Tag: Travel

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Punish with Charity

I’m wandering the halls of the museum at the Igreja da Misericórdia, in Porto, a lay order of brothers founded Portugal in 1498. The order was founded on the works of mercy, seven corporal and seven spiritual. These principles are hung on floor-to-ceiling banners lining a long corridor. One reads, “Punish with charity those who err.” I stop and stare with a quizzical expression.

In traditional Catholic teaching, the works of mercy instruct believers on how to fulfill our divine purpose and come closer to God, what I might describe as living a spiritual life. The corporal works direct us to relieve the bodily suffering of others, feeding the hungry, clothing and sheltering the poor, caring for the sick. The spiritual works guide us to relieve the spiritual suffering of others by such acts as comforting the afflicted, forgiving others willingly, bearing insults with patience.

Traditionally, one of the spiritual works of mercy is phrased, “Admonish the sinner.” But here at the Misericórdia, the wording is, “Punish with charity those who err.” This is not just a softer phrase, it upends the energy entirely. Charity is the opposite of punishment. To admonish a sinner assumes a superiority, where I am the one who judges and corrects. Charity offers an abundance that does not stop to assess merit. It erases the need for judgment.

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Tears

Recently, I find tears come to me easily. I’m not sure why.

Maybe it was the passing of my parents two years ago. A broken hip and pneumonia, a broken heart and dementia, a numbing fog in and out of hospital rooms. In eight months, they were both gone. Or maybe it’s the background hum of an unstable world that seems to grow darker every day. Or maybe it’s my advancing age, and the realization that my remaining sunsets have a finite number, making each beautiful and horrible thing so precious, I can’t afford to let it pass unnoticed.

I’m in the sanctuary of the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, Portugal. I’ve been sitting for an hour, sitting with my thoughts, sitting with questions in a place people have come for centuries seeking answers, or at least solace. I’m wondering why we are continually confronted with impossible questions. It can’t be that we expect clean answers, a formula with algebraic precision. It’s more like the tangents of a wicked geometry, the curve of my mind measuring whether the points are coming together or falling away.

At the heart of our wondering, I think, is the desire to know we are living a moral life, and that can only be known by walking through the brambles of impossible questions and making choices. We look for a source of wisdom to lay the question against, see where it fits, where the corners stick, and take guidance as best we can. Over time, we find that some sources of wisdom serve us better, or are more suited to our nature, or grow with us as we walk. Wisdom shows us truth in glimmers, as light through a moving curtain, and something in our soul remembers and points our steps in one direction or another.

How does this philosophizing help me with my questions? Why did my parents’ deaths unfold the way they did? How do I hold the country I love even as it transgresses the bounds of evil? Do I give or refuse the man begging change outside the bottle shop? Is my life significant beyond the people I touch in this small flicker of time?

When I am still for a time, a frame of mind can come where my thinking slips to the back and a fuller presence comes forward. Under the quiet of the gothic vaults and blue-white tiles of the sanctuary, I let go of myself. The space absorbs me, my inner and outer indistinct. I feel large but empty, a weight floating at the top of my chest like a bruise. It wants to move but can’t find a way out.

A father wanders through, his young daughter, a tassel of curls, holding his hand. At a side chapel, she leaves him and moves toward a stand of votives. I watch her gaze into the candles and then hurry back to take his hand and place her head against his hip. An ache rises in my throat and my eyes spill over. What is this glimmer? A pair of strangers and their tender moment, a source of wisdom.

Photo by Steve Sphar

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Thanks – Giving

Thanksgiving has two words within it. We tend to focus on the first.

When I reflect on what I’m thankful for, the obvious comes to mind first. I have all I need to flourish and be happy – plentiful food, a wonderful home, and people who care about me. I don’t live in a country torn by war or famine. I’m not threatened by militia or poverty or natural disaster. The luck of being dropped into this life is hard to believe, a humbling grace.

