Part 3. A Journey to Rich Living

In reviewing these travel stories written over a several-year period I am stunned with how incredibly rich my years have been. God has been exceedingly gracious to me beyond measure. I have been granted far more than my share of far-flung adventures, good friendships, world class-entertainment, and a powerful sense of living well and deeply. May these travel essays about rich living so inspire you to live more fully and deeply.

“Nowhere and Everywhere” is an essay describing a heady return journey from Europe to Atlanta. I arrived to find a magnificent reception party of one at the airport who then took me to experience the richest of southern cuisine.

There is nothing in the world like being on the darkened bow of a cruise ship under the stars as one is steaming far south into the tropics. “Maritime Nights” describes the incredible magic of this experience I have been allowed to enjoy many times.

Sometimes the most incredible gifts simply drop into the ordinariness of our lives. So it was when I was offered the gift of a free ride in a hot air balloon as I was out riding my bike. There is nothing like the experience of watching the earth quietly drop away from one’s feet. “Magic Ascension” describes this gift.

“The Eden Project” describes what can happen when a person with vision marshals others to help create something beautiful out of an abandoned clay quarry in an economically depressed region of England. Two million visitors came to this Garden of Eden its first year. I was one of them, along with four grateful friends.

Traveling by ship is very different than any other form of travel. It is slow and the journey itself is every bit as important as the destination. “Three Days at Sea” describes the rich experience of watching sunrise from the bridge with the gracious captain of a cruise ship.

Sometimes one ends up unexpectedly in a stunning environment, almost as it having been transported there by Scotty from the transporter deck of the USS Enterprise. So it was when nine of us found ourselves on a black sand beach in Panama. Cahuitla National Park is one of those incredible destinations that would make a grand calendar photo and even grander memories.

Even when travelling by sea one can be reminded that there are those people with less than honorable agendas. “Find It” demonstrates that the dark underside of life and the bright sunny joys of maritime holidays are very close together. Yet, one must believe that the darkness will be dispelled by even the smallest glimmer of light.

For those that want truly rich entertainment experiences, there is nothing like spending a day in the West End of London. In the span of twelve hours I experienced three grand shows and met a lot of wonderful people. “Stair Work in The West End” describes how it is possible to get a lot of aerobic exercise even while sitting through several long musicals.

One of the grand delights of overnight flights is the emergence of sunrise at 36,000 feet. With the glorious pronouncement of a new day there is the expectation of new experiences and friends to be had upon descent to a new world. “Overnight” describes how even in the post 9/11 era, it is possible for jet travel to catapult one into truly rich experiences of living.

Journeys in life often include transit through temporary community. These can be exhilarating experiences. As described in “None of Us is Traveling Through the Universe Alone” describes a temporary community of four lasting less than an hour that produced a transcendent experience for all involved.

Nowhere and Everywhere

I awoke at 6 AM London time, and after an assortment of trains I arrived at the Gatwick airport the mandated three hours in advance. I made the rather grand discovery that I could check my suitcases in at Victoria Station and not be bothered with them until I showed up in the Atlanta terminal about eighteen hours later. As it was, checking in at Gatwick and going through security took about five minutes. Getting out at the other end in Atlanta was another story. Like much of the world, most localities have been transformed into full service shopping malls and this certainly applies to an airport patronized by 35 million international passengers, most of them carrying multiple credit cards. I roamed about for three hours, during which time, I repented of the excessive flapjack and cake I consumed in the past month, and managed to buy nothing except a small meal. There are actually decent pubs in the Gatwick airport and the Wetherspoon Pub provided me with breakfast, as my hotel didn’t want to do so.

Flying east always seems more normal, even if the night is shortened by five hours because one gains a 212 MPH jet stream tail wind. Long distance west-bound flight is another story. Alas, it was payback time. We had a 50-80 MPH head wind the entirety of the trip; the six-and-a-half hour eastbound journey took ten hours going in the other direction and it seemed as if the sun barely moved. And as usual, the turbulence is greater going west.

At 39,000 feet, one has a chance to see the world from a different perspective. The planet we live on is so very fragile and the regions we are able to live in are so limited. Pristine clear air revealed that much of the northern world is locked up in ice. The north Atlantic was speckled with icebergs, easily visible from nearly eight miles up. Iceland, Greenland, and the Maritimes were encased in slabs of ice and snow. The series of Lucite panes that form aircraft cabin windows are about an eighth of an inch thick. On one side of these panes it was a comfortable 73 degrees. On the other side it was –82. It’s hard to imagine that in such a short distance one can travel 155 degrees towards frozen oblivion. I am reminded of the Eden Project, where life thrives in a small artificial oasis, in that case in an abandoned clay pit, in this case a pressurized aluminum cylinder moving across a mile in 7 seconds.

Life used to be more elegant and community-oriented. Until recently, an international flight got you a meal served on real dishes with real cutlery. Now the meals are served on plastic throwaway dishes, and one uses those plastic knives and forks that demand one not press too hard, lest they break. China dishes can be broken and used as a weapon. A steel knife can be used as a weapon, even a plastic one if it is one of those better made ones. 9-11 changed the world for us in ways beyond counting.

Watching a film used to be a shared experience. Now everyone has their eyes glued to a 6x9 LCD panel in the seat back eight inches away. Watching movies in air is now a solitary experience.

