Here is a slide show I made to highlight recent trips we have made at William Woods University. In recent years, we have travelled the map, journeying to Peru, the American south, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy and Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Next up: France and a return trip to Pine Ridge.
(My video of JoAnne speaking to our group in 2009)
In 2009, I took a group of students to the American South as we traveled the path of the civil rights movement. We worshipped at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (home church of Martin Luther King), visited the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama and ended our trip visiting The Lorraine Motel and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Along the way on this memorable road trip, we made an unforgettable stop in Selma, Alabama, a small town that was historically important to the story of America.
When I stepped out of the van, just outside of the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, I was greeted by JoAnne Bland: “You must be Travis. Get over here and give me a hug; that’s how we do it in the South.” JoAnne then welcomed our group and led us on an inspirational walking tour of the town she calls home.
Selma, Alabama was the site of what is known as “Bloody Sunday”. On March 7, 1965, state troopers brutally attacked 500 to 600 civil rights demonstrators. The televised images were horrific. Men and women, young and old, were beaten back with tear gas, billy clubs and dogs. JoAnne Bland was there at that time, an eyewitness to history, an active participant in America’s struggle to right its wrongs and redeem its past. Only eleven years old at the time, she has the distinction of being the youngest person arrested and jailed during the civil rights demonstrations.
One of the more memorable moments on our visit occurred when JoAnne took our group to a piece of pavement behind a Head Start building. The place was non-descript, uninteresting to the uninformed. She ordered us all to pick up a rock and place the rock in our open palm. We did. She then began to look at each of our rocks and tell us stories. “Let me see your rock…..that rock in your hand is Bob Mants….” “Now let me see your rock, that one is Lynda Lowery, She was 14 years old on that bridge on March 7th. 14. She received wounds that required 26 stitches and then, still, three weeks later walked every step of the way from Selma to Montgomery.”
She went on to tell us, “I saved that cement so you could hold that history.” And then she proceeded to tell us why that cement pavement was so important. It marked out the place where the demonstrators gathered to begin their march. She then urged us to take back our little rock or pebble to Missouri and remember the fight and the struggle, telling us:
“When you see injustice committed against anyone, no matter who they are, and you feel like you can’t do anything, go pick up that rock and take from it the strength that ordinary people stood on that rock, ordinary people just like yourself, stood on that rock and walked right up to that bridge and made history that not only changed Selma, but this entire nation. And get up off your behinds, and do something. Can you do that?”
On Monday night, January 16th and the occasion of Martin Luther King Day, JoAnne Bland will be our guest at William Woods University and will tell stories of America’s struggle for justice and equality. As part of the President’s Concert & Lecture series, JoAnne’s talk will connect us to the past that paved a way for the future. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Cutlip Auditorium and begins at 7 pm.
Last week was a first. I’ve swam in the ocean numerous times. But last week was the first time I’ve ever been stung by a jellyfish. Ouch! We were in the water for only a few minutes when we all got zapped by one of those dreadful creatures. We made our way back to beachhead, nursed our wounds and complained about a day gone awry. Our legs had varying degrees of redness and the numbness took about 20 – 30 minutes to subside. And then we began to watch others have their turn. And then it became fun. It was sort of like a sporting event. We sat in our lounge chairs and watched uninformed fresh meat take their happy faces into the Atlantic Ocean. You could tell they were humming a song in their head. Probably Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah or Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World. It would be only a manner of minutes and then the theme song would change to the soundtrack from Jaws. You’d see those same people running to the beach for survival. At no time did we tell them what they were in for. Early on, my dad said to my laughing brother, “where’s your compassion?” to which Lance responded, “I’m on vacation.”
Pretty soon, it became our favorite activity on the beach. Others were engaged in different activities. Fathers and sons were playing catch. Kids were flying kites. Teenagers were building colossal sandcastles. The energetic were running their dogs or biking on the hard-packed sand. And there we were, watching people get stung by jellyfish. In time, we placed bets on who would be next.
“OK, there are four newcomers over there to the left. I’ll pick the man with the white hat.”
“Ok, I’ll take the pale-skinned guy to his left.”
