FROM THE HERMITAGE
By sister alies therese
At breakneck speed, Kenyan runner Sabastian Sawe completed the London Marathon in 1:59:30, becoming the first person to finish the 26-mile trek in under two hours. Closely behind was Ethiopian runner Kejelcha, just 11 seconds later. That is traveling one mile in 4:33, 26 times! Seriously moving, those fellas put a new stamp on the word – traveling.

Birds travel, butterflies travel, glaciers travel and indeed people travel. I have a friend, soon to be 80, who wants us to do Route 66! Why not, you ask? Well, she lives far away and would have to travel a considerable distance before we could even begin. Anyway, Route 66, being a famous road with sites and motels, food and people, has welcomed travelers for years. A secular sort of pilgrimage. A good icon for that might be the original drawing of Winnie-the-Pooh (on sale for $12,000) tracking the Woozles all over the place. (He will be 95 this year. Oh my.)

There are lots of variations in travel, as you well know. For example, being caught in traffic – moving and not moving, i.e., stranded – long lines at the airport or even being stuck in a grocery line behind people with long questions or a new checker.

How many times have you been stuck? Your inner life feels empty, your home life is boring and you are going nowhere. Or, on the other hand, with some excitement, consider graduation, the NFL draft or entering a monastery! All these cause us to go from one place, one kind of life, into another that is only vaguely familiar. We learn the rules of the road – a Green Book of sorts – and begin to be transformed by our new way of life, at least if we stay long enough … or maybe we move on. Perhaps we will travel the road to St. James?

Historically, we know of those who traveled under duress – on the Trail of Tears or the long trek of slavery. People ripped from their former lives and forced into another, miles from home. Think too of the troubles of travel – bandits, wrecks and weather. Our journeys are not all that easy, even when we don’t seem in harm’s way.

When we read, we travel. When we pray, we travel. When we write, create art or music or when we imagine, we travel. What takes you from one place to another? Well, a truck, a cart, a horse or a car moves us forward, but many in our world today are traveling away from war and violence in tiny boats or struggling to walk on foot. If you have ever been near the border, say south of Tucson, you might have noticed something thrown away, hidden in bushes and trees – traveling clothes discarded, especially shoes, often those of small children. One must realize that the only way people are moving toward safety and some sort of economic or social improvement away from violence is by traveling on foot. I can’t even walk to the DG to get a bottle of milk. How far, you ask? Well, maybe 10 blocks or so … ugh.

Traveling is also a favorite advertisement for most new cars and uses the beauty of America on wide-open roads, or a flight to Paris, or that moon shot and back to entice us to move from the comfortable zones where we consider ourselves safe and in place, to explore the universe God has so generously created. In the Hebrew Bible we discover the long trek of the Israelites – 40 years of wandering in the desert, looking for a promised land. A journey that could have been traveled on foot in about 11 days took 40 years. There are plenty of Scriptural references to traveling, but my favorites are the flight into Egypt with the tiny Child, the walk to Emmaus and the care of the Good Shepherd who walks with us, leads us and brings us to safety.

There are also other kinds of traveling – disease, for example. We go one day from being quite well to having broken bones, a tumor or the flu. Indeed, one of the most pernicious diseases that causes us to travel from well-being into uncertainty is dementia. It is even called a disease of progression and is, no doubt, a difficult trip not only for the traveler, but for friends and family close by.

Finally, a woman named Melissa Lucio has been on death row – a horrid place to travel to – in Texas for 17 years and four years ago was to be executed. However, she received a stay after the trial judge recommended overturning her conviction and death sentence. There is a long travel from cell to death chamber … and indeed from guilty to innocent! However, here is the question: Why is she still there? She is in the hands of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and they will decide whether to accept the judge’s recommendation and overturn her wrongful conviction and death sentence. Why has it taken them four years, to date, to reach a favorable decision? Their traveling seems ever so slow …

As you plan your vacation, travel sports event or visit to Granny in Maine, remember our lives are one long walk to Emmaus, one pilgrim adventure after another toward our final place of welcome. We need to pay attention, however, to what St. Gregory the Great had to say about travelers: “Don’t be a foolish traveler, distracted by the pleasant meadows you are passing and forgetting where you are going.”

I had a novice mistress once who frequently said, “Be a constant and joyful companion on the journey.” Here is our opportunity, as we travel together with Jesus, to comfort and console, to be a source of cheer and joy and to be attentive to our odometer as it clocks up the miles.

Happy trails … blessings.

(sister alies therese is a canonical hermit who prays and writes.)