The Idea of Travel

I like the idea of travel. I actually love the idea of travel. Yet this last week in Costa Rica has forced me to ask if I actually like travel itself or just some pseudo-Platonic idea of travel. In reality travel is often uncomfortable.

Talk to anyone who travels regularly for business and you typically get a long list of travel woes (the pessimists) or a short list of strategies to minimize discomfort (the optimists). Those in this second category (the optimists) will suggest tips for packing light and tactics to help on long plane flights (neck pillows, how to score an exit row, an IPOD, or a stiff drink). They will advise on ways protect your passport and make sure your purse isn’t snatched. They will tell you of a great place to eat and whether you can safely drink the water in such-and-such a spot. These are the optimists. Everyone else simply shudders and gives you a look that clearly communicates something like: “I hope your will is up-to-date and your medical insurance pays for a medivac chopper in Ecuador.”

As an actual traveler, I find myself schizophrenic. I’m unbearably optimistic in the planning stage, and utterly certain the night before departure that I will die on this trip. On that last night I ponder at length the story of a rabbi who everyday would tearfully bid farewell to his children and wife before leaving for the kosher slaughter house. He did this each day because he was convinced that he would do something wrong during the day and God would strike him down.

I don’t like the rabbi’s the view of God, but I understand it because in large part it remains mine. My default view of God is one that easily accepts God as in possession of unlimited power… so far so good. Scripture supports a stunning affirmation of God as all powerful. Yet like the rabbi I tend to fear that God’s exercise of power will be capricious and potentially vindictive.

And for some reason travel stirs up my existential fears. Out of the routine of work and home I find myself even less certain of God’s goodness and care for me and others. I do forget my fear in moments of delight: as I taste new foods (fried plantains with black bean puree and guacamole), peek over the rim of a volcano (Irazu with its bubbling and florescent green sulfur water), or spend time with gracious and caring people (men like our Costa Rican bus driver Walter). Yet if I’m honest there is discomfort even on the most successful of trips.

I’d like that to make more attentive rather than fearful… more open rather than sour… and use those moments unease to remind me that life this side of eternity all is travel.

Language Shame

Last week I traveled with a team from our congregation and a group of high school students from Gonzaga Prep to work with the ministry wing of Pura Vida Coffee. It was a rough week for me personally since I ended up feverish and coughing so violently for three days that I nearly cracked a rib. I hope others felt better about the week.

On February 12th (the third day of the trip and... full disclosure... in the middle of my fever) I wrote the following:

I know a few Spanish words, but quake at the thought of putting together a sentence “en Espanõl.” Thus here in Costa Rica I find myself in a place of dependence on others who know what I don’t. Far more of the Costa Ricans are effectively bi-lingual while I have arrived down here to “help,” and I can’t even talk to them. And far from irritating me, what I feel more is shame: shame that I have so much materially and have done so little with it, shame that I don’t even know when I am offending someone, shame that I am imposing myself on these people. I keep wondering what they think of me… of us.

I don’t yet know the average income in Costa Rica.

I don’t know what percentage of the population could stay at Colaye Apartotel without hardship.

I don’t know how many Costa Rican’s think $10 U.S. is a screaming good deal for lobster.

How can this shame become humility? How might I truly give something in the next few days that those I come in contact with need to receive?

Death Interrupts

Over the weekend I officiated at two different memorial services. Along the way it occurred to me that death in our lives always comes as an interruption. We plan for births, for hot dates, for the perfect marriage, and quality schooling. We block out time to work and play and sleep. But death (with a few disturbing exceptions) never fits neatly into a schedule. It comes too fast or lingers too long. It arrives with abrupt impact or slowly strips a gifted friend of all we cling to as worthwhile.

And because feels so disconnected from the rest of “life” death forces me—and others I suspect—to a unique kind of attentiveness to the possibility or reality of God. Something in our gut says death is not something we can control and yet something that must be controlled. Death running loose is a terrifying thing and I think we intuitively feel death must not have the final word. Enter God.

The temptation is to use such a moment of corporate hush to try to close some “deal” spiritually. All too often these efforts become crude attempts to manipulate emotions or prey on fears by the militant ‘Church Nazi’ just begging to get out of too many of us. Yet I doubt if anything damages real attentiveness in us more than manipulation and fear-mongering.

The more I chew on it, the more I think I’d rather try to honor such openness that appears when death interrupts with honest grace: grace that lifts up God’s love with equal conviction whether the life we gather to remember was lived well or poorly.

The challenge is to avoid going Nazi or slipping off the other edge into sappy. In between is a dance floor where I think the real God waits for us with hope and the promise of resurrection for all willing to step onto the floor. And something tells me the music—even when death interrupts—sounds a lot like Salsa.

Daily Prayer

As a self-incriminated book collector with a job at a church, I have amassed a good number of volumes that either discuss prayer or offer to serve as guides to prayer. In the second category, the book that I am currently grateful for is Celtic Daily Prayer. It offers short and simple orders for morning, midday, and evening prayer that I have found helpful without being as burdensome or complicated as the orders of prayer suggested in other tomes in my prayer collection.

My aunt and uncle also use the week of Compline services provided in the book. Each one is rooted in the prayers of a famous Celtic saint. Praying one of these complines aloud with them felt awkward the first time or two, but I have come to look forward to this short time of shared prayer at the end of the day when I visit them in northwest Montana. I have yet to try this with my children, but some kids might love the participation and repetition they offer.

Sickbed Movies

When I'm home trying to kick some bug, movies feel more compelling than at other times. Pick the right one and you have several good hours of escape. I tend, though, to rent movies I've already seen - the visual equivalent of comfort food. For me comedy with a little romance goes well with the vaporizer steaming in the corner. Tonight I opted for Bride and Predjudice - a part Bollywood remake of Jane Austen's book Pride and Prejudice with India as the backdrop. Director Gurinder Chadha hits her spot well not just with a romance that unpacks the book, but comedy and some good-natured social commentary thrown in along the way. Now if my nose would stop dripping and the sinus headache would depart, I might consider a little Bollywood dance of my own.