It used to be that getting out of airports was easy; grab your bag and go. I can remember once showing up at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport fifteen minutes ahead of time and still getting onboard. Coming back out was even easier. No longer. Gone are those pioneering days of aviation when you walked out on the runway with your friends at the nearby fence to cheer you “bon voyage”, as you climbed a portable stair. No one gets to the gate anymore, coming or going, unless he is a paying customer. Going through three layers of security, and a body search, having everything in my wallet looked at, getting my feet sprayed for foot-and-mouth disease, and collecting and turning my cases back in twice took an hour and a half.
Still, life is good. I wondered if my friends Pat and Bob would ever find me in this new vortex of security. As it was, I went outside the terminal an hour-and-a-half after the wheels touched down before I saw Pat walking towards me. I had visions of putting a mortgage on my house to hire a cab to take me to the other side of Atlanta if I could not find her.

I was elated to find that Bob had been released from the hospital and was in a much improved condition, looking far better that when I last saw him. It’s a good thing that I did bring back four dance tapes for them! I am anticipating them being in tails and sequins soon doing rumbas and tangos. Both enjoy ballroom dancing so much. I watched them get married on the dance floor of an elegant old world cruise ship. I could be so lucky.

Life’s good. I get to be on that dance floor in three days, headed for the Panama Canal. Bob is going to dance and travel again with his elegant wife. I’m not sure what he did to get such a fine wife. As soon as we got back across Atlanta, she bought me a meal of real down-home properly prepared southern-style vegetables. It’s grand seeing cathedrals, castles, and epic musicals, but it is far better seeing good friends, and even more so seeing them come back from the edge of medical uncertainty.

Every day counts more than you can imagine.

March 26
Atlanta Georgia


Maritime Nights

The day has been anything but foolish. This day started with gentle bird song at 6 AM in Gainesville, Florida, where we had enjoyed the fine overnight hospitality of Maggie. Maggie even provided the grand surprise of an Easter ham dinner upon our arrival Easter evening. By noon today, we were six hundred miles from home, ready to travel via a gracious old ship of iron instead of a turbine driven aircraft traveling at 800 MPH. Instead of covering a mile in less than five seconds at 39,000 feet, I am traversing the world at fifteen miles an hour at sea level, covering a mile in four minutes, about the same as a very fast runner. There is something human to this scale of speed. It allows one to assimilate a sense of distance and place in a way not possible by jets doing Mach I.

It is one of those exceedingly calm early spring nights at sea when water and night sky merge into a single indigo sphere and the diamonds shimmer above. The constellation Orion shows clearly that we are headed south towards the Southern Cross. Perhaps a week or more from now, we will be able to see the Southern Cross. Off to the east one can see the faint orange horizon of the myriad sodium electric suns that light up the coastal cities of southern Florida at night. Out here on the water world, it is uncrowded, peaceful, warm, and gentle. Certainly, it is not always that way, but for the present it is. It was only five days ago that the water world for me was covered with ice and fierce winds. Three days from now the water will be aquamarine with a spectral explosion of life forms on reefs of brain coral. It is a wondrous world we live in.

Life is that way. Some days we have brilliant sunshine and dogwood blossoms. Other days we never see the sun and wonder how we will get through the next moment, tormented by unspeakable challenges. Today marks the end of the first year of the second half century of my life. I feel that it is a great fortune to be into the second half century by a year, to be on a gentle warm sea with good friends, good health, on a gentle old ship that has herself plied the seas for fifty years. So many times I almost lost my hold on life.

The dining room staff brought me a birthday cake with a single candle on it, a reminder that I have but a single shot at life – I must make it count for something that will last. I cut up my small cake into tiny pieces and shared with friends at several tables. I found it easy to listen to “Happy Birthday” for a change. A couple of my friends have been told they will never hear it again. It’s hard to let go of dear souls.

Travel has been a rather prominent part of my life, forever it seems. Last month I was in the bucolic emerald realms of England photographing the magnificent gothic cathedrals that have pointed toward the promise of Easter for nearly a thousand years. I made friends to last an eternity on that journey. This month I will photograph other emerald realms that tell of a Creator who knows about the journeys we all are called to make. The cloud forests of Costa Rica give a holographic definition to the beauty to be found around us and to the hope that is within us. In a world of instant communication, the hideous acts of violence in recent days make us wonder if there is peace anywhere. It helps to know that there are places like this gentle tropical sea where the trade winds bring refreshment and the star-studded firmament promises sure guidance, that for now the cloud forests are still there in their incredible splendor.

I trust Easter was a day of renewal for you.

April 1
The Florida Straits


Magic Ascension

Sometimes transcendent peak experiences just show up by surprise. Such was the case for me today. After a very good sleep, I awoke and at 5:45 AM went out to do a pre-sunrise bike ride. Sunday is by far the best day of the week, since it has no traffic. A fine nearly full moon danced in clouds in the still-dark indigo western sky and a vermilion rim formed on the eastern horizon.

I did my fifteen miles, and as I finished up my ride, a pick-up truck pulled up with a balloon gondola in back and four people in the cab. I asked them if they were about to launch. They said if the wind currents were right they planned to do so. A test balloon indicated that they would come down far north of their intended destination. I suggested a field two miles south that would put them in the right place if the currents held stable. They took off in their truck and I rode home two miles, going by the very field I suggested. I saw them put up a test balloon which indicated an ideal track.

