It was a warm August morning 12 years ago…August 5th
to be exact…I was sitting at my desk, deciding whether or not to agree to write
the biography of a 75 year old Australian sculptor/priest/nun who was
apparently a legend in her homeland. She was looking to resurrect a book deal
that had fallen through with Random House Australia a year or so before. I
barely knew Sister Angela, but the project sounded intriguing and I was on the
fence about my ordination process, and so I was just about to pick up the phone
and accept the challenge to be her biographer when it actually rang in my hand.
And the voice on the other end of the line said “dahling, wouldn’t it be simply
gorgeous if you and I took a trip to the Center [of Australia] and just sat
there in the desert, with the Aboriginals, and listened to the stillness.
Wouldn’t it be gorgeous?!!!" I
reiterate, I hardly knew Sister Angela well enough to go around the block with
her, let alone around the world. But, I thought, why not. I’m an adventurous
soul and a journey to the outback might be just what I needed . …And then came
the kicker – for she insisted, and I mean insisted, that we make the
trip immediately.
Angela was adamant. And I was shell shocked. I couldn’t go
halfway around the world…not immediately….I had
commitments…. school… family…..work… my discernment process…I had no
time…no money….no one to take care of my dog…no experience in caring for an
elderlyish woman with myriad health issues, a woman, mind you, whom I barely
knew. But the spirit rarely takes no for an answer. And before I knew it, I was
withdrawing from school for the semester, making travel arrangements ,
reserving a 4 wheel drive vehicle to conquer the wild desert terrain, renting
an international cellular phone to keep in constant contact with civilization
at all times, packing all the necessities for a trip into the outback – I had a
direct line to L.L.Beane – high tech hiking boots, Arctic caliber cargo pants,
a battery powered mess kit, a solar powered flashlight, snake bandages, a first
aid pouch out of which I could have performed an emergency appendectomy and
triple bypass surgery. I was thoroughly, completely, comprehensively prepared
and packed for the journey and the wilderness. I had made every arrangement.
Tied down every detail. Anticipated every possible need. By the Monday morning
before our Wednesday departure date I was ready to go…bring on the wilderness.
That was the morning of September 10th 2001.
As I said, I was booked on American Airlines flight 11 from
Boston to LA on Wednesday, September 12. And little did I know the massive
journey, roundabout through the wilderness, that lay before me that morning,
the least of which was the wild
Australian outback. I knew a few folks who went down on American Airlines
flight 11 that day 12 years ago. I knew a few folks who have never been
recovered from the World Trade Center. And I myself, on my way to what I
thought was the real wilderness, felt absolutely lost as I boarded the first
American Airlines flight from Boston to LA out of Logan airport after that
terrifying day.
Despite the fear and the chaos, and what would probably have
been a logical decision to cancel the trip, Angela and I flew to L.A. at 9:00am
on Saturday morning, (the very first American Airline flight out of Logan -
from Boston to Los Angeles). And after a short detention on the tarmac in LA,
while the security forces cleared out a bomb scare in the international
terminal there, we were off to the Australian outback.
And I remember landing in Sydney on Monday morning, September 17th. Half way
around what felt to me like a very deadly and uncertain world. In a very
strange land, knowing not a soul except my elderly traveling companion, whom I
might have mentioned, I barely knew. And I think I was in a bit of a state of
shock; my flesh was not sound, as it were. I was bent down and bowed down greatly. I had lost friends. I was not sure if I would ever get home.
International flights were dicey. I was no longer in the odd comfort of the
American community, who were pulling together and mourning together and feeling
their identity and security in their unitedness. No, I was out of that comfort
zone. I was stranded in the wilderness without any of the comforts of home,
without any community, without any resources, without any control. I was, as
they say, stripped down to my socks. Grieving, frightened and totally unsure of
my place or my destination.
And for the next five weeks, I processed the fear and the
terror and the deep sadness and grief and insecurity that flowed in the wake of
the attacks, as an American in a foreign land. And so my experience of that
time is less shaped by my identity as a victimized American, and more shaped by
my experience of the the capacity of human beings to share each other’s
suffering, and to hold each other’s fear, and to heal each other’s wounded
hearts. I was tended and cared for and made to feel safe and hopeful by total
strangers who lived lives as different from my own as is humanly possible. My
healing from Sept. 11th was done outside of the patriotic fervor
that swelled in the belly of this nation in mourning. My grieving and healing
was done in the care of a host of Australians, none of whom I even knew before
that moment in time. I was tended by women who had been denied the ordination
that I was freely contemplating, and possibly passing up (the diocese of Sydney
to this day does not ordain women). …I was tended by Aboriginals who had been,
for as long as they could remember, abused and oppressed by privileged white
Anglicans who stole their land and their livelihoods and their children and
left them in barren reservations of dust and hopelessness in the desert….and I
was tended by a host of other strangers who took me as I was, and held me
in their care, and offered me peace, and
gave me hope. This five week odyssey in the outback of my soul was my own
exodus.
Three months later,
Sr. Angela died of a massive stroke – I returned to the desert outback
in the center of Australia, and with my friend Janet, scattered her ashes on
the land…..the bones of Joseph returning home. And just a year and a half ago,
my dear friend and traveling companion Janet, lost her battle with brain
cancer. I am the only one of the three pilgrims who is here today to remember.
That experience shattered any and all delusions I may have
had about being in control of….well pretty much anything. And ever since the
terror of September 11th blew
away my friends and colleagues and my false, yet steadfast sense of security in
this world….ever since the bomb scare that Angela and I encountered at LAX on
our way to Sydney….since we landed in the desert with no accommodations (it’s
another long story)…since the international cell phone that I so intelligently
rented turned out to work everywhere except in the outback….since the two flat
tires completely took down my rough and rugged 4-wheel drive vehicle on the
deserted desert road….since the deadly red back spiders that infested my room
in the aboriginal mission…and the brown snake that chased me down the hill
and into the abyss of my fear…..and the errant reports of more violence in the
US, and the closing of airports…my portals home, and the spotty reports that terrorist cells
had been discovered in Watertown where Thalia was…. I stumbled through a
wilderness that I could never have imagined, would never have chosen, and yet
without which I would not be here today. It was a journey that was my life’s
exodus, a journey that has ultimately given me a glorious glimpse of the stuff
of which I am made…..and the stuff of which I am not made.
I felt utterly crushed for quite awhile. And yet, it was actually when I was stripped down to my socks, nothing left to lose, that I truly appreciated the few things in this world that matter at all.
Minding Our Margin can bypass the need for such drastic renovation of the spirit. Today I invite us each and all to meditate on a place in which everything we think we need is on the line. We can take only what is absolutely necessary. No more. I invite us to meditate this day on our absolute necessities. What would they be for you?
No comments:
Post a Comment