Felicity Wright

Travels

When Seeming Failures Are the Opening for Grace

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Those of you who have read previous blogs or Facebook postings know that the keyword for describing my 9 weeks in Britain was … magical. Magical, just magical.

But, in many ways, the sabbatical was marked by failure. First was the failure to get the Lilly Foundation grant that would have made it much easier for the church and for me. Then, in the last Church Council meeting before heading off, I shared my three goals: to finish Circling, begin research on Returning, and lose 20 pounds.

I failed – and yet the sabbatical still was magical.

And now I wonder: is there a connection between seeming failure and undeniable magic? Was there something that God was trying to teach me? Have I focused too much in life on success? Might I have tried so hard to accomplish the goals that our culture identifies as the hallmarks of success that I overlooked the less obvious and more tender qualities of God’s ever-present grace?

I’ll let you ponder that as I give you a brief chronology and overview of the people and places that have caused me to rethink my life…

First of all, there’s Maurizio. Some of you have heard me talk about him before, and most everyone was skeptical. It’s wonderful when you get to a certain age and your children begin to worry about you (nice switch from those decades where parenting was just a synonym for worry and guilt). And so my daughter is on the phone hearing about my plans and asking, “So how do you know him, Mom?” I explain his email connection with the family when he was researching the role of my grandparents in improving the lives of the Sardinian villagers 100 years ago. To which she says “Yes, but …” She then asks how old he is, what he does for a living, whether he’s married or not …” I don’t have answers to any of those questions. Fortunately she’s gracious enough to simply admonish me to be careful rather than call me a blooming idiot.

My plans were just to meet Maurizio in London over lunch or dinner. We had occasional email conversation over the last seven years, but that was all. When he asked where I was staying, I replied that I was looking for an inexpensive hostel or Air B&B because, after all, I did not receive that wonderful grant that would have paid for nicer hotels. He found a convent that had been converted into a B&B, but it was still 125 pounds – or just shy of $200 / night (this was before the Brexit vote) and I was hoping for something cheaper. So I kept looking and then got an email that his good friend Patrick, a chamber orchestra conductor who lived two blocks from Westminster Abbey, would be happy to host me for a week. Magic.

Patrick was delightful and so were all of the assortment of young international musicians who came over to party, practice, and plan their next two concerts. The flat was filled with laughter and music. Another woman staying there was going through some challenging emotional stresses, and she liked to hang out with me and unload. And Maurizio, who had decided to end his work as an economics researcher and concentrate on renting two flats and doing professional tourism, became my personal tour guide for all of the highlights of London. He knew everything and everyone, it seemed. Magic.

We took a four-day trip to Sardinia where I met his family and an elderly couple that had been married at the church that my grandmother helped establish. Everywhere I went, there were hugs and thanks – along with free cappuccino or a glass of wine. They all professed knowing about my grandparents, although – quite honestly – I think they were just being nice to Maurizio and me. Magic.

Maurizio went back to London as I headed for Northumbria, in northeast England, where I stayed in the manse where another new friend, Dave Herbert, lived. Dave was a friend of a friend of a friend, who learned of my appeal to find inexpensive lodging in exchange for helping in whatever way possible. He was going on vacation, and I agreed to manage the garden, preach twice, and deal with any pastoral emergencies. This never would have happened if I had been awarded the Lilly Foundation grant.

Yet I failed here as well. My intention in staying two weeks at the quiet manse was to finish the first book Circling. But I had lost my laptop on the airplane and with it, the latest draft. I had a copy on the desktop but that was a continent away. So I read and walked and watched sheep and played a few too many computer games. I spent time with several women who were part of the associated parishes; one was considering ministry and the others just enjoyed chatting about issues with their churches or life in general. I didn’t accomplish my three goals, but enjoyed the way we each became agents of grace for each other. Magic.

Spending two weeks on Iona with Philip Newell and a bunch of other new friends, I was filled with new ideas and great excitement. But while there was lots of reading and walking, there wasn’t much writing and no dieting. I had become a happy failure. I returned briefly to Northumbria for another preaching opportunity and visits with my new friends before returning to Argyll (the western isles of Scotland) to research ancestral history. And then came what I later realized was a watershed moment.

Wanting to visit the center of the Campbell clan in Inveraray, I reserved a room at a small B&B in Ford, about 8 miles away. A young family ran it; it was homey rather than fancy, and it was cheap. But driving there from Edinburgh took twice as long as I expected. It involved endless miles on small rural roads that were sometimes dirt and often one-lane roads will pullouts for cars to pass each other. Sure, it was 8 miles from Inveraray … as a crow flies. It was 50 miles and well over an hour by car. I arrived around 9 pm and discovered that there were about 5 homes and no store of any kind in this little town of Ford, in Argyll, Scotland. The owners offered to make me dinner, which I accepted happily.

Waiting, I silently chastised myself for my stupidity. In my haste, I had selected a B&B in the middle of nowhere. What an idiot! What a … failure …

Dinner came. It was delicious, and of huge proportions. While eating, I watched a young man in the small living room eating dinner from a paper bag. After finishing what I could, I offered the rest to him. And thus began an unforgettable evening.

Leon is a German working in Scotland embarking on a new career importing fine Scotch whisky into his home country. After the usual pleasantries, I learned that he had a rather traumatic background and wasn’t close to his parents, who were divorced. I also surmised that he had gone through a number of challenges in his youth and that he was now in his early 30’s and hoping for a new start. He worked at a distillery north of Edinburgh and was in Ford exploring distilleries in Argyll. He returned my kindness of sharing dinner with a lesson in how to drink whisky. The young couple and their daughter and dog came and went for the rest of the evening.

I listened as he talked about his family, his work, his love life, his dreams. He had several heart-breaking love affairs but recently met a woman who was nearly 10 years younger but they really liked each other. And, all the while, he punctuated the stories of his life with an education on whisky. Magic.

The next morning, he came down for breakfast and thanked me for our conversation. He said that, although he wasn’t sure that his new girlfriend would ever be “the one,” he realized that he was worthy and good and there was happiness in his future.

He went off to local distilleries and I took the long drive to Inveraray, coming home to another delicious dinner with Leon and more in my whisky education. This time we talked about his business plans. I asked a number of questions and made a few suggestions based on the years when I was running a consulting business years ago. Three hours later, I went off to bed, again feeling warm and kindhearted. In the morning, Leon came down and said he was totally rethinking his business plan based on our discussion. We haven’t seen each other since, but he has sent me several emails and Facebook postings thanking me for our time together and letting me know the success of his new strategy. Somehow, my “failure” in booking a B&B in the hinterlands became an opportunity to bring magic into someone else’s life. It felt wonderful!

I then headed to Leeds to pick up a colleague from the US, and we returned to Scotland to explore her family history – and again spend time with some of my new friends. After dropping her off in London, I picked up Maurizio, who decided he wanted to learn about Celtic Christianity. [This was a big and unexpected compliment because he is a good Roman Catholic boy who hadn’t had much interest in the progressive or Celtic church.] But his heart was opened – more magic.

Maurizio and I went to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) with one of the three ladies I mentioned earlier, and visited the Lindisfarne Scriptorum, where I purchased a beautiful poster. The front is beautiful script, and it reads:

“Love is always patient and kind. Love is not boastful or conceited. It is never rude, and never seeks its own advantage. It does not take offence or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but finds its joy in the truth. It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. These remain: faith, hope and love, and the greatest is love.”

The back reads:

“Based on 1 Corinthians 13: 4-13. A good exercise is to replace the word ‘love’ with your own name to see if you match up – not an easy task but one worthy of aspiring to.”

I tried that: “Felicity is always patient and kind. Felicity is never boastful or conceited. Felicity is never rude, and never seeks her own advantage…” Ouch! Oh yes, I am a failure indeed! I am not always patient and kind. I am sometimes boastful and conceited. I can be rude and seek my own advantage… I could go on and on.

And so it was in reading this at Holy Island that I had my epiphany on the connection between failure and magic. The failure was in the need to accomplish something; the magic was with the present and the presence. The magic was the pure and simple grace of sharing time, hearts, and minds with others. The magic was that, for two months, I had been patient and kind. I had not been boastful or conceited; I had never been rude or sought my own advantage. I had not taken offence or stored up grievances. I did not rejoice in wrongdoing….

My need to be successful had become a stumbling block to living in the present and in the presence of divine grace. My failures had nothing to do with losing the sabbatical grant or not completing my three goals. My only failure was that I had forgotten about the magic that comes when one is open to God’s grace as explained by St. Paul in this much-treasured passage.

Donald Trump: The Devil or the Holy Spirit?

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The United Kingdom voted last week to un-unite from the European Union, and the world is suddenly in free fall. Facebook posts from those under 40 are filled with fury while those from the older folks express fear and frustration. What are the implications for us in the still-United States? What are the implications for our world? For our faith?