I decided to get my camera and go back and film the inflation process. Balloonists tend to be very social people, and these were no exception. I asked them if they minded my photographing the inflation and launch process. I told them of my having filmed three balloon festivals and having never been up in one and wanting to do this sometime so that I could put together an inspirational program to use with support groups. The pilot asked me if I wanted to go up. I said “It would be grand if I could do it sometime.” He said. “You want to go right now?” “Really?” “Get in.” He didn’t have to ask twice. I was like a five-year old with his first shiny new bike, one without training wheels. I hopped into the gondola with the pilot and entered into a transcendent experience. I could hardly believe this was happening. I never in a million years would have expected to get off my bike today or any other day and continue my journey across town by balloon.

It was hard to know what to expect. Having been in jet planes hundreds of times, I am used to the process of becoming airborne being almost a brutal experience, one that includes intense noise, vibration, being slammed backed into a seat by 100,000 pounds of thrust - being able to see nothing of where one is going and then hitting the surface thermal turbulence. This ascension into the sky was so utterly different. Silent. Gentle. Smooth. No vibration. No one telling me to sit down and put my seatback and tray table in their upright positions. Nothing - simply the world quietly dropping away and starting a slow quiet spin underneath our wicker basket. The sensation is so magical. I was overwhelmed with how gentle is the experience of riding on wind, suspended beneath an orb of every possible color in the world


Surprisingly, there was no sensation of being on a high place with that sometimes scary magnetic sense of being sucked into a chasm – none of that at all. The three chase-crew members simply let go of the gondola, and the world softly slipped away. Somehow, it seemed so profoundly civilized to travel this way. The pilot said something about having little control of where one is going. I said that was the main point of this kind of ascension. The journey itself was the destination. It didn’t matter to me where we came down, and when we did come down there was only the barest bump on the parking lot we selected - far smoother than any landing I ever had in a jet.

We had thought the pitcher’s mound on one of the baseball fields would be appropriate somehow, until we realized they were completely closed in with a seven-foot fence and all the gates locked up, which would have made deflation and recovery impossible. We fired the burner just in time to avoid getting penned in for the first inning.

As it was, we crossed town, and I was able to fully film the journey. Our flight path was directly above my house. It is a very different perspective seeing one’s house and neighborhood from 600 feet up. I was amazed at how much more attractive the town seemed from the sky. There were many more trees than I’d expected. In the car I am on main roads where trees are cut down and retail commercial ghettoes are built. I was so pleased to find that but the shortest distance from the road there were many large tracts of trees. Even with a fifth year of drought, I was amazed at how green the world seemed.

I have known for years that I could always pay out a few hundred dollars and get a commercial balloon operator to take me up some place. This experience at sunrise was a profound gift and to have the gentle winds carry me directly over my house seemed almost numinous. The fact that it was given to me completely altered the experience and made it a hundred times more meaningful. That a magnificent balloon would simply appear in my morning routine was beyond chance. It was truly a peak experience of the highest order. I can’t but think that God was telling me that the greatest experiences are to be found where you are and that one does not have to expend vast amounts of energy and wandering to find them in far away places. A lifetime dream was fulfilled three-tenths of a mile from my house. I went off to church in a happy daze.

Look up, you just might find your dream there.

August 25
Anderson, South Carolina


The Eden Project

A couple weeks back I was having a delightful conversation with the elegant keeper of a fine small bookshop in Seaton. During the course of conversation, she told me about something called the Eden Project and proceeded to show me a $40 dollar book describing the project. I knew I absolutely had to go and see what this project was about. From what I could tell it would be much like the pods depicted in the sci-fi film “Silent Running” that was shown some thirty years ago. In the film, the ecology of earth has been essentially destroyed and the only remaining trees and plants are preserved on orbiting platforms covered with geodesic domes. The sense of the Eden project proved to be exactly as that of the film. The artificial context of this vast project added a certain poignancy to the experience of this man-made Eden.

The Eden project consists of two complexes of geodesic domes built as vast greenhouses, along with myriad other structures. These $117 million greenhouses, by far the largest in the world, are intended as a demonstration project for the reclamation of industrial wasteland and to create the feeling in people “that we all could make a very real difference to the world we live in if we could work together.” It is reported that the physical challenges of reclaiming this wasteland were nothing short of daunting, and that a number of times it appeared that the project was destined for failure.

The greenhouses are built in an abandoned china clay pit that is described as once looking like the remains of a dead star. The site is clearly intended to be an educational resource rather than a theme park. As the guiding visionary of the park stated “If this place becomes no more than an up-market theme park it will all have been the most gigantic waste of money. We have intended to create something that not only encourages us to understand and to celebrate the world we live in, but also inspires us to action. Eden isn’t so much a destination as a place in the heart.”

The complex containing the tropical forests is astounding in scale, complete with full-size waterfalls, lagoons, and full-size specimen trees of many sorts. The main dome is 750 feet long, 350 feet deep and about 180 feet high. The domes are the largest of their type in the world and cost about $117 million to construct including site acquisition and preparation. It is said that the domes themselves weigh little more than the air they contain. The material used to make up the panels has only 1% of the weight of glass. The site has been open little more than a year and already the tropical displays have a surprising amount of maturity. The domes are large enough to allow even a mahogany tree to grow to full height under the clear hexagonal panels. For one that is in tropical rain forests several times a year, the forest under the transparent foil sky of ethylenetetrafluoroethylene was surprisingly familiar and realistic. A major problem is keeping all of the native English birds out of that nice inviting warm tropical habitat.

