Burden, Unburden, Voluntary, Involuntary

On the Camino, one of the disciplines, an askesis, really, is to strip down to the minimum that you're willing to carry. How many shirts do I NEED? How many books? Marty wrote of the little "shrines" we left of things we decided that we would carry no longer. We wouldn't just toss the stuff--we'd leave it carefully stacked, imagining another pilgrim might want it.

On immersion, a different kind of stripping down goes on. We try to reach a kind of understanding of those we meet that reaches across cultures, so we try to relativize our own cultural stuff--do I NEED American TV? DO I NEED a nice steak with a decent California Zinfandel, or can I experience pupusas with an openness to their own delights? Tourists take in the superficial delights of other cultures in limited doses, while immersers dive in. Culture, of course, cuts deeper than entertainment and food, but the idea is the same--we strip down closer to the common humanity that we share, discovering different ways to approach life's challenges and opportunities. We discover that the basics are available wherever we go, and that some of what we thought was essential to happiness is merely auxiliary, and we gain, perhaps, a sadness and outrage when the essentials we have in plenitude are denied others for no reason other than greed.

Returning can be jarring, because we suddenly become aware of the burden of our excesses--if I only NEED three shirts, why do I have 20? Why am I burdened with storing them, choosing a shirt every day, with wanting new ones? Simple living comes to be seen as a freedom, not a deprivation, though, 'tis true, if I wore only one of three shirts, it's possible my students and colleagues would take note, and not in an approving way. One advantage of religious habits is that you can't tell whether the wearer has 19 more, or only 1 or 2. And there's little point in having 20, since they're essentially identical.

Returning jars when we see the excessive plenitude--why an entire grocery store aisle of pet food when people are hungry? Do cats really NEED a choice of flavors of food? Do we really NEED to cosset housecats so? (Dogs, well, that's another story...)

When I returned, I moved into a house, the first I've ever owned (co-owned, in this case.) My sense of being feral is curtailed by having an address that is "mine" in a way that an apartment or studio never really is. I have painted, cleaned, replaced toilet workings, swept, raked, mopped, chipped old paint. The house is a form of security--I realized that unless I had some major investment, I would never have the option to retire. And if I become seriously ill, I would be purely at the mercy of the state. A house for me represents, (if the market rebounds,) a kind of paradoxical freedom to be able to take care of myself should I need to. It roots me to one place, but enables independence.

Then we were robbed. My housemate's computer was taken--a serious machine because it's a primary workstation. Among other things taken were my late mother's wedding band, and a ring she'd had made from her first engagement ring. Neither especially valuable--we're not an "estate jewelry" kind of family. We've been broke for generations! But they were hers and they're gone. We have a lead to the burglar, but the Oakland police are disinclined to investigate--they have more important crimes to track, and we don't live in the kind of neighborhood where the police are especially attentive. If we were wealthy, the police would protect our belongings, but since we're not, burglary is tolerated where we live.

What do we carry, and what do we leave behind? I seem to be carrying a house now, a serious burden, but perhaps a form of freedom, not unlike the freedom of carrying my netbook across Spain. It's not a burden I ever anticipated would be possible for me--without my co-owner, it still wouldn't be.

The burglary reminds me that I can be stripped involuntarily of my stuff, without recourse. In the end, of course, we leave everything behind except love. But still--my mother's rings. I was willing to carry those, despite their minimal value. Now I don't have to. And I'm sorry about that.

The Dog Days of Pilgrimage....

On Tuesday night, at the invitation of the Graduate Theological Union's Women's Studies in Religion program, Lisa and I were invited to talk about our grant. I had no idea what to look for.

We didn't know what our audience would be like: students from various degree programs, members of the larger community, colleagues? We didn't know the venue: would our wonderful slides project? We didn't know how many folks to expect -- "Oh, maybe between five and fifty."

We did know one thing: these are the "dog days." The ancient Romans used the term, "dies caniculares,"to describe those hot sultry days of mid-summer, when fall's cooler mornings seem far away and spring is an all-too distant splash of green. During the "dog days," the dogs languish. Forget frolicking; mere panting takes too much work. Even the angels sleep.

Tuesday is the "dog day" of the week: the blush of a new week has worn off -- and you can't find your way to weekend. More enervating, it's the twelfth week of the semester here, and the end of the semester seems three weeks too late. All gears grind. Even our scheduled time was a "dog day," too soon after our last class to relax and grab dinner, too late in the day for hard-ass scholarly discourse.

But as soon as the projection screen registered our first photo, I felt energized. Then, when Lisa passed the ball off to me in mid-sentence of her opening remarks, I knew we'd have fun.

"You're doing exactly what you did to me with the novel!" I responded in mock protest. She laughed wickedly.

And this is how we walked the "dog days" of the Camino, when everything ached but we were nowhere near finished with the day's walking. In mid-pilgrimage, we started a novel. One person would begin, then pass it off to the other -- in mid-sentence.

One day, during the "dog days" of a hot afternoon, we turned to Richard, a young American we'd met working at pilgrim hostel. We embellished his story, fabricated a sweetheart for him from the small hillside village where we'd met him, spun a story around her and her out-of-wedlock child from a high-school sweetheart, who'd gone off to med school in Salamanca, cut off all contact with her and the village -- and fallen in love with a fiery Nicaraguan pre-med student committed to social justice. I'd tell the story for a while -- then pass it off to Lisa just as something exciting was about to happen.

We'd pick up the threads the next afternoon, just as the "dog days" of the afternoon set in, just as the pain asserted itself, just as the day's heat focused its energies upon us. We spent literally miles wrapped up in our story. Telling a story whose ending we did not know kept us from hurting; it kept us from fighting; it kept us going. The resultant novel still has no ending -- and defies all taxonomies of genre. It probably falls somewhere between Jesuit science fiction and bodice ripper.

I could see the same tactic was going to get us through the "dog days" of this evening, the "dog days" of the semester, the "dog days" of any present and future pilgrimage.

What's in it, this magical antidote to "dog days?" There's humor, of course: the ability to laugh at anything, everything, but particularly yourselves. Then, there's imagination, but imagination rooted in reality. After all, there was a real Richard. We'd met him. His character in the novel was remarkably true to his character in the tiny village where we'd met him. Finally, there's gritty truth: we knew we had to keep walking. And we could do it grumpily -- or gracefully.

Telling stories helped us find grace.

And how does grace come?

Usually where you least expect it: we thought the pilgrimage would be more "spiritual," and we'd packed readings from the daily lectionary to contemplate while walking. But the graces we encountered came through our feet -- and our imaginations. Immersing ourselves in the fictional worlds of Bianca and Richard, worlds we had fabricated on the basis of the real, helped us face our own world more graciously.

Grace also comes with skin. Sometimes I wanted to shake her awake or hurry her along, but for me Lisa was grace with skin.

We're in a season, the Easter season, graciously given to the disciples so that their eyes get used to recognizing the Risen Christ, grace with skin in their own lives. The same skin that had been crucified was now resurrected and among them. They had a hard time recognizing it: so Jesus stuck around, appearing every once in a while as an occasional eye exercise.

It makes me aware that if I want to find grace in the world around me now, I'd better look to the people around me.

Grace with skin.

The Pilgrimage of the Easter Season: Where's Jesus?!

When my nieces were young, they cornered me on the couch with a book and said: "Where's Waldo?" I looked at a double-page spread of images piled on top of one another in dizzying vertical array. There were busses, cars, trucks, skyscrapers, houses, with people, cats, dogs, and birds all over the page. Where was Waldo? I was no help, because I didn't know what Waldo looked like to begin with.

I had no idea what I was looking for.

That puts me in a very similar situation to the disciples in the season after Easter. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! But no one knows what he looks like. No one knows what they are looking for.