It’s six weeks into my sabbatical in Britain and, until last week, most people would just raise their eyebrows if the subject of Donald Trump came up. When I either nodded sadly or cast my eyes to heaven, they would respond with silent tenderness. There are clear parallels between Trump’s popularity and the appeal of those who voted to leave the European Union, but even the most passionate Brexit conservatives are at a loss to understand the logic of those Americans who believe that Trump would be a worthy CEO for the most important nation on earth.

What is going on? First – and some would argue most persuasively – there’s the issue of hot air, literally and figuratively. In Britain, to “trump” is to break wind, i.e., fart. While I struggle to honor the gifts of my name (“felicity” means happiness), I don’t believe that Mr. Trump has any trouble living up to his.

The troublesome issue is not Mr. Trump but the people who see him as a solution for the mess we’re in. At another time, I may explain the victim-abuser seesaw and the danger of victim mentality, but right now I want to explore the possibility that Trump is the embodiment of the devil tempting us with simple solutions, prosperity, and peace. In what ways could he be a modern embodiment of the devil that tempted Jesus during his forty days in the wilderness?

As you reflect on this, remember the beginning of Jesus’ ministry:

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. (Mark 1: 9-12)

What is going on? A supposedly loving God honors Jesus as the beloved and then immediately sends him into the wilderness, where he has to deal with the horrors of hunger, terror, and vulnerability. In this physical and spiritual desert, the devil tells Jesus to:

  • Make bread out of stones to relieve hunger
  • Jump from the highest mountain and rely on heavenly spirits to prevent injury or death
  • Worship the devil in exchange for worldly power

Certainly there is a connection between this devil and Trump who asks us to buy into his idea of (figurative) comfort food, financial security, and power over lesser mortals.

But again I return to the Biblical narratives and wonder how a loving God could drive Jesus into such a place and situation… Could it be that the devil was just the Holy Spirit in disguise?

However you explain that, I believe the answer is the same as it was for Jesus. Each of the three temptations forced Jesus to examine his understanding of himself, the world, and God. What follows fear? Is it fight, flight, or faith? As Jesus dismissed the devil’s taunts, he also discovered his power and his role as a beloved child of God. And so I argue that the challenge – and the gift – of the wilderness is that it pushes us to identify three things: our power, our passion, and our purpose in life.

The Jesus whom we honor shows us that the path to heaven (certainly in this world and perhaps in another) begins with a faith that (excuse the pun) trumps fear. But he only was able to do so because he had gone through the wilderness where he learned who he was, who God was, and what the world should be.

Our country, if not the entire world, is smack dab in the middle of the wilderness.  We miserable, we don’t know where we are, and we’re desperately looking for a guide to lead us into a modern Promised Land.  Who will it be?  Will Donald Trump a.k.a. the devil win? Will we succumb to his false temptations? Or is God using Trump to make us examine what it means to be the United States of America? Is the God of Love pushing us to discern what American power, passion, and purpose looks like for the 21st century?

That is the challenge. And so it is not Mr. Trump, but the American people who will decide whether he is channeling the devil or the Holy Spirit.

Feeling the Love on the First Fortnight Away

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In the two weeks since I left the US, I’ve experienced the best the world can offer — new friends, beautiful architecture, wonderful history, music, food — in a word, magic. The first week was all about London, where I stayed with Patrick Norohna, a retired-lawyer-turned-professional-conductor, who lives just a block from Westminster Abbey. In the many trips around town, I was escorted by my new friend Maurizio, a researcher, archivist, and professional tour guide. We managed to see most of the important sites as I was regaled by stories of London’s greats. Then I returned to Patrick’s flat where a large gathering of musicians from around the world were rehearsing or planning musical venues. Methinks I died and went to heaven!

A week ago yesterday, Maurizio and I took a quick trip to Sardinia where I stayed with his parents and saw Santa Barbara Church and “Villa Wright,” the home of my grandparents for almost a decade. This is where my grandfather initiated key safety improvements in the local mines and where my grandmother (a devout Episcopalian) helped persuade the Vatican to build and staff a Roman Catholic church for the villagers who lived more than five miles from the nearest parish.

After an airplane flight from Sardinia and an overnight bus trip, I arrived in northeast England on Wednesday. Northumbria is reminiscent of the Finger Lakes, with rolling hills, green fields, and rural peacefulness. The only sounds are the singing of the birds, bleating of the sheep, and gentle patter of a soft rain. I’ll stay here at the manse for two weeks, preaching occasionally and helping with any pastoral emergencies while my host, Rev. Dave Herbert, is on vacation in Europe. Then I head to Iona, the sacred isle of Scotland, before returning here to Northumbria.