“Give me the lady in the blue swimsuit. I like my odds. She’s farther out than the others.”
“I like my odds. My guy has more body mass for a jelly fish to strike.”
It was such fun. Kind of like a poor man’s running of the derby. I felt like singing My Old Kentucky Home and sipping on a mint julep.
And it was educational. We learned a lot about the human race. As much as I hate to admit it, women tended to suffer the throbbing pain better than the men did. One burley middle-aged guy got nailed by a jellyfish and he was bobbing back to the lifeguard so fast he looked like a giant top-water jig. In contrast, one suffering woman, who had delivered a tribe of babies no doubt, she slowly walked to the beach and then casually looked down at what had just happened.
We also learned how to assess the strength of a relationship by observing how couples interact. For instance, we saw one lady who was out much further than her husband/boyfriend/friend. She got stung and we knew it. We saw her initial reaction. But then, she walked back to the beach, walked right past her companion, and DIDN’T EVEN TELL HIM. Minutes later, he fell victim to the same plague and let out a war hoop louder than the deafening sound of the ocean waves. For whatever reason, she decided not to spare him the same fate that befell her. One can only guess at the reasons. Maybe, like Custer, he had it coming. Or maybe, like my brother, her “give a damn” was on vacation.
Ah, Hilton Head! What a place. We stayed at Sea Pines Plantation and there was a sign on the poolside bar which said, “If you’re lucky enough to be at the beach, you’re lucky enough.” We were lucky last week. Live music everywhere you go. Beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Islanders who were relaxed and interesting in conversation. There was a medley of songs running through my head. With Jimmy Buffett, I was looking for my “lost shaker of salt”. With Zac Brown I had my “toes in the water, my ass in the sand”. With Brad Paisley we drove until the “map turned blue” and there I confessed my “love affair with water’. With Kenny Chesney, it was a time for the beachcombers to “let the warm air melt these blues away”. On more than one occasion, I thought I was in one of those Corona beer commercials with our lounge chairs looking out into the great blue yonder.
Two of the days we arose early to watch the sunrise. One of those days, we ate dinner facing the other direction, watching the sun go down at Skull Creek Boathouse while listening to live reggae music. Late one evening, dad and I walked the beach at dark. Looking up a nighttime sky exploding with stars, I downloaded the SkyView app for my phone and we were able to name the stars and constellations.
I almost didn’t make it home, not only because I’m smitten with ocean life, but also because we had to fetch the rental keys out of a storm drain. You see, my brother threw me the keys to the rental car late one night after dinner. He said, “you drive.” Did I mention that he threw them? And did I tell you it was nighttime? He sort of led me with a high pop fly, like when we were boys playing the baseball game of 500. And because the keys were out of my reach and because the keys did not glow in the dark like a lightning bug, I couldn’t see them. And those keys, our ticket home, fell on the top of a storm drain near the car. And before we could get them in hand, they slid between the grates and down below into the underworld, the place of the dead.
You should have seen the look on our faces. With raised eyebrows, I looked at him. With hand over mouth, he looked at me. It was like the scene in A Christmas Story when young Ralphie is helping his father change a flat tire. Ralphie loses the lug nuts in the snow and his nightmare moves in slow motion while he expresses his horror at what is happening.
We lifted up the storm drain cover and looked for the bottom. It was about four feet deep, filled with water and debris and home to “where the wild things are”. Fortunately for us, my brother had a thin flashlight in his pocket. Unfortunately for me, on that particular night I was still taller than my brother. That meant I would have to fetch the keys if we were going to make it home. I did. With my brother holding the flashlight and laughing, I barely got the keys on a finger without having to rent scuba gear. He kindly offered to hold my feet. I kindly declined, certain I would end up in the ocean, feeding the fish. It was a late discovery we made but after checking out the status of our wet rental keys, (keyless entry still worked) it was then we noticed the replacement fee: $200. Had we lost them, we might have missed my niece’s wedding. We would have been lucky enough to have another day at the beach, however.
