Traveling in Place

Hellos and Goodbyes

I don’t have any hard data to prove this, but my experience tells me that life can typically be divided into two parts. During the first part, we say more hellos than goodbyes. We are constantly meeting new people, whether it’s our parents, our siblings, our extended family members, new friends, lovers, those whom we eventually marry, or even our own children. We meet new people as we attend different schools for education. We make new acquaintances – and maybe a few enemies – as we enter the work force. Most of us will experience some sort of loss during that first half of life, but we meet many more people than we lose.

Then we reach a tipping point. It doesn’t come at the same time for everybody, though I think it arrived for me when I sent my first-born off to college. From that point forward, the hellos become less frequent and the goodbyes become more common. Not only do parents have to let go of their children, but also the people one generation ahead of us begin to die. We lose our parents, aunts and uncles, and then older siblings. And before long, co-workers and friends who are about our age begin reaching the end of their lives. We find ourselves attending more and more funerals and regularly confronting our own mortality.

As a wealth of spiritual wisdom has attested, the “mid-life” (really the “mid-adult-life”) transition is difficult for many reasons. But surely the increasing number of goodbyes contributes to the difficulty. Our sense of security and community, our very identity, is threatened, for we are largely defined by our most important relationships. My sense is that those who manage to “age gracefully” are those who become free of attachments, and who learn to see every relationship as, not something to hold onto possessively, but as a precious gift that enriches life. This attitude in no way diminishes the pain of grief when we experience loss. But it gives us the wisdom to embrace our grief and emerge on the other side of it ready to engage whatever new relationships may come. All the while, we become increasingly aware of that greater Presence that ensures we are never truly alone, even in death.

Headed in the Right Direction

Onondaga Lake has been in the news more than usual lately. This jewel of the land sacred to the Onondagas has suffered a rapacious history. Early European settlers discovered salt beds along the shore and developed a huge mining industry. To advance the Erie Canal in the 1820’s, workers blasted an outlet to connect the west end of the lake to the Seneca River, dropping the water level by dozens of feet and reducing its size. Then, in the mid-20^th century, it became a dumping ground for Allied Chemical Company. Between 1946 and 1970, Allied released 165,000 pounds of mercury directly into the lake, earning it the dubious reputation of being the second most polluted body of water in the country. For the last two decades, however, Onondaga Lake has been the subject of a massive, expensive restoration project.

Recently, we’ve learned that the cleanup effort, led by Honeywell International, is ahead of schedule, and that in fact Onondaga Lake is now cleaner than two of the Finger Lakes to our west. But then, over this past weekend, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission released results of a research project showing that mercury levels in the birds that live in and around the lake are still high enough to cause brain damage and kill their offspring.

Ironically, the public received this sobering news on the same day that the County officially opened a 2.5-mile extension of the Onondaga Lake Trail. This new stretch climbs over the top of an artificial hill created by industrial waste, but now reclaimed by grasses, wildflowers and trees that hide the sins of the past. Along the ridge of the hill, the trail provides expansive, breathtaking views of the lake and the development along its shoreline, including postcard-worthy views of the village of Liverpool and downtown Syracuse. Since the “Grand Opening,” the trail has been teeming with walkers, joggers and bicyclists.

Spiritual Relocation

The Spiritual Renewal Center in Syracuse (where I serve as a part-time spiritual director) is in the process of moving. Its new home on Lancaster Avenue next to All Saints Church will undoubtedly be an improvement over its current facility on Court Street. The new space was once a school and is now being renovated according to the specific needs of the Center. Parking will be plentiful. And its proximity to Syracuse University will be an added benefit.

I have frequented the location on Court Street for fifteen years, first (and ever since) as a directee, then as a director-in-training, and now as a staff member. Despite its several inconveniences, this facility has been a place of welcome and peace that has often been a “balm in Gilead” to soothe my anxious soul. Of course, it’s the people who occupy the space who have made it so hospitable, and so the new facility will be just as inviting. But this was the physical, tangible place where those blessings became manifest to me. So when I realized this week that I was leaving the building for the last time, I paused.

I took a long look at the large open room where I have often taken time to sit quietly, read, or write reflectively. I stood in the doorway of the big classroom where I have given talks. I sauntered through the library where I have perused and checked out books on spirituality. I walked through the fair trade gift shop. I entered the “living room” appointed with a circle of couches and chairs where for two years I met with fellow directors-in-training, and where I have typically seen my own directees.

My Take on "Noah"

Martha and I (finally) went to see the movie “Noah,” which we weren’t all that interested in viewing until it created such an outcry from certain sectors of the Christian world. “Blasphemy!” some have muttered as they exited the theatre. Suspicious fundamentalists claim that it is a deliberate attempt to manipulate the Genesis flood story to press a contemporary environmentalist agenda. I have no doubt that the objections of biblical literalists have boosted the ticket sales of this movie far beyond what it otherwise would have achieved.

Well, here’s my reaction. It’s an OK movie but not great. It’s not blasphemy, but neither is it a masterful dramatization of Genesis 6-9. It isn’t even a careful attempt to portray the Bible story realistically. (As Martha points out, the main characters keep putting on different clothes even though there’s nothing in the landscape that would provide the material to make them!) And even though it plays up the theme of God saving the animals (who were innocent) while wiping out human beings (who were culpable for destroying the earth with their violence), “Noah” did not strike me as a sneaky Hollywood attempt to promote a “green” agenda. In truth, the Bible is more pro-environment than this movie. The whole Torah from Genesis through Deuteronomy advocates careful use of the land and natural resources.

“Noah” is really a story based on a story. In other words, the flood account in