Mary Magdalene mistakes him for a gardener. The disciples on the road to Emmaus mistake him for a wandering rabbi. And the usual suspects who've returned to their usual pursuits -- fishing on the Sea of Tiberias -- think he's some backseat fisherman, giving orders from the safety of the shore. Nobody recognizes the risen Christ.

It's pretty clear no one has any idea what they are looking for. So these forty days between Easter and Ascension give their eyes time to adjust to life in the Resurrection Zone. Forty days -- the same as Lent. And even more important.

Jesus comes back to teach, to leave peace, to touch and be touched -- and to cook the disciples breakfast. Like the Last Supper in Holy Week, the First Breakfast is the meal of the Easter season.

More congregations ought to celebrate that!

One of my friends complained about having the post-Easter doldrums: after the drama of the Triduum, we're now in "ordinary time -- and it just seems, well, so ordinary."

Hey -- it's not ordinary time yet! In the liturgical year, this is the season of Easter, and these forty days constitute a pilgrimage every bit as important as Lent's. Along the way, we learn to recognize the resurrected Christ.

So, where is he in the midst of that dizzying vertical array of appointments, deadlines, and e-mails in our lives?

Do we even know what we're looking for? Or will he surprise us along the road, like he surprised the disciples en route to Emmaus?

Be watching.

Rituals of Re-Entry: What Immersion Teaches Pilgrims

Entrada: this way forward. If only it were so easy! Both pilgrims and people on immersion trips wrestle with problems of re-entry. Every semester winds down, and the student returns to campus. Every road comes to an end, and the pilgrim packs up for home. What's the way forward?

Yesterday afternoon I pondered the question of re-entry with fellow pilgrims and "Camino-heads," Kathy Gower and Lin Galea. Guidebooks and websites tell the pilgrim how to prepare for journey: what gear to pack, how to train, where to stay along the way. But no one tells pilgrims how to return. The disorientation can be profound.

The conversation explained my own behavior. I suddenly understood why, immediately upon returning, I joined the American Pilgrims network (www.americanpilgrims.com). I understood how I'd been drawn to the first Bay Area meeting a thumbtack to a magnet, like everyone else in the room. I understood why were we were sitting together, watching rainshowers and sunshowers roll across the Bay.

It was as if we'd all awakened one morning speaking a language no one else could understand. It was a relief to find some other native speakers.

Seasoned leaders of immersion trips expect problems of re-entry -- and they try to prep students for them. Directors of the Casa have a final retreat focused on the way forward. Similar to the orientation retreat that opens the program, the closing retreat preps people for "disorientation." As I listened to how the final retreat worked, I realize that immersion can teach pilgrims a lot, particularly three important rituals of re-entry.

First, acknowledge the disorientation. A long-time leader of delegations talked about preparing a group of college students for re-entry after they'd gone down to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. The students had shoveled mud, waded through muck, scoured and scrubbed --and were heading home for the holidays. Summoning them, their leader spoke as strongly as she knew how: "You are going to hate your families for not having been there. Those feelings are real and powerful. I absolutely understand your feelings -- and it would be absolutely inappropriate and sinful to attack others as a result of them."

Her warning probably prevented a lot of bloodshed. And certainly pulled some punches that might otherwise have connected.

A piece of advice that Kathy Gower passed on months ago made new sense: "Pack for pilgrimage as if you are never coming back." For medieval pilgrims, this could be literally true: they could be killed, robbed, or felled by disease. Today those dangers have largely disappeared, but the truth remains: you don't come back. Even though you return to the same surroundings and relationships, you're not the same person. Everything needs to be recalibrated.

If pilgrims knew to expect this -- as immersants do, re-entry could be less frustrating, less confusing.

Second, think about how to give back. Not everyone has the time and money, means and sheer physical ability to do either pilgrimage or immersion. How can you share what you've learned or experienced? For Lin, this has been quite concrete: through the American Pilgrims network, she's trained to be a hospitalero, worker at a hostel. She's return this summer to work outside Sevilla at a site on the Via del Plata. Her work will directly benefit the influx of pilgrims expected to converge on Santiago in the summer of 2010, a "Holy Year" in the Roman Catholic calendar.