Summer must be nearing the end. Students are returning to our college town, U-Haul’s are everywhere, the voice of Kirk Herbstreit can be heard on sports radio and the pop of shoulder pads echoes from football fields all around. For me, this summer was a tour of America the Beautiful. In May, I was on an Indian reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota. In June, I was praying with Benedictine Monks in northern Minnesota. In July, I was watching tourists “live famously” in Las Vegas and in August, I walked among the beachcombers at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Along the way, I saw a lot of beautiful landscapes, met some fascinating individuals and brought home some unforgettable images.
Last week’s road trip took us to the American south. I finally got to see Asheville, North Carolina which I had heard so much about. We were there just in time to catch the final day of the bele chere (an ancient Scottish term for “beautiful living”) street festival. Musicians and artisans were everywhere. There also seemed to be street preachers on every corner preaching to no one in particular and to no one even listening. But they were not deterred. They acted as if it were otherwise, as if they had an audience in rapt attention (“I want to thank all of you for coming out here today with me to celebrate the resurrected Jesus Christ”). Just down the street,were rows and rows of food stalls. The most eye-catching and least appetizing was a novelty item: Krispy Kreme Burgers. I might have ordered one had they served it with a defibrillator.
Other memorable images from Asheville included a dog-diving contest, featuring a local three-legged canine, seen below.
And there was a unique musical group of youngsters dressed in their old-fashioned giddy up and playing old-time music. I felt like I had walked onto the cast of O, Brother Where Art Thou.
Two days ago was the 100th anniversary of the “discovery” of Machu Picchu by Hiram Bingham, a Yale University professor and a likely inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones. Evidence suggests that others had been there before him but it was Bingham who first publicized the lost city of the Incas to the wider world. When Bingham found Machu Picchu in 1911, it was hidden underneath a dense jungle overgrowth but had at least survived destruction by the Spanish who never did find the city situated high up in the Andes Mountains. At the time, Bingham thought he might be in on “one of the most remarkable stories of exploration in South America in the past 50 years.” Machu Picchu is a mesmerizing place and a must-see item on anyone’s bucket list of traveling. The first pictures of Machu Picchu were taken in 1911, by Bingham himself. Here are a few from that time period, and some that I took from a trip back in 2008.
I spent the week in northern Minnesota participating in an ecumenical dialogue on the pastoral life. The consultation was sponsored by the Collegeville Institute who gathered a small group of pastors and academics from around the country to dialogue with Eugene Peterson about his recent memoir, The Pastor. The conversations were generative and insightful as we worked through a series of questions related to the formation of pastors and the nature of the vocation.
The confab took place at St. John’s University, which is both a school for 4,000 students and home to a large Benedictine monastery. The campus is beautiful, situated on 3,500 acres of living forest with a couple of picturesque lakes stretching the landscape. Prayers were held morning, noon and evening in the Abbey Church (designed by modernist architect Marcel Breuer), which gave us a wonderful rhythm to the day.
While there we were able to view the St. John’s Bible, one of the few hand-written, illustrated Bibles produced since the advent of the printing press. Last summer, I saw the famous 6th century manuscript, The Book of Kells while in Dublin. The St. John’s Bible was carried out by Donald Jackson, one of the world’s premier cartographers. He gathered together a team of artists and calligraphers to produce the script and illustrations. The entire project took thirteen years and millions of dollars. The final volume of seven was just completed and delivered to St. John’s Abbey last week and the Benedictines hosted a mass to commemorate the occasion.
Each day we would pray with the monks, share our meals together and discuss the subject of pastoral ministry in guided conversations. We had some free time during the day to write and read and hike. At night we can back together for music and food and stories, including one evening at the home of Don Ottenhoff and Kathleen Cahalan which was like showing up at Babette’s Feast with an appetite.
Two weeks ago today I was on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for a work week at Re-member. While there, I had to make a run up to Rapid City to pick up one of our students at the airport. The drive through the Badlands National Park was unbelievably quiet. I didn’t pass a car for long stretches of roadway. At one point, I stopped on the side of the road and climbed atop the rental van for a video panoramic of the landscape.
In Scenic, South Dakota, I sought some refreshment at the local saloon but it looked like it had been closed for some time. I was glad to see that Indians were allowed but sad to miss out on their misspelled “wiskey”.
Making the drive back to Pine Ridge, I was struck once again by the marvel of big sky country. The western landscapes overwhelm the senses. On the way back I played “Calling Out Your Name” by Rich Mullins. The late songwriter paid homage to the “Keeper of the Plains” with these words:
Well the moon moved past Nebraska
And spilled laughter on them cold Dakota Hills
And angels danced on Jacob’s stairs
Yeah, they danced on Jacob’s stairs
There is this silence in the Badlands
And over Kansas the whole universe was stilled
By the whisper of a prayer
The whisper of a prayerAnd the single hawk bursts into flight
And in the east the whole horizon is in flames
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your nameI can feel the earth tremble
Beneath the rumbling of the buffalo hooves
And the fury in the pheasant’s wings
And there’s fury in a pheasant’s wings
It tells me the Lord is in His temple
And there is still a faith
That can make the mountains move
And a love that can make the heavens ring
And I’ve seen love make heaven ringWhere the sacred rivers meet
Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the plains
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
Speaking of silence, as part of our cultural immersion program at Re-member, we went for a hike deep in the Badlands and sat still for an hour or so. Some fell asleep. Some stared at the clouds. Others daydreamed. But as we sat in silence, we paid attention to creation. I thought of a recent book by Gordon Hempton. Hempton is an audio ecologist.
Over the past three decades Hempton has circled the earth three times, recording sound on every continent except Antarctica: butterfly wings fluttering, coyotes singing, snow melting, waterfalls crashing, traffic clanging, birds singing. His work has been used in film soundtracks, videogames, and museums.
For nearly thirty years, he has awakened to each new day determined to listen to the world and record the sounds that can be heard. This lifelong work has also led him to an important discovery. In his book, One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World, he contends that silence has become an endangered species.
In 1983 he found 21 places in Washington state with noise-free intervals of 15 minutes or more. By 2007 there were three. (One of them is Olympic National Park, which he is trying to save, and he will not reveal the names of the others, arguing that they are protected by their anonymity.) Whom can we blame? People, and planes. Hempton claims that, during daytime, the average noise-free interval in wilderness areas has shrunk to less than five minutes. Think of the snowmobiles roaring through Yellowstone, helicopters flying over Hawaii volcanoes, and air tours over the Grand Canyon.
Hempton thinks silence can be a gift and he has made it his life work to conserve sanctuaries of quiet. When asked why we should be concerned about silence, he responds:
It has become an increasingly rare experience to be in nature as our distant ancestors were. Even in our national parks today, despite laws to protect them, you are much more likely to be hearing noise pollution, particularly overhead aircraft, than you are to be hearing only the native sounds of the land. Yet to be in a naturally silent place is as essential today as it was to our distant ancestors. Besides spending time away from the damaging noise impacts present at our workplace, neighborhoods, and homes, we are given the opportunity not only to heal but discover something incredible—the presence of life, interwoven! Do you know what it sounds like to listen for 20 miles in every direction? That is more than 1,000 square miles. When I listen to a naturally silent place and hear nature at its most natural, it is no longer merely sound; it is music. And like all music, good or bad, it affects us deeply.
Upon leaving the Badlands, I thought of a song by the Zac Brown Band. Quiet Your Mind stresses the value of stillness and the importance of listening.
At the end of the water
A red sun is risin’
And the stars are all goin’ away
And if you’re too busy talkin’
You’re not busy listenin’
To hear what the land has to say
Quiet your mind
Last week a group of us worked on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. We were hosted by Re-member who organizes a service outreach to the Lakota Nation. For fourteen years, Re-member has been hosting groups in an intensive cultural immersion program. We learned the stories of the Lakota people and did various work projects throughout the week. We built bunk beds and outhouses and skirted a trailer with plywood. Here are some pictures from that trip and some stories of our experience.
In March a group of us traveled to Italy where we toured Rome, Assisi, Florence, Bologna and Venice. Here are some pics from the mother land.
A journal of reflections on things seen and unseen, wimsical and wise, ordinary and odd, magical and mundane
