Remove Before Flight

No Epiphanies, Please

Faith, doubt, hippies and sugar snap peas in Canada

She said 'No Mascara'

God told me this morning to skip eye makeup. “You’re at family camp, for God’s, I mean, My sake. Besides, you’ll want to swim later. Forget it.”

She was right. I thanked her later for the tip.

I’m sitting at the outdoor chapel at Sorrento Centre, an Anglican retreat on the shores of Lake Shuswap, in the middle of British Columbia. The day is clear and bright – the sun can sear un-lotioned flesh, even at 9am. This is when I start crying. Fortunately, I’m wearing sunglasses (possibly another tip from her Almighty-ness, or from years of habit – I can’t be sure).

I wasn’t even going to attend this service. I’m not here for an epiphany. I’m not making time for a spiritual experience. I want to write, run and do a load of laundry or two, because after five days on the road, the dirty clothes bag stinks. And I’ve neglected the writing. And I’m moving to New Zealand in five weeks. I have THINGS TO DO.

Blame the Bikes

But they’re blessing bikes. And the kids brought their bikes. I kinda have to go. And the music’s nice – songs I’ve never heard before –accompanied by violin, trombone and trumpet.

            The angels in heaven sing Gloria – glory, glory, Gloria…

Fiona, in her eight-year-old’s inquisitiveness asks, “Who’s Gloria?”

 Maybe we can call this another cultural experience. We’re in Canada, where they say things differently (again is “ah-GANE;” process is “PRO-cess;” been is “BEEEN” and out is, well, I can’t come up with a phonetic spelling, but everyone knows how Canadians say ‘out,’ eh?)

Yes, a cultural experience. Until someone recites First Corinthians. You know, the one about love being patient and kind:

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, 

it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, 

it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. 

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

You may have heard these lines at a wedding. Someone may have read First Corinthians at your nuptials. I hadn’t heard it in a while. Here, on this blue sky, green mountain, blue water day, I can hear my Aunt Leslie’s voice at our wedding almost 13 years ago. The verses jolt me, triggering a fresh wave of grief.  Grief for who I had and what we lost. Grief for the death of a marriage and end of a dream.

I tell Fiona I need to go blow my nose. I retreat to the sanctuary of the ladies’ room, surrendering several minutes to a full-on, snot-blowing sob. It’s been nearly two and-a-half years since Sean died. Tears still connect us. They likely always will. Damn service. I’m not here for an epiphany.

Keens, Culture and Questions

At orientation, I survey the crowd. Lots of kids (58 this week), and dozens of adults, some in varying stages of aging hippy-ness. I decide I may become an aging hippy. I’m already rockin’ the aging part. Now, I need a pair of Keen sandals and possibly some socks to match. However, I make a pact with myself and my Creator that if I’m lucky enough to reach age 80, and still have my own boobs, I’ll wear a bra that buttresses my breasts beyond my navel.

What is this faith thing, anyway? I’ve long considered myself more seeker than believer. And I wonder if I’ve held onto religion because I’ve let go of so much else. Must I relinquish this, too? I’m Christian because I grew up in America in a Christian home to a family whose Protestant roots stretch for generations. My Irish and German ancestors included not only farmers and businessmen, but clergy, too.  Is that enough? Is ancestry-based faith enough? Is singing in the junior choir, baptism, confirmation and marriage in the church enough to cling to Christianity like a life raft? Does sending your children down the same well-trod garden path earn you an extra stamp on your faith card? I don’t know.

Religion is cultural. If I’d grown up in India, I might be Hindu. If I’d grown up in Brooklyn, New York or Beechwood, Ohio I might be Jewish. If I’d grown up in New Zealand, I might be agnostic or atheist (though, to be fair, Christian Kiwis do exist). And no one would care.

But I won’t think about these things at Sorrento. I’m not here for an epiphany.

Blurred Visions 

I sit on the screened-in porch behind Caritas Lodge each morning and write while listening to choir practice. The group’s leader, who sports a long, gray beard and Santa Claus physique teaches songs from South Africa and (former Soviet) Georgia. He constructs resplendent harmonies and enthusiasm in every line. The choir sings something familiar I later learn is from Beethoven’s 7^th symphony. The Pete Seeger lyrics are entitled “Visions of Children.” The tempo ambles and the melody sounds sad. I’ve just written a section of memoir about Sean’s illness where Fiona says, “When’s Daddy coming home? I want Daddy back!” I stop tapping my computer keyboard. I listen.

Visions of children, asking us to save them…

I cry.

Players and Scavengers

Mimi, Fiona, Finley

My children spend three hours in programming each morning and another hour at night. They learn songs, play games, make art projects, swim and practice for the end-of-camp variety show. They zoom around on bikes like the Centre’s their private city. They make new friends, including towheaded Mimi, who’s five. Finley scavenges an entire fish skeleton, piece by piece, from the beach. Fiona shares clothing with a nine-year-old camper and sneaks away to Mimi’s parents’ apartment to watch Phineus and Ferb. During one worship service, my kids ask, in tandem, “Can we go get the heavenly meal?”

Fish bones!

My initial missionary zeal to avoid the daily morning worship service has been supplanted by a desire to sit quietly and hear whatever there is to hear. It’s like meditation. I sit next to my friend, Phoebe, a classicly-trained singer. Her pure, sweet soprano voice causes angels to seek remedial vocal coaching.

One day, the worship leader, a 30-something man with a loaf of brown curly hair, double-pierced earrings and shirt that sits just below his waist queries an 11 or 12 year girl, “If you could ask God any question, what would you ask?” Her reply: “I’d ask if the people who are faithful to their Buddhist or Hindu faith also get their reward after they die.”

Chalice bearer, Finley

Breakthrough

I keep tapping the computer keyboard– determined to edit and write 10,000 words of memoir. Not only do I make my goal, I also have an epiphany about story structure after exchanging e-mails with my former New Zealand flat mate, Amy, and my Kiwi writer friend, Lee. Collaboration, writer’s intuition and Sorrento’s magic have forged significant change, much like the blacksmith the kids and I saw at Fort Steele last week took an iron rod and hammered it from straight to spiral.

After five days, I’m blissed out on writing, singing and adult conversation and fattened by three meals a day from Sorrento’s organic farm (sugar snap peas = crunchy pillows of delight). I exchange messages with my partner, Pete, who says, “They’re going to have to drag you out of there, aren’t they?”

Sit with this...

A young counselor, maybe age 20, seats a shard of melba toast in my palm during the camp’s final communion. “Eat this and become the body of Christ,” he says. The words are different enough from what I’m used to hearing, (“The body of Christ, the bread of heaven,)” they give me pause. I think about the meal we’re sharing. And think maybe it’s enough – for now – to remain at this table. If ‘all are welcome,’ then surely doubters can sit beside those whose faith is granite strong.  And maybe sitting with the fact you love this community and remain equally open to faith as doubt – is enough.

If you, like me, are not seeking epiphany, Sorrento’s a magical place to run away. 
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Which experience has shattered or strengthened your faith?

http://www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca/