Would You Eat Your Lunch in a Cathedral?

Musing at Scorhill Stone Circle, England by Elyn Aviva

We trudged up the bleak hill, brown and barren. My husband, Gary, and I were hiking with a small group in desolate, wild Dartmoor National Park to a place we’d never been, following a faint path through the moor, a track barely visible in the water-logged, peaty soil.  Our guide informed us that people can easily lose their way on the moors—experienced hikers, skilled in reading maps, disappear, their bodies found years later. 

Clearly, we were entering a dangerous place, a place “in-between” the known and unknown worlds. Specifically, we were going to Scorhill (AKA Gidleigh) Stone Circle, one of the largest and most intact stone circles in Devon: approximately 27 meters (88’) in diameter, originally composed of between 51 to 70 upright stones. Now, only 34 remain.

I saw a knee-high standing stone next to a tiny glistening pool. “Is that an entry marker for the stone circle?” I asked and pointed. Our guide said, “No, it’s just a stone.” But I felt drawn to it. I walked over to the narrow granite slab and greeted it, centering myself for a few minutes. Suddenly my eyes filled with tears, my perception shifted, and I felt myself become a pilgrim on a journey rather than an ambler on an outing. This was puzzling but perhaps not so surprising: the moor was filled with an almost palpable primordial energy. Silently, I asked permission to continue on this path. I waited for an equally silent response.

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Spiritual GPS: Discovering holiness in every moment

by Richard Rossner

Where can we find holiness?

Sometimes I feel like I am in a grand hide-and-seek game with the Creator.  Just when I think I’ve found the deepest of the deep, He escapes me.  Just when I’ve found the perfect light, the right sound, the special spot for a spiritual experience, a hiccup or sneeze ruins the instant.

Then again, moments in life occasionally arrange themselves to create spontaneous experiences that become life-long memories with deep teachings that touch the soul.  They sneak up on you like the first warm smell of Spring that subtly tickles your nose.  You have to stop to make sure they really happened.  To miss these moments would be to miss the juiciest slices of life.

In 1994, I had just moved from Los Angeles to Scottsdale, Arizona.  The Northridge earthquake shook up more than the foundations of my West L.A. town home.  I was shaken to my very core.  I wanted out.  I had been blinded by too much show biz (I had been a writer on a hit show), too much disappointment (I was off the hit show and didn’t bag another staff position), and I was finally tiring of too much life in and out of the Hollywood fishbowl.

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Looking For Peace In A Mosque

by Cinelle Ariola Barnes

I had been struggling with my prayer life, figuring out where and how I could have some peace and quiet in the Big Apple. I tried to petition and call on God, but the words wouldn't come. I wondered, “If a city never sleeps, how does it ever dream? How do its people ever come to a solemn state of rest?” My father, a Christian of no particular denomination, suggested I visit a mosque and learn from the Muslims. 

“Watch them pray,” he said, “Their discipline and devotion is admirable. Watching them pray at the exact same time every day was one of my favorite things about living in the Middle East.”

I say I am a well-traveled Filipina, but that only means I have made countless layovers on flights to and from New York. The most traveling that I have ever done is through reading books, therefore I have great expectations of places I have yet to see. I hear “India” and I think saris in vibrant colors, citrus rinds covering a plate of curry, or yogis in lotus position. I hear “Rio de Janeiro” and I think futbol, futbol, futbol!

When I hear the word “mosque,” a flipbook of ideas, images, sounds, and even smells pop into my head. I let my mind cruise through this Rolodex as I sit in the Pelham-bound 6 train. Here I am, a young Protestant raised in a Catholic country, managing all the thoughts sweeping through my head as I near the New York Mosque. I straighten my spine and fix my hair as I get off the train, forcing myself to be, or seem to be, more reverent than I usually am. 

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Discover the Exotic on a Road Trip

by Vera Marie Badertscher

“None of your business,” she said.  The short, curly, white hair bounced as she shook her head, but the brown eyes smiled in her beautiful, tanned and weathered face.  Half Navajo, Suzie (not her real name) has lived in Rio Grand pueblos in New Mexico all her life.  We were sitting in a rambling adobe house near the village where she lives with her husband. Grandchildren and daughters droppied in from time to time as we talked. The smell of cedar wood smoke curled around us, and tin-framed pictures of saints glinted on the walls.

Dancers at San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1942. Ansel Adams via Wikipedia CommonsI travel to find new ways of seeing the world.  Although all humans deal with some basic questions,  various cultures find different answers.  How do we show respect to others? Where did we come from? Who created us? How do we ensure good fortune, food, and shelter? What do we need to know?  The more the answers differ from our own, the more exotic the culture seems.

The curt reply, “None of your business,” came from Suzie, a lively Pueblo elder who fervently believes in the Catholic religion, but just as devotedly follows ancient ways.  People come to her for counsel and healing.  Although Suzie inherited an outgoing personality and sense of humor from her Navajo mother, she got her sense of propriety from living in her father's Pueblo culture  for all of her 80 years.

I visited Suzie's husband Joe (not his real name) while writing a book about Navajo artist, Quincy Tahoma.  Finding this couple turned out to be a grand slam for a biographer. Tahoma, a little older than Joe, had been a mentor to Joe when they both attended Santa Fe Indian School. Joe's father gained fame as one of the first Pueblo painters to sell his work, and, now in his eighties, Joe has returned to painting that he had abandoned after his school days. 

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Yes, I pray—but not to your god

by Eric Lucas

They approach a bit haltingly, these young women attired in pastel fabrics.

Eric Lucas“How long have you been saved?” they inquire.

“Saved?” I respond. I know what they’re after, but one has to let this conversation run its course.

“Well, I saw you praying, and I was so glad to see another believer here in the restaurant.” I raise my eyebrows. “What church do you go to? Baptist? Church of Christ?” They plow on earnestly.

That’s when I drop the bombshell, my own personal bazooka round aimed at American religiosity.

“I don’t go to church,” I say, pleasantly.

Silence.

“But you were praying,” they accuse me.

Yes, indeed, I was praying. These encounters invariably take place when I am on the road in America, have surrendered to expedience and stopped at a fast-food outlet for dinner. It might be Anaheim, it might be Amarillo. Wherever I am, I say a personal, silent prayer before my every meal, and have done so for 25 years. That’s a long time; my prayers were born in a search for spiritual discipline, and they have nothing to do with any religion. Not Christianity, not Judaism, not Islam. I don’t pray to Christ, or Yahweh, or Zoroaster, or Allah or even Mephistopheles. I don’t like organized religion. Doctrine annoys me. Scriptures are superstitious malarkey.

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Cuban Journey to Israel

by Melanie Fidler

The first time I heard about Jews living in Cuba was when my parent’s friends said they were accepted/allowed to go on a mission trip to Cuba. Because they were Jewish, they could apply through a synagogue to go with a small group of Jewish Americans bearing medical supplies to travel to Cuba for a 10 day trip exploring Cuba’s Jewish culture. The idea fascinated me. I quickly did my research and decided this was going to be my next personal story to work on.

Ever since I sailed on Semester at Sea (SAS) in fall ’04, I wanted to go to Cuba. SAS is a unique study abroad trip that takes a cruise ship and transforms it into a floating university with up to 600 students from around the nation to learn and travel together for 100 days. Quite literally, a semester at sea. Cuba was scheduled as our last port until Bush nipped that in the butt. Venezuela was the replacement, a much more dangerous country than Cuba, if you ask me.

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