I was amazed at how densely crowded the place was. It was nearly impossible to move about inside the tropical dome. The trust that developed the site was hopeful of 500,000 visitors the first year. After dropping $117 million on the investment, one had better hope and pray people show up in large numbers and quickly. In fact, more than two million showed up in the first year. It would appear that this single project will be the salvation of the economy of Cornwall, which is in dire shape. It was clear that the developers of the project are frantically working to deal with the crowds of people. Armies of tradesmen of every kind were building walks, walls, gardens, reception halls, and new educational facilities. There were all types of heavy construction equipment moving all over the site. It will be interesting to revisit this hexagonal wonderland every year or so to see how it progresses.

One could only hope that outside these domes mankind in general could progress as well. With vision all things are possible.

March 21
St. Austells, Cornwall


Three Days at Sea

I was up at 5:30 AM today. It’s easy to be up at 5:30 AM at sea with the bright tropical sunrise blasting away the ebony of tropical night. It also helps to still be five hours out of synch with local time after a month in England. I went topside, planning on taking a fast long walk on deck before the equatorial sun became incendiary. Barely remembered were the wind driven specks of sleet on my English window panes two weeks ago.

As it turned out, I met a woman on the bow with a very expensive digital camera who knew nothing about its use after a year of ownership. I gave her some pointers on the bow about its use. The ship’s captain, a gracious fellow with fifty-two years at sea happened along and invited us up onto the bridge where he was happy to entertain us for perhaps thirty minutes, even inviting us into his personal quarters. We ended up doing sunrise from the wheel house.

Captain Rolf proved to be the ultimate diplomat and seems to have the ability to make even the lowest crew member feel significant. I have sailed with him in the past and am amazed at how he spends much of his time making crew and passengers alike feel most important to him. I joked with him and asked who was driving the boat while he was out wandering. “Little green men,” he said. He has a most able staff that has been with him twenty-six years, so he can easily take the time to go make the deck sweeper feel that he is contributing to the success of the journey. I took a picture of the captain at his desk, and loaded it into his computer so he could e-mail it to his wife in Atlanta. He said to make sure that the picture of his wife on the wall was visible in the picture. I asked if this was so she would know he hadn’t taken it down and put up someone else’s picture. He laughed and concurred.

We have been almost three days at sea headed south, making an end around the western point of Cuba – so far, yet so close. A dozen times, I have seen Cuba from three miles out, wondering if I would ever actually walk on its beaches. The three days have seemed rather short with the presence of a grand sixteen-piece Glenn Miller orchestra I have enjoyed in years past. I have been enjoying pleasant conversation with the guys in the band and their wives.

Three days of steaming across calm warm waters brought us to the emerald island of San Andres, a remote political territory of Colombia. San Andres is perhaps twelve miles long and half a mile wide. Amazingly, at one end of it is a clean city of 100,000. Sadly, Colombia is in a fast descent into total social disruption and violence and San Andres represents about the only bit of the country that retains social order and a decent infrastructure, yet I could tell that there was some subliminal sense of decay from my last visit a year ago. Sometimes returning to places after a year, for several years in a row, gives one a time-lapse view that is not totally optimistic.

Two of the trombone players from the band and their wives rented a taxi and I joined them for a journey to the far end of the island to make a quick view of the city and visit a Centro market. If you have ever wondered what happens to all of the old four-door Chevy Caprices and Impalas – they’re all here living second lives as taxis with long dead air conditioners and darkly tinted windows that don’t roll down.
The greatest curiosity here is a wooden Baptist church that had been built in South Alabama, dismantled, and then moved here from Alabama in the 1840s. I was able to climb up its belfry via a combination of stairs, ladders, and spiral wedges in the tower. I was most pleased to pass this ultimate physical test of my recovery from a broken leg. The climb afforded a view of the entire twelve-mile island and the best coolest seat on the whole of the island.

This church was as different from St. Paul’s in London as indigo night is from equatorial heat but perhaps it is differences that make life, travel, and remote places worth the journey.

April 4
San Andres, Colombia, South America


CAHUITLA NATIONAL PARK

Going topside about 6 AM revealed that the climate would be very good today. The last two years in Costa Rica were rather heavy on rain. Costa Rica has long been known for its incredible ecological diversity and beauty and the most stable political climate in all of Central and South America. It has long been a mecca for retirees, where one can still buy a quarter mile of pristine beach front with a good house for $70,000. A decent house can be had for $8,000.

Ship’s tours are rather expensive and I opted out of taking any of them. As it was, a group of nine of us was able to rent a van and driver for $20 apiece. So we were able to see far more and at a leisurely pace, and to save about $70 each. We had an amazing driver who drove about 45-50 MPH the entire time. It is amazing what a difference there is to one’s anxiety level when driving slowly and leisurely instead of at warp 9.6. Lloyd stopped whenever I asked so I could hop out and take photos of the rivers and coastal areas we passed.

There were national elections here in Costa Rica today, actually a run-off because last month’s election produced no one candidate with the minimum 40% vote needed to take office. It made for a different experience to see all the polling places being heavily canvases by reps of both parties. In the United States it is forbidden to have any kinds of signs or politicking near a polling place. The polling places in Costa Rica all seemed like festive parties with hundreds of signs and banners in the party colors. Costa Rica is about the last bastion of stability and sanity in the Latin world, yet one can sense this tropical jewel is at high risk from some very unsavory neighbors. Drugs are beginning to erode this country as well. I saw several outbursts of anger today, very different from the past couple of visits.

The group of nine of us were able to drive back nearly to the Panama border and visit what has to be the finest beach I have yet seen in my planetary wanderings. A crescent several miles long and the adjacent rain forest make up a national park. Most unusual about this beach was the proximity of the tropical forest canopy to the water. One could lie on the pristine sand in the shade under the trees at midday and have the wavelets and foam cascade over one’s feet. The proximity of the trees made this beach seem very cozy. So usual is the wide-open exposed sensibility of coastal areas. Also, for unknown reasons this beach draws the most beautiful women I have ever seen, often wandering alone. I have several images that “Sports Illustrated” would very much like to have for its annual swimsuit calendar. There were a number of families enjoying picnics along the edge of the forest. I had a sense of the tranquil energy that Costa Rica has long been known for.

Lloyd took us back along a slightly different route on tiny dirt tracks and showed us an unusual beach consisting of black volcanic sand. This was a rather curious experience, and for sure if one walks barefoot on this tropical beach at midday, one had better keep both feet in the water. Lloyd took us to a high overlook where we were able to get a grand view of Port Limon and the harbor.

We got back to the dock several hours before departure, so I was able to wander among the vast mountains of containers and lifting cranes and take a series of interesting industrial photographs. The scale of industrialization that is overwhelming every part of the planet that is above water is truly ominous. I found an Internet café of sorts and was able to look at some of the 56 e-mails I had received in the past couple of days. Some of us can’t but help reaching out and clicking someone.

We have absolutely calm waters with 82-degree air and cottony clouds. Life at sea can be so life giving. Just don’t do the North Atlantic in March. It isn’t the same!

April 7
Port Limon, Costa Rica


Find It

It seems to be the fiendish nature of human experience that time experienced in a pleasurable fashion is gone in a flash, while time spent in misery stands still. Alas, the past six weeks seem to contain ten lifetimes, yet it seems I just left here. It’s hard to imagine that it was a cold and barren winter landscape of seventeen degrees when I left. Upon my return today, I found spring fully sprung with spectral delights. Even the alligators in Lake Alice were enjoying the warming spring as well.

The past couple of days proved rather interesting in an unsettling way. I am reminded that appearances are deceiving, and that darkness is never that far away. The day after we left Colombia, a bomb was detonated and twelve people died and hundreds more were injured. Every day the satellite marine telex printout at the concierge’s desk told of the daily atrocities in Israel.

What we did not know at the time is that we were unwittingly being drawn into the vortex of cocaine trafficking. On Wednesday, the cruise director made some odd public comments to the assembled passengers regarding the fact that the Justice Department could seize our ship and take it apart if it felt so inclined, but that this was very rarely done. He also mentioned that there were three dogs at the terminal buildings and all of them were named “Find It.” It would seem we were being gently prepared for something big about to go down. Sea captains are like jet pilots in having been trained to be gently vague.

A couple of days ago, a nearby ship was found to have 3,000 pounds of cocaine hidden away in the lower decks. Yesterday I was giving a lecture in the ship’s theater when suddenly two handlers brought in the biggest German shepherd I have ever seen. This giant dog was sniffing for you know what. Over the PA I asked if anyone in the audience had a doggie treat we might give to Find It. It would seem my humor was lost on the handlers, who fairly quickly evacuated the region to the laughter of the audience.

As it turns out there was a fleet of law enforcement vehicles, six dogs, and a squad of frogmen waiting on the edge of the pier as we glided into position to be berthed. Before the lines were even cast to the docks, the frogmen were in the water. The grapevine had mysteriously revealed to the authorities that packets of cocaine had been attached to the outside of our steel hull plates with large magnets. Somehow it became known that clandestine divers had made plans to meet us and go under our hull and pick off those packets. How this information came to light is a mystery none of us passengers will ever know about.

It seems the frogmen got there first and collected the goods, and also found more of the same in some of the luggage. It was a sobering experience. What was even more mystifying was that despite our rather spectacular arrival and the events of two days (I am intentionally leaving out a lot of details) was my being able to drag a heavy large wheeled dolly full of my audio/visual crates and boxes off the ship and through customs and all of those armed police and security people without ever being asked to reveal what was in them. I am talking about a big pile of boxes and cases. Even “Find It” did not come to give me or my mountain of boxes a sniff. I am not sure whether to feel insulted or complemented. Do I look that harmless and wimpy?

The journey to South America and back proved splendid in that the climate could not have been better, with perhaps total rainfall consisting of five minutes of sprinkles and lower-than-normal temperatures. Even the usual Dante’s Inferno of Panama was quite comfortable with low humidity. The water was gentle for the whole of our journey, and every night the clear sky was studded with cosmic diamonds. I renewed friendships and made some fine new ones. The whole of the journey, I was able to bask in the grand sound of a fine big band orchestra that played all the great standards. Every time I return to this grand old ship built in Scotland when I was two years old, I feel like I am coming home.

Fortunately, I like dogs. I think of happy dogs on hearths as good companions, sharing warmth, silence, while we enjoy good books and a fine glass of sherry. I don’t tend to think of dogs as sniffing out the evil of the world. Fortunately, most are not called to do this.

April 11
An Undisclosed location in South Florida


Stair Work in the West End

I slept better last night than I have in some days. I walked about eight miles yesterday, and it is a hundred stairs up to my room and it is 225 steps down to some of the subways at ‘my’ tube stop. I am making up for all the exercise I lost the past six months with a broken leg. The jet lag does not seem to be an issue to me. I did barely make it to breakfast after sleeping over the wake-up call because I stayed up until 2 AM.

