Lessons from travel

“Piano, piano,” our tour guide Giacomo advised our group of ten as we navigated the cobblestone streets of medieval towns in Tuscany and Umbria. “Piano, piano,” he repeated as we climbed stone steps that have been worn down by centuries of use and had no handrails to steady us.

Piano, piano means slowly, slowly in Italian.

Good advice, I thought. Not just for traversing medieval towns in Italy, but for me, good advice for daily life, because I tend to move too fast, rushing as though I was always running late.

Travel makes me slow down, because I am aware of how dangerous rushing across cobblestones can be.

Traveling with a group makes me slow down because I sometimes need to wait for those who can’t move as quickly as I do.

It is good for me to slow down, and every time I had to stop and wait for someone to catch up, I felt invited to look up and take in the sights around me (walking on cobblestones requires lots of looking down). Those moments of waiting were invitations to notice what was in front of me, like little carvings in walls or unique shapes of doorknockers.

Slowly, slowly invites me to appreciate the here and now.

Travel also shakes things up. It is like a snow globe where I am tossed around a bit and when the snow settles, everything looks different. The people, places and food are unfamiliar, and my equilibrium is off. I join Dorothy in saying, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

A man at church recently toured the Holy Land. Before he left, he told me he had been nervous about traveling to such a potentially dangerous place until he learned they were staying in a Westin Hotel and then he thought, “If I didn’t know any different, I could still be at home.”

“Then what is the point of going?” I asked.

When I travel, I want to be shaken up and to experience what is different. I want to know how it is for people who live in that place and to have my assumptions and stereotypes challenged. I want to be changed by my experiences, to learn something about another people and place—and about myself.

One of the features of touring with Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.) is that we visit people in their homes. On this tour, our group was split up among three homes in Carrera (after a tour of the nearby marble quarry). My small group had lunch with a couple and one of their sons.

Later in the tour, we visited Spello and were entertained by an Umbrian folk music group in the home of one of the musicians.

Massimo Liberatori & La Società dei Musici

During my two weeks in Italy, slowly, slowly became my go-to gear, and I pledged to myself that when I got home, I would try harder to stay in slow gear, to remind myself every day (and even multiple times a day), piano, piano.

Our Overseas Adventure Travel Group Tour Leader, Giacomo, aka Captain America

What I am learning from my tears

The other morning at prayer, these words from Ezekiel 47 caught my attention:

I saw water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple….Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow, their leaves shall not fade nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary.

Lately, I have I have been very emotional, and I am unable to stop my tears from flowing.

I grew up in one of those families where crying was discouraged; tears usually elicited a response of, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Then, in my twenties, I worked for the FBI where agents used to tell me to “toughen up.” This was usually in response to a mood-shift after my oh-so-easily-hurt feelings had been hurt. I would sulk and feel sorry for myself, but I would try not to cry.

My years at the FBI did toughen me up. I tried to keep inside any emotion that might make me look weak or vulnerable. Being tough (or at least looking tough) was my goal, so I swallowed my emotions.

At some point in my life, though, I realized the pendulum had swung too far and that I had developed an impenetrable shell to protect myself from criticism that I was weak. That shell helped me feel invincible and kept me from feeling vulnerable. It also kept others away.One of the good things about getting old is that I can look back on so many opportunities God has given me to move against my resistance to being vulnerable. God invites me not to toughen up but to soften up.As I read the words of Ezekiel, I wondered if my tears are the river that gives me life.Recently, as I watched a high school volleyball game, tears started rolling down my face. The same thing happened a few weeks earlier at the Motown Museum while watching the movie about the early days of Barry Gordy and the high school students who would become his stars.

Reading a novel about Puritans in Connecticut, tears welled up and spilled over. Watching television, seeing a rainbow, spotting a butterfly—I have no idea what will set off a tearful episode.

I try to let the tears flow freely. I want the emotions to be set free—rather than tamped down or stifled.

My recent tears tell me that my protective shell has a crack in it, and I want to widen that crack. I want to acknowledge my fears and insecurities. I want to be softer. But it is not easy.

My early training sets me up to be afraid of showing my vulnerability, and fear can be a powerful paralyzer.

But, God keeps prompting me—with the words of scripture, my memories and my tears. I know I that I can sit with the discomfort of feeling vulnerable and not be overwhelmed.

Let the tears flow.

 

 

 

 

 

Buried feelings

“How do you feel about that?” is a very popular question among spiritual directors. On my recent retreat, the director asked that question on day two. How did I feel about something I had shared. “I feel good about it,” I told her.

But she wants more. She wants my emotional response, and “good” is not good enough. I get it. She wants me to touch my emotions. Unfortunately, I don’t have easy access to a lot of my emotions. I have emotions; they are just buried deep within.

Sr. Julia was my spiritual director in PA, and “How do you feel about that?” was a favorite question of hers. I don’t think we ever met without her asking how I felt about something I had told her. It could have been something at work or something in my prayer or, well, just about anything. How did I feel about it?

My stomach knots as soon as I realize the question is coming because I usually don’t know how I feel. (You would think that after thirty years in spiritual direction I would be prepared for the question, but somehow I keep forgetting that it is coming.) Sr. Julia would then suggest we do an exercise called “focusing” to help me get in touch with my feelings. Resistance was my first reaction; I would fight it and try not to roll my eyes (sorry, Sr. Julia).

And then she would guide me on a walk of my interior, emotional landscape. A word or image would come to mind and I would voice it. She would repeat what I had said. She would prod, “anything else?” Yes, the image would expand and soon I would be in touch with my feelings. After one focusing exercise with Sr. Julia during the time I was taking care of Jim, I wrote this in my journal:

I saw a huge, high waterfall—an abundance of water coming over the edge. At the bottom, the water roiled. Then I became aware that the roiling water was polishing the rocks below the surface of the water and making them smooth. I went under the water and it was quiet—like a womb or a tomb. The tomb of Jesus came to mind—God with Jesus in the quiet, in the darkness, with turbulence outside but inside, peace, quiet, trust, love. I am the rocks beneath the water.

How was I feeling? Like the outside world was overwhelming me, and I was being polished by the outside forces, my rough edges were being smoothed; inside I was at peace.

Ultimately, I am grateful to be asked how I am feeling and then pushed to discover what might be buried deep inside.