At the end of our delegation in Mexico City, we had a final "disorientation" session, where we committed ourselves to "action plans." In the presence of the other delegates and our leaders, we covenanted ways to be in solidarity with them back in El Norte.

A key piece of this ritualization needs to be the recognition that you can rarely ever repay the kindness and hospitality you've received. Sometimes all you can do is to "pay it forward," acting locally in appropriate ways to witness to what you've experienced.

Finally, stay in solidarity with those who've accompanied you. Casa students find ways of keeping in touch upon their return, and Director Kevin Yonkers-Talz is intentional about convening groups of Casa alums on his frequent trips to the United States. Pilgrim networks abound, drawing like magnets people who suddenly discover they speak a language they'd never bargained on learning.

Keeping company: that's what we were doing yesterday, as we watched spring rains rake the Bay. After all, three people can do things one person can't manage alone.

Re-entry: Immersion -- or Theological Tourism?

The sign shows you the way out -- the way out of the Jesuit University where we spent much of our time, the way out of the SuperSelect where we shopped, the way out of customs and immigration, even the way out of the airplane as it took off from El Salvador's Comalapa Airport on Friday morning and circled out over the country's fabled surf breaks on the Pacific.

It's easy to exit airports and supermarkets; it's not so easy to exit the experience. Everything reminds me of where I've been. The birds here are quieter and more subdued, not the loud squawking parrots of San Salvador. Here the sun comes up and goes down more slowly, leaving grainy hours of dusk and dawn. There, because of proximity to the equator, the sun pops out of the horizon in the morning, making things suddenly bright; there, night falls in minutes. Here air breathes in more easily, unencumbered by diesel fumes. There, I had a sour throat after four days. All of this I mark.

It's not so easy to exit the experience. Nor would I want to. Marking the differences between "there" and "here" is common to both pilgrimage and immersion. Also similar is a deepening awareness that the differences mark me, in ways I can't yet imagine.

Since I'm still unpacking my bags, let me unpack this thought -- at least a little --
by way of a story. The last day we spent at the Casa, we overlapped with a delegation from another Jesuit university. Some members in the group seemed eager to partake of the Casa experience; others were not so sure. Was this not one more way of exploiting the Salvadoran people, learning personal and social transformation at their expense? Was this just tourism -- with a different thrust and even less benefit to the natives?

The latter group pressed their case. After all, to do an immersion anywhere, you need money, means, and time. Students in the Casa program were largely white, middle- to upper-middle-class students -- whose parents could afford to come down and visit. Although scholarships were available, and some of the Casa students had them, my interlocutors were not swayed. Sullenly, they climbed into a bus -- and were gone.

Here's how I would want to have continued the conversation:

First, the experience of other peoples and cultures prompts change: you simply can't see the world in the same way any more. Particularly if the dislocation is intentional, as it is in both pilgrimage and immersion, people don't expect to return to their familiar. They seek that expanded vision. Immersions are a first step toward that new vision.

Second, I do think the Salvadoran people with whom students work in praxis sites should weigh in -- and judge whether they are being "exploited" or not. The directors of this program work closely with the people in-country to keep a pulse on their needs and their perspectives. Indeed, Kevin Yonkers-Talz, director of the Casa program, spoke very pointedly about the praxis communities being "educators," giving them title and a key role in the pedagogy at Casa. Is this exploitation or theological tourism? It's a question for people in-country to address, not for a delegation from the outside to judge.

So I posed the question to some Salvadorans. "Tell our stories," one woman said, "so that people will never forget." A man judged the accompaniment to be crucial: "You can't fix it, because your country is part of the problem. But being with us means everything."

Finally, yes, there is a danger of what colleague Kevin Burke SJ called "theological tourism," once again taking from the poor to benefit the rich -- this time for insight. But the change that immersion prompts mitigates that danger. Participants will live their lives differently, some in greater and lesser daily solidarity with the people they've encountered in El Salvador. But all will be changed -- "if they have eyes to see, ears to hear."