But while true, these can feel abstract. What touches me more directly are the small, intimate moments that mostly pass without my notice. Like the street scene I saw this week in Oaxaca.

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Volaré

Volaré, oh, oh

I’m walking down Grafton Street in Dublin, past the Disney Store, Levi’s, Victoria’s Secret, and souvenir shops selling shamrocks and leprechauns. Up ahead, a busker is playing guitar and singing his heart out

Cantaré, oh, oh, oh, oh

I chuckle. This guy sings well, but his voice seems wasted on a cheesy pop hit. I expect to hear the Dean Martin version – silky, sanitized, tame. But no, he continues in the original Italian. And it’s not tame.

Nel blu dipinto di blu.
Felice di stare lassù.

He is singing with vigor. Full-throated, uninhibited, almost operatic. This man’s charisma is all-in, his joy ringing off the shop windows. His passion is infectious. People passing by walk in step, nodding in time, some are singing along.

E volavo, volavo felice
Più in alto del sole,
Ed ancora più su,
Mentre il mondo pian piano
Spariva lontano laggiù.

I let the mood of the street permeate me. My spirits lift, my steps lighten. I awaken to the delicious reality that I am walking in the sunshine of a beautiful city, in a crowd of smiling strangers, bathed in a song that shouts, Life Is A Gift. How can I not feel gratitude? More – I am happy.

When we touch something honest, everything becomes honest. The well of joy and grief at our feet reveals itself as simple fact. I think of my mother and father, who passed last year. My throat catches and my eyes wet. My happiness does not diminish, it receives, rounding out to include their absence and their presence. They also knew that life is a gift. I can’t enjoy this day with them, but I can enjoy this day for them.

I throw a Euro into his case and tell him, “You sing well. Thank you.” We exchange a glance. He nods and smiles without missing a beat. How is it that we make the world lighter just by being ourselves? Why do I learn and forget this lesson over and over and over?

Una musica dolce suonava
Soltanto per me.

Volaré, oh, oh,
Cantaré, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Click here for a rousing clip of Volaré, sung by Il Volo

Photo by Yunus Tuğ on Unsplash

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Himno de Andalucía

Striding down the Avenida de Roma, my way is blocked by a crowd of thousands waving flags. I’m on my way to the Museo Arqueológico, in Sevilla, Andalucía, the autonomous region of southern Spain. I am eager to get to the museum and learn about these people and their history.

In my rough Spanish, I ask a bystander if this rally is for the local futbol team. “No. Politico.” he says.

I thread my way through the crowd, boisterous and festive. People carry signs, chant slogans, ride children on their shoulders. The avenue is swelling with emotion as well as people, the mood is electric. Trumpets blare and a band plays a soaring melody. Suddenly, everyone around me begins to sing in unison. I stop in my tracks, goosebumps on my skin. As I listen, the air shifts, the electricity has discharged, grounding me to the spot.

“What are they singing?” I ask.

“Himno de Andalucía,” I am told. The Anthem of Andalucía.

I am amazed, inspired, immersed in a sea of people who love their homeland. My steps feel lighter as I walk on.

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This Poor Gray Ember of Creation

From where I’m standing, the slope of the land falls away in waves, the silver tops and knotted trunks of olive trees growing smaller. At the bottom of the drop, the ground rises again and then curves out of sight into a second shallow valley before angling steeply to a ridge in the distance, where I see the ruins of a temple, its columns, frieze, and pediment crisp against the sky. The Greeks built a line of temples here to honor their gods twenty-five hundred years ago.

Today, we call this ridge the Valley of the Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Only one temple and the bones of a few others still stand, the rest have been tumbled to the ground by earthquakes, plundering, and the erosion of time.

I take in this wide vista from the doorway of my cottage at the Villa San Marco, a slice of heaven Linda and I have fallen into by pure chance.

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Stop, Look, and Let Your Eyes Adjust

I live in Sacramento, a good-sized city. Light pollution from buildings and parking lots clouds the night sky, making star gazing a limited adventure.

I recently went to Crater Lake, Oregon, high in the Cascade mountain range, far from any population centers. At night, the sky was spattered with stars, like confetti littering the street after a Superbowl parade. I could make out the Milky Way, a faint background haze stretching across the black from horizon to horizon.

I was amazed, speechless, mesmerized. Now I know what they mean when they say “star-struck.”

I walked along the rim trail walk away from the lodge, the only lighted building nearby. When I felt the darkness around me was complete, I stopped and did nothing but look for several minutes. As I stared upward, my eyes continued to adjust, and the whole starlight show slowly unfolded. More sparkles appeared with each passing minute. They filled in the spaces where I had thought there was only black. I began to think that if I could see it all, there would be more light than dark.

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Wise Words – Ritual as Doorway to the Divine

“A ritual is the enactment of a myth. By participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, you are being put in accord with that wisdom. Your consciousness is being reminded of the wisdom of your own life.”

Joseph Campbell

I pull open the heavy doors, walk into Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and stare at the receding rows of arches high above me. From tall windows, the fading sun throws a soft yellow light on the massive stone ceiling. I am here for Evensong, sung tonight by the Cathedral Girls’ Choir. I take a seat.

I love spending time in ancient places of ceremony and worship, where the walls have listened for centuries to chanting and singing, where people have worn the stone floors smooth, coming together to find peace, solace, and connection. The sacred presence of generations has soaked this place, and I feel it can soak me too if I let it.

Sitting in the vast volume of the nave, surrounded by grandeur, I’m surprised that I feel small and large at the same time. One by one, the internal gears that keep my mind spinning start to slow down and a sense of calm contentment unfolds.

The choir begins, quiet harmonies rising into the evening, piercingly clear in the stillness. Reverent, resonant, lifting a soft beauty into the air, touching something in each of us that wants to be lifted up, wants to join in that beauty. My boundaries loosen. I am immersed, absorbed, connected across time, welcomed into stillness.

A young girl, she can’t be more than ten or twelve, has a solo line that floats above the rest. She effortlessly holds a long, high note, then sounds one even higher that splits me. My insides melt and tears well up. I close my eyes. If I let go completely, I would start to weep.

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Entering the State of Presence Through Beauty

Light and air are different in Ireland. Shifting clouds and the low angle of the sun against the landscape create an atmosphere filled with magic. On a drive through the far west, Linda and I break over a rise and are caught by a spectacular view where light, air and rugged coast join together to amaze. We stop, wordless, to watch.

The sun’s shallow light illuminates a fog above the whitecaps. As each wave hits the rocks, it throws out a spray that mingles with the mist. For a moment, all the parts cohere. Light and air become one thing moving over the water, absorbing the black rocks and green fields. The light emanates from everywhere with no discernable source. The air breathes, exhaling wet and heavy with each breaking wave. 

I am lost in the scene. I feel expanded, lighter, more real, remembering my place in a larger scheme. Taking in this impossible moment, this extravagant beauty, I am changed.

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Letting Go of Problem-Solving: Lessons From a Slow Lunch in France

Linda and I are vacationing in France. Today, we have driven to L’abbaye de Valmagne to visit the winery and eat at their well-touted restaurant. I use one of the French phrases I have memorized to ask for a table.

“Bonjour. Je voudrais une table pour deux s’il vous plaît.”

“Réservation?” she asks. My heart sinks.

“Non,” I say.

She frowns. In my head, I prepare my argument about how we tried to make a reservation online, but their buggy website didn’t cooperate.

“Let me check,” she says and turns to the only other wait staff, who looks like she might be the owner. The second woman looks around the room and nods at a table along the wall. Relieved, we slide into our chairs and begin what will be a two-hour lunch that initiates a mini-transformation of my approach to time.

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