After eating, I took the tube to the West End to be sure I could find the Drury Theater and collected my ticket for “My Fair Lady.” It proved within easy walking distance of the National Gallery so went there and soaked in the images of Rubens, Durer, Turner, and the like for a couple of hours. This place is so vast and wondrous. I did not even attempt to enter most of the galleries, lest my head turn to mush from overload. I found the enthusiastic uniformed school children and their attentive teachers a pleasing thing to see. There were many older students sketching and painting the art works. The visual arts are alive and well on this side of the Atlantic

I have always noticed over the years a lot of people on the subways reading “real” books as well. I wonder why the British read fine books with orange edge bindings from Penguin Books while we read the “National Enquirer” and “Midnight Star.” Generalizations can be dangerous, but I don’t have many recollections of seeing America’s Generation X or its baby boomers with their heads stuck in the literary classics. Maybe that is why I keep coming back here – it’s different.

I am certain that I had the most intense day of entertainment in my life. While walking back over to the Drury Theater, gawking at all the visual distractions of Covent Gardens, I could hear magnificent operatic arias being sung. Here in the street? Detouring I found a man and woman singing fabulous street opera with really fine musical accompaniment. The whole market venue where they were plying their craft was spellbound. Buskers are a London tradition and one can get in on some magnificent musicianship at no cost. A hundred people cheered every song and I did drop ten pounds for a CD.

The next market place had a string quartet doing romantic folk songs from Italy. These buskers were deserving of a much better venue than the street. I hate to use the word, as it is somewhat pejorative and the making of fine music is very honest and enriching work. My timing was perfect, as I had an hour of free time before needing to be at the Drury, and could stand in amazement at what the creative side of humanity can do to enrich our collective lives.

I started off the ‘formal’ part of my entertainment with a three-hour plus run of “My Fair Lady” in the afternoon which proved magnificent. The Drury Theater is a spectacular venue for plays. The moment one passes through the oak doors under the grand marquee, one enters a vermillion and crystal world from another time and space. It was not unlike the experience Richard had when he went back to the Victorian version of the Grand Hotel in the classic tragic romance film, “Somewhere in Time.” Because I was given permission to photograph the public spaces, I have been able to retain a small visual memory of what is one of the grandest of Old World theater lobbies. The place is opulent beyond our concepts of theater interiors.

Everything about the show was exceptionally well done. I have a hard time getting used to the opulence of the stagecraft here in London. I could sure enjoy building sets a lot more if I had the space and money these theaters have. The craft budget for the last show I just built (“Chicago”) was $500. These London shows have a bigger budget for Cadbury’s hot chocolate in the Underground. I even had pleasing snippets of conversation with a family sitting next to me during “My Fair Lady,” which was truly a fair and heart-lifting experience.

My interval, as they call intermissions in England, consisted of a brief Lebanese dinner before walking to the nearby Adelphi Theater for an evening performance of “Chicago.” Having just spent some weeks building the show at our own community theater, I wanted to see the differences between a community playhouse version and a big budget London west end show, and especially the stagecraft differences. I actually liked our concepts for the staging much better. It only reinforced to me that creativity can often make up for a lack of finance and our little shoestring budget theater can keep up with the best of ‘em. For certain, you economist types will understand that the marginal utility value of our craft budget was much higher than any of those in London’s West End. Still, it is stunning to sit back and watch the Klieg lights come up on world-class performers on a million dollar set.

During “Chicago’s” interval I met a man and his wife from Atlanta plus three girls from Cornerbrook in Newfoundland. They were amazed that I knew of their town and had been in the Canadian Maritimes. The three girls are theater majors here for two months with a course requirement to see twenty West End shows. Life must be very hard for them. I had pleasant chatter with them about technical theater. It is these chance encounters with civilized friendly adventurers that make long journeys so rewarding.

Tomorrow is a “work day” in that I plan to carefully photograph two major cathedrals for additions to my church architecture workshop. Life is good, and there is no rain here. It is warmer than when I left Atlanta.

I walked forever again today, and did the 250 steps from the subway trains to the street level about five times today rather than using the elevator. I am having no residual from my fracture and feel most privileged to be whole of body and able to walk the streets of London. It wasn’t so long ago that I couldn’t do this. Each time I climbed one of those stairs I was reminded consciously of the miracle of regeneration of bone that takes place in the unseen inner parts of our being. I will never again lament climbing stairs. Many people will never have the option to do so. I am grateful for the ability and it is only made more heartening in a world-class city that often feels like a second home.

March 6
West End, London


Overnight

Monday proved clear and I found the bright clear weather so settling to my demeanor that I did not spend the day paranoid about getting in a plane for a long journey. After all, this is the first time I have planned to fly in a jet since that fateful Tuesday when four plane loads of dreamers perished in their glimmering jets on a fine September morning in New England.

I arrived at the airport three-and-a-half hours early because the airlines said it would take that long to get processed, and a good friend did not want to get caught in the afternoon buildup of Atlanta traffic. As it was, check-in and security collectively took about twenty minutes on the outside. The airport did not seem overly crowded, and I was rather pleased to find that it has been made into a virtual art museum. Several of the local large museums have put together some really grand exhibits in the mile-long underground passageways. A rather breathtaking collection of very fine huge stone sculptures from Zimbabwe easily consumed thirty or forty minutes of my time. The time in the airport did not drag, and the overnight flight left on time in a fine sunset and we were soon in total darkness as we flew east at 800 miles an hour. I found the dinner and free wine a perfectly satisfying way to spend a Monday evening made rather shorter by a 200 plus tail wind.