Intentional action plans, covenants, plans for the future: all these are part of the final retreat in the Casa program. This was certainly how we spent the last day in Mexico City in January. And in equally powerful, but more implicit ways, this is how we exited the pilgrimage to Santiago -- following the exit signs, even as we knew the experience had marked us for life.

In the end, all "exit" signs point to an irony. They mark the boundary between "there" and "here." They get you out, but they can't make you free. You'll carry that place with you forever.

"There" will always be right here, marked on the body like a bold tattoo.

Theoretical Musing

[Warning! Ethical Methodological Material Ahead! Beware of Soporific Content!]

In virtue ethics, we talk a lot about virtues as perfections of human capacities. Virtues perfect our character the same way exercise perfects our muscles--they tone and strengthen us for specific contexts. A virtue ethics generally speaking focuses on the cardinal virtues (classically: Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Courage, or, in one contemporary spin, Prudence, Justice, Fidelity and Self-care.) All other virtues "fit" into one of the cardinal virtues, which are like a sorting system for the general way virtues function. (E.g., temperance classically restrains us from grabbing too much of something that's good.The opposite vice, which Thomas calls "insensibility," happens, but is much less common than the urge to have too much of a good thing. Humility fits into the temperance category, since we're to be restrained from grabbing too much honor.) To have lots of various virtues is not to be super-human, it's to be excellent as a human being, to be living in tune with one's nature. It's "being all you can be," morally fit like an elite athlete is physically fit.

But particular endeavors like the practice of medicine or ministry, have particular virtues attributed to them, in light of the goal or end or telos of the activity. Doctors are to work on physical or psychological well-being, so what is required of them includes all the regular virtues, but also "professional" spins on each of them. For a doctor, e.g., fidelity to patients requires a devotion to their thriving, (as the Kaiser-Permanente people say.) So a plastic surgeon who's in it just for the bucks is failing in fidelity, while a plastic surgeon who looks to the patient's well-being overall is being professionally virtuous. (Somewhere along the line, some plastic surgeon should have said "no" to Michael Jackson. Maybe not at first, perhaps, but somewhere along the line.) I add to the cardinal virtues for professionals the virtue of trustworthiness. Trustworthiness includes things like being assiduous about your work. Ministers whose theological education ends with seminary are not being trustworthy. Courage for a lawyer might include defending a notorious client in the face of public outrage--consider the ACLU defending white supremacist speech, e.g.

To become a professional is to be formed in the work and ideals of the profession. It is to engage oneself in the process of acquiring the virtues specific to the work. This also involves dealing with profession-specific temptations--MD's are scheduled for appointments every 15 or 20 minutes, yet are expected to deal thoroughly with each patient. The temptation is to keep the schedule, while sometimes you need to stop and listen more deeply. K. Lebacqz (I think--sorry no citation) has written movingly about this. Sometimes what a patient needs more than medicine is to be listened to.

The Casa speaks of "planting seeds," helping people become "their best selves." Of course, the seeds they seek to plant include virtues like compassion, trust, devotion. They don't want to encourage avarice, hard-heartedness, etc. So there's an implicit anthropology at work--what makes a "best self"?

They aren't seeking to form professionals, but to help each person grow in the cardinal virtues. Each of us can be said to start with a certain baseline level of a given virtue. Some people are naturally bold, others naturally more temperate than others. Each of us develops our virtues (or not) toward an ideal that is universal yet personal, just as fingerprints or DNA are universal yet unique. They resist speaking of "formation," perhaps, because that term implies formation for a particular role or profession. They want to help people be just, compassionate accountants, or whatever they do.

Traditional religious formation engages, on a good day, both. A young Benedictine learns the routines of the monastery, finds out that whatever work they're doing stops when the bell rings for prayer. Prayer is the "opus Dei," the proper works of monks. The floor that needs sweeping can wait until after lauds. Priorities indicate meaning. Yet insofar as religious formation is engaged with service of God who desires our flourishing, in the infinite variety in which we're created, a person who seeks to subsume his or her humanity, or ANY aspect of it, in the "mold" of a monk, is making a fundamental error. (Some have suggested that the reason there seem to be more pedophiles in the Roman Catholic priesthood than the rest of the male population is that some pedophiles--not all of them--entered priesthood seeking to escape their sexuality through celibacy. As the newspapers show, it doesn't work that way.) A Benedictine monk is to be his or her "best self" as a Benedictine. If the life doesn't complement and enhance his or her ability to "praise, love and serve" God and neighbor, then the monk doesn't have a vocation to that life. Complicating this statement is the fact that one can grow into a vocation--but not always.

Professional formation these days, in all three professions, tends to downplay "human" formation in the cardinal virtues in favor of formation in the practices and techniques of the profession. Partly that's appropriate, partly not.

Sometimes the virtues of a profession are attended to, but too often not. But absent formation in the professional virtues, medicine, law and ministry are just careers, not professions. When Roman Catholic priestly formation documents speak of "human" formation, they tend to mean formation in celibacy. Too bad--the category is much broader than that, and needs attention for all professionals. We all arrive in the process of becoming "our best selves." Training for professions changes our image of our best selves.

I argue that the process of integrating the "best self" of the cardinal virtues and the professional virtues is more significant for ministers than for doctors or lawyers because of the nature of the work as involving spiritual growth--but that's another topic.

Students in Solidarity: Who comes on an immersion to El Salvador...

...when they could be pub-crawling in London? Or bistro-hopping in Florence? As we close out our time in El Salvador, we've been asking that question of students. They have ready answers.

One of them rephrased it for us: "You mean why did I choose to Study Abroad, rather than Party Abroad?" He laughed: "Here we learn whether we want to or not." He identified very precisely how his perspective had changed: he'd come as a proponent of neo-liberal, free-market capitalism. He's learned how that economic philosophy cripples countries like El Salvador. He's learned that "place makes a difference," where you are located in the global market makes a huge difference in what you see. He's learned "never to be complacent again."

Then he began to tell stories about working with the children in the praxis site to which he's been assigned. The conversation turned to a series of verbal snapshots of "my kids."

Another student observed: "Most of us have been involved in protests at the School of the Americas. It's a common thread." Of course, most of the students come from Jesuit universities -- but not all. "Students already come with an awareness of the world," she said. This experience deepens it. As an undergraduate, she first participated in, then led Alternative Spring Breaks. "AB's" count as another kind of immersion that involves three components: direct service, education, and reflection. Each component is crucial: "Without education, everything gets mushy; without reflection, it gets meaningless; without service, it gets heady."

What would she carry with her when she left El Salvador? "Community," and as she unpacked that, it's clear community is multi-dimensional. Living in an intentional community with other students, working in the praxis sites or Salvadoran communities, learning with the Romero scholars -- and seeing this country through their eyes: all these components of the Casa program take her experience of Alternative Break to a new and deeper level. She's looking for ways to re-create that kind of community back in the States.

She too left us with a bunch of verbal snapshots of a mother in her praxis site, the family who hosted her for a week's visit early on. As with her colleague, these stories told more than any book or article on the country. She'll carry these people with her.

As we gather our things for tomorrow's return to the States, I'm thinking about these new colleagues in El Salvador. Theirs are the faces in my mental photo gallery. Theirs are the stories I'll carry with me.

I wonder what re-entry will be like for all of us? How will these students live out what they've learned here in El Norte, on campuses where everyone arrives in class plugged into their own individual soundtrack? Where texts and cells provide easy access to friends, but block contact with the people sitting right next to you? Where meaning is measured out in salary scales, consumer goods, and material success? What will re-entry be like for them?

What will re-entry be like for us? What's our calling, even after this brief visit? We haven't been here long; still, we have been here. How has the experience claimed us? Or, to borrow language that threads through every dimension of this program, how can we accompany this program, our gracious hosts Kevin and Trena Yonkers-Talz, and the students here?

I know that's the right question. We'll keep searching for the answer.