And all the while, I’m thinking, “How could this have happened? What did I do to deserve such good fortune? Once strangers, Maurizio, Patrick, and Dave have all opened their hearts and homes to this unimportant visitor from the US. What did I do to deserve this?”

But as I asked that, I knew the answer. I did nothing. The blessings showered on me are the fruits of other people’s labors. Maurizio was researching the history of mining in Sardinia when he discovered stories of my grandparents who lived in the small town of Ingurtosa, just a few miles from where Maurizio lived before moving to London. He contacted my brother and another cousin about seven years ago, and since then we have shared our stories and relished the documents he has uncovered. When I approached him to get together for coffee or lunch while I was in London, Maurizio responded that he would look for inexpensive accommodation as well. He then approached his friend Patrick who was willing to let me stay for a week. And Dave was not a friend, nor a friend-of-a-friend, but a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, who responded when I was asking around for inexpensive places to stay in exchange for helping with pastoral duties.

In considering this immense good fortune, there are three important lessons that I want to share:

  1. Good deeds — even those done 100 years ago by others — have a way of coming back again and again to bring new connections and delights. We just need open minds and grateful hearts.
  2. It’s important to write and share our stories. It was my grandfather’s memoir Tales to My Grandchildren that I shared with Maurizio for his research six years ago that brought us together. And now I claim the Pigas as my “Sardinian family.”
  3. Sometimes not getting what we want is the best thing that can happen. As disappointed as I was in not receiving the Lilly Foundation’s grant (especially because it would have been helpful for the church and my children), it forced me to push the boundaries and reach for new ways of financing the sabbatical. Had I received the grant, I would be taking trains and using rental cars rather than buses. I would be staying in hotels rather than spare bedrooms. And I would not be experiencing the enchantment that I am now enjoying.

Truly God is like a big beautiful spider that is constantly sending out filaments of grace, most of which never land. So God reels them back in and flings them out again until one tender thread lands, then another, and another. Suddenly a web is formed and we experience God’s connective grace in wondrous new ways.  We find connection between past and present, now and then, here and there, one with another.

We give thanks!

PS — For those who want to follow my travels more frequently and with photos, please ‘like” me on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/revfelicity

Channeling

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The young man plopped his backpack on my sofa, scowled, and announced that he would not be driving back with my cousin, staying instead in my small timeshare studio apartment until I worked out a plan to … do what ???

So much for my quiet vacation to finish the book. So much for solitude. So much for … whatever ….

The cousin left abruptly, seemingly pleased with his sudden freedom, and the young man offered a sheepish thanks, apparently assuming that I would do something other than throw him out on the streets, penniless and without even a driver’s license since he had handed that over to my cousin and forgot to ask for it back.

It’s a long and complicated story that I don’t wish to revisit, except to note that my response was uncharacteristic. Specifically, I was kind, I was generous. I found the young friend a room, bought him an airplane ticket, and paid for a taxi to the airport. When he left three days later, I was $900 poorer and feeling blessed. It seemed that the nasty Mr. Hyde part of me had evaporated, leaving only lovable Dr. Jekyll. I liked the peace and pleasantness of the new me but wondered what caused the transformation.

In my gut, I knew. The generosity was not from me but from others: I was simply channeling the tenderness of those who founded The Park Church 170 years ago – people whose love of God translated into acts of uncommon courage and sacrifice on behalf of runaway slaves passing through Elmira. I was channeling the love of those in the church who continue its legacy on behalf of people who are differently abled or of different sexual persuasions, or undervalued and challenged for whatever reason.

I was channeling the generosity of so many friends who have helped me navigate the challenges of ministry throughout the years. I was channeling the kindness of Robin, my best friend from elementary school with whom I had recently reconnected, and her sister Randa. Hearing their stories of courage and sacrifice, my heart went out to this young man, so alone and scared by what was happening to him.

I was channeling the generosity of my grandparents, who made such contributions to a small Sardinian village 100 years ago that a young researcher reached out to my family in kindness. A month after I contacted him in hopes of meeting over coffee or lunch, he informed me that he had arranged for me to stay for a week at a friend’s flat just a block from Westminster Cathedral and two blocks from Big Ben.

It wasn’t me that was kind. I was merely channeling the kindness of ordinary heroes and heroines from my church, my family, and my past. I was channeling the kindness of new friends who extended hospitality in welcoming me to Britain for my sabbatical, finding me free lodging and use of a car during parts of my time there. The blessings from others overflowed such that that they had nowhere to go but onto this young man.

