a translation of the lyrics: “God, I call on you to heal me.” It wasn’t our own healing that we were calling for though; it was the healing of the earth. I don’t remember most of the walk down, other than our few pauses for more photo ops. I’ve spent all year as a Seminarian learning to pray, but prayer has never come as naturally as it did just then. ![Harvard students climb to the foot of the glacier.](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/thememorialchurch/files/icelandslider2_16.jpg) As we climbed off the glacier, I pulled off my glove and ran my fingertips along the ice, picking up black volcanic ash from an eruption just over 100 years ago. The tears were flowing freely again, the third time in just as many hours on this hike, as I thought “goodbye Sólheimajökull, goodbye and good luck.” I felt a little sick as the words fully formed in my head. It has nothing to do with luck, it has everything to do with the choices we make. The morning after our glacier hike, we left Skálholt, where we had made our home for the last few days. Even as exhausted as we all were after a full day that concluded with what would be our last view of the northern lights, several of us arose with the sun for one last pilgrim’s walk. Angela, Hanna, and I hiked out to Saint Thorlak’s spring. According to Matt, saints’ blessings never wear off, so the hot spring consists of holy water 900 years later. It was so cold that the steam from the water froze in the air, creating a frost along the banks that glistened in the sunrise. In the river, a flock of snow geese watched us wearily. It was beautiful beyond words. My companions and I split up to be alone for a few minutes. I found a place where I could dip my fingers in the water, and in a stroke of potentially heretical inspiration, I marked my forehead with the holy water. ![Iceland glacier](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/thememorialchurch/files/icelandslider2_21.jpg) I have struggled in the weeks since this experience to process it. How do I keep it center in my life without becoming numb to this grief, or worse, normalizing this enormous loss? Grief doesn’t have a resolution; it is something that we carry with us always. I don’t know if I’ll go back to Iceland, but if I do, there’s no guarantee Sólheimajökull will be there. Half of Iceland’s glaciers will melt in the next 75 years. The students on this trip range in age from 18-28. It’s not incomprehensible that many among us will live to see Sólheimajökull stripped of its glacier status. Kneeling at the hot spring in the fresh morning light, I prayed to Saint Thorlak. Knowing that prayer is contingent upon action, I prayed that the memories of this pilgrimage, the stories we tell of it, and the relationships we fostered during it will bring each of us comfort, hope, and the fire to keep fighting for the world in which we want to live. ![Harvard Students from the Memorial Church](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/thememorialchurch/files/icelandslider2_19.jpg) –– ### **Short Film: Icelandic Pilgrimage** Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)