The plane journey was made most pleasant with the single empty seat in the cabin being next to me. On the other side was a woman who told me about growing up in Innsbruck, Austria. She speaks several languages and has a clear trans-material view of the world that is environmentally sensitive with which I rather resonate. Eva-Maria found the materialism and superficiality of the US difficult to deal with. She also described the importance of observing religious holidays. Alas, she is happily married.

We had an uneventful 5,000-mile ride across the Atlantic, nearly setting a ground speed record. At one point we were doing 800 miles an hour ground speed, benefiting from a 212 mile per hour tail wind. We arrived more than an hour early, despite throttling back for a good part of the journey. Airport gate assignments in busy airports dictate that you don’t show up too early.

I learned a bit more about turbulence. It is still most unsettling to me, but I learned that the center of a jet stream is quite stable and gives a very smooth ride with a free 200 MPH boost. It is in coming and going from the core of a jet stream that one encounters turbulence. The total journey took barely six-and-a-half hours. At the end of the journey we had a rather intensely spectacular sunrise, just before settling down into some low broken clouds. I did find that at the end of the journey I was less tired overall than I normally am from such a long journey. I did not release a big sigh of relief once on the ground, vowing never to fly again, as I have done in the past. Maybe I am making a bit of progress. I never gave a second thought to terrorist activities, and never heard any other passenger mention such either.

I took a two-hour walk in Hyde Park in the late afternoon, and had the grand benefit of late golden sunlight lasting for more than an hour. The sunsets are so long lasting here in the far north. It made for some really grand photos. I took perhaps a hundred or more. Digital allows one to be frivolous and voluminous.
I had a rather entrancing experience with a total stranger who could barely speak a word of English. A beautiful woman saw me taking detailed photos of birds, squirrels, dogs, and flowers. Without saying anything she came up to me and pressed some whole shelled walnuts into my hand to feed the squirrels in order to get better images of them. The beautiful dark-haired woman wandered a bit further down the trail as I was doing macros of camellia blooms. I later showed her the squirrel images. I did learn with a few words that she is the wife of a diplomat from Azerbaijan. She left with a smile and I went on to find other botanical delights lit up in last light. It stuns me the small lasting gifts a stranger can give to us that we will never forget.

These Hyde Park squirrels are profoundly tame, and quite happily got up on my hand to take the nut fragments I presented to them. I am reminded of the time I was in this same park ten years ago and had birds land on my hands on this exact same walkway. Today all the birds were over on the Crescent, a fine lake in the interior of the park. I still find it absolutely amazing that a city of eight million has a park of four square miles in the center of it. In the interior realms of this park, the city is easily forgotten as one watches dogs frolic as other people feed flocks of geese, ducks, gulls, and pigeons.

I made it to the Victoria Palace in time for a full production of “Kiss Me Kate.” I was absolutely amazed and delighted with the production values of the whole show. As a set builder I was especially pleased with the stagecraft and lighting. Huge multi-level sets were transformed instantly. Lots of money and eighty foot galleries and wings will allow all sorts of wonders to take place on stage. I was pleased to be sitting here in a West End show knowing that our little production of “Chicago” in Anderson had just closed a sell-out run on Sunday.

It is amazing to be in a city that is always open. I took the subway back to my hotel about 11 PM, and everything was still open and the sidewalks teeming. I had a hundred ethnic restaurants to choose from in my own neighborhood, and ended up having a Lebanese meal again. I was easily filled for $3.40. London can be very inexpensive if one pays attention. Dinner, this first-rate show, and transportation cost me less than $15. It seems as if I have been here for days already, yet it is but eighteen hours.

It’s amazing what can happen overnight.

March 5
Knightsbridge, London


None of Us is Travelling Through the Universe Alone

It was but two days ago I returned from a retreat for single Christian adults. The essential message was that it is more than OK to be a single adult in an obsessively couples oriented culture. We were encouraged to view singleness as a singularity, a very special state, even one with special privileges. In the sacramental Christian paradigm, both of the rather empowering speakers reminded us that birth, baptism, taking of the Holy Eucharist, and dying are landmark places on our journeys to be taken alone. This was how God designed our earthly journeys to be.

The mass culture, including the lyrics of nearly every love song, tells us that we are somehow incomplete until we find that perfect person capable of fulfilling our every dream. Alas, there is no such person, as so many tragically learn when their overburdened marriages collapse under the weight of these unrealistic expectations. Those of us who have known nothing but singleness, seek that special other as devoutly as those of centuries past sought the Holy Grail. Many of us travelling solo struggle to realize that we are complete individuals, as created by our Creator.

Paradoxically, both the Old and New Testaments contain profoundly compelling exhortations as to the necessity and beauty of community. Even when we are reminded that the major events of life must be experienced alone, God started out His message to us “It is not good that man be alone.” The wisdom writer of the ancient book of Ecclesiastes tells us that safety, warmth, pleasure, and even increased return on our labor derive from being with another. The great Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthian church that Christian community can only exist when we each recognize our own special personal gifts and freely share them with it. The implication is that being out of community will cause unnecessary losses and vulnerability and that being in community is a catalyst for abundant living. Some ten years later an uncertain author, perhaps the apostle Paul, wrote to the Hebrews an admonition to not forsake the fellowship of the saints. We are again reminded of this essential imperative for the need of community in our lives.