And isn’t this the Kin(g)dom of God?

I am not an especially kind or generous person but on this day I was caught in God’s web of eternal connection. The largesse of the peace more than compensated for the shrinking of the purse.

We give thanks.

Pilgrimage as Embodied Faith

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“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.”

— Rabbi Abraham Heschel

 Who are we and why are we the way we are?  I surmise that our identities are fashioned by those people and places that have combined to give us our values and thus our identity. Some of these were given us (family, country of origin) and some we acquired on our own (friends, college, job, travels, spouse).  It’s true of organizations as well.  The church I pastor is a progressive church because of our location (in Elmira, a central conduit of the Underground Railroad) and the people who filled its pews and pulpits in the past.  With different people in a different setting, The Park Church might not have emerged as a national landmark and leader in justice issues.

But too often we take these values as defaults without exploring, questioning, discarding, or celebrating them.  The result is that we live on autopilot without exercising much control over our destinies.  It was for this reason that God (or, if you prefer, the earliest wisdom teachers who collected their culture’s wisdom in the form of the great religious texts) developed the idea of Sabbath, the seventh day of the week during which God rested and instructed us to do the same.  This kind of holy rest is not vegging out at the beach or hanging out with friends; it is a deliberate time set aside to reconnect with the best of ourselves and reclaim our identity as beings made in the image of God.

In exploring our identity and values, we also need to consider the role of faith, which is too often confused with belief or contaminated by heaven-or-hell pronouncements of the institutional church.  This ignores the fact that doubt is to faith as dissent is to democracy – you can’t have the latter without the former or it’s sham.  We meet fundamentalist Christians – or Muslims or belligerent atheists or anyone else with simplistic truth-and-falsehood, good-and-bad, heaven-and-hell explanations of God – and they just don’t seem … real.  Rigidly held beliefs are so antithetical to the human experience that it’s hard to take them seriously; faith is not authentic if there isn’t some doubt at its core.

A wise elder shared an important insight about twenty years ago when I was tormented by whether or not to go into ministry.  My head said this religious stuff was just phooey, but my heart was telling me that the call and the joy, however inexplicable, were real.  On a spiritual retreat, I met with the resident priest, explaining that I was spiritually bipolar; my head and heart were in constant tension.  After listening to my plight, he leaned back in his chair, smiled, and said, “It’s not your head and your heart at war; it’s that you – like everyone else in the world – is on the seesaw between mystic and cynic.  Mysticism, however tenuous and inexplicable, brings joy, whereas cynicism is deadening.  You’re a mystic trying to follow the rationalist explanations of the modern world, and you’ll never find peace until you honor the validity of the experienced God as the source of peace since the beginning of time.  Remember, that’s why we call it ‘the peace that passes all understanding.’”

In short, faith can never be understood or explained scientifically.  But there is the very real experience of connection with something outside of us that brings joy, peace, and energy.  It is not rational or irrational; it is extra-rational.  It is of the heart, not the head.

Events that take us to a new understanding of God and ourselves are not reserved for holy nutcases.  On the contrary, several recent studies have reported that fully half of all Americans have had a life-changing religious experience at least once in their lives.  In other countries, the percentage is even higher.  As a rule, mystical experiences seem to be like grace, an unbidden gift from above.  But there are definitely things we can do to connect with the divine.

One of these is a pilgrimage. The ancient Jews were expected to go to Jerusalem three times a year – for Passover, Shavuot (or Pentecost), and Sukkot.   To this day, Muslims are required to travel to Mecca at least once in their lives. In our Christian history, those of us of European ancestry will think of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Pilgrims on the Mayflower – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Pilgrimage has been a major component of all the major faiths since the beginning of time – either mandated by the religious texts or encouraged by the culture.

Dear readers, have any of you ever gone on a pilgrimage?  If so, what prompted you and what did you get out of it?  Friends of mine who have undertaken a formal pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Mecca or along the Camino de Santiago or to the places of their ancestors typically return with a clearer understanding of their own identity and purpose in life.  They return with a sense of the peace that passes all understanding.

As I begin my sabbatical with pilgrimages to Iona, Lindisfarne, and a collection of ancestral sites, I welcome your insights and prayers, for truly a pilgrimage is embodied faith: the work of the heart and the journey to discern our identity as children of a loving God.

Blessings on the journey!

Rev. Felicity