So it would seem that the challenge is seeing ourselves as complete whole individuals, coupled or not, yet in need of linkage to those about us, a difficult balance in an unbalanced culture. My experiences with facilitating depression support and therapy groups reveal that people suffer far more than they need to because they lack the safety and strength that derive from community in its many forms. As an active member of a sacramental church, participation in the community life of my church is an obvious form of community. Yet, it shows up often in some astounding ways that have little to do with the church structure.

I do show up nearly every time the door is open and even some times when it is not, but I have found some other important forms of community to complement my sacramental center. For some ten years I have been involved in a local community playhouse and have delighted in the creation of oases of laughter and magic for people, many pressured by present-day complex lives that don’t get any easier.

It was in this small community theater about a year ago that I met one of our volunteers, MQ. Most people know her as Joanne; I call her MQ for Magic Queen. She is a full-time volunteer in an elementary school, coordinating a tutoring program for 769 young children trying to figure out how this world works. Some need a bit more help with this than others, and MQ knows how to do this very well. MQ paid the tuition for a special kind of learning nearly ten years ago when a brain stem tumor took away her ability to walk or work at her profession of teaching. She knows about special needs and how to relate to those with them.

Every child that enters her Magic Room for tutoring is awarded a paper heart in the color of his or her choice at the end of the lesson. They write their names on their hearts and can attach them to any surface in the room, except the big metallic red hearts hanging from the ceiling. Over the academic year, it is entrancing to watch this putty gray cinder block room in an ordinary school building transform into a spectral wonderland as these hearts accrete on every possible surface within reach of a young child. Some of these kids can reach pretty high, and that is the whole point of the Magic Room.

Having at one time been in a wheelchair myself I learned the hard way the realities of disability and accessibility. It is sometimes very hard to reach high. I have for several years now been quite functional and have resumed my habits of climbing on very high things including Mt Mitchell in North Carolina. This mountain is 6,684 feet high and the tallest thing in Eastern North America. For nearly a year, I have been threatening Joanne that I was going to somehow get her to the top of that mountain. I did get her into a hot air balloon in May, and she found it a transcendent experience. Being on top of Mt. Mitchell, despite being wheelchair bound, struck me as a powerful visual metaphor of one rising above her physical challenges and limits. I wanted to make this happen.

Well, today was the day to make good on my threat. As it turns out, Mt Mitchell is only five miles from the route I had selected to get us from South Carolina to Pennsylvania for one of those epic Italian Thanksgiving dinners that lasts for three days. I don’t select the shortest way to get to places, lest I miss something important. This late November day turned out to be extraordinarily clear and perfect for a major ascension to a very high place. And so it was that I was to gain an impromptu lesson in the importance of community, even a temporary community that lasts perhaps a mere hour. Much can be done in the space of an hour or the two days of a retreat community.

I have a bad habit of over-estimating my abilities and I figured getting Joanne up the tallest thing on this part of the planet would be a piece of cake. Not! I have told her in the past she is probably too trusting. She might have found that out today the hard way, excepting for Divine intervention. Having previously been up this mountain myself on two good legs, I really had not paid attention to those hundreds of very irregular steps made of rocks and logs and tree roots or the loose soft gravel preceding the final ascension. I got her and the chair across that soft loose gravel at nearly 7,000 feet and immediately knew I was in trouble. There is noticeably less oxygen at this elevation for wannabee hulks like me who think they can do anything.

I managed to pop her chair up the first of several widely spaced stone ledges with her trusting me to not drop her into the abyss head first. I managed the first few steps but knew that what I thought was going to be a virtuous demonstration of my virile sympathetic concerns for her transcendent experience was going to be defeated by the realities of gravity and an infinite number of logs, roots and rocks. I was going to have to eventually concede defeat, which males can’t stand doing, especially in front of women. Our ego structures are dependent on being all-powerful facilitators of the impossible.

As I was nearing the realization of this transcendent metaphor crashing down on my wounded ego, two angels appeared to save me from a high-altitude humiliation and to teach me about the increased return on shared labors via shared community effort. Most angels are named Gabriel, Michael or the like. These two were Jason and Shane. They didn’t show up in the standard white robe garb and wings, rather green sweatshirts and camouflage pants. I think God wants to get us past some of this stereotypical stuff we fall into.

These two young healthy men/angels offered their services to make that, which I could not do alone, possible as a shared effort. That infinity of logs, rocks, and roots was reduced to a manageable obstacle. Exercising major fortitude of trust, Joanne allowed the three of us to lift her chair and carry it up to the highest place within thousands of miles. We arrived on top of this great mountain rather winded, but aware that a cord of three was not broken and we had ascended safely. Joanne arose in her sedan chair with a smile, greeting a lot of bewildered hikers. I am certain most of these sane people wondered about the mental stability of one who would drag a wheelchair bound friend to the top of the planet.

Without these two angels showing up I would have had my ego destroyed and probably killed Joanne in the process and been committed to the nearest psychiatric unit for evaluation for psychotic behavior that endangered the life of a crippled person. I would have then probably gotten free room and board, courtesy of the Department of Corrections for voluntary manslaughter.

I was spared this dire scenario because a community of four formed for the space of an hour. I was able to get Joanne up the 80 stairs in the observation tower myself where she emerged on top to a view that took her breath away. She was basking in this vast vista of a thousand peaks while I was secretly wondering about a thousand stones, rocks, and logs I was going to have to get her back down. I figured our angels had gone on to other realms and were going to leave me to deal with gravity and the rough terrain on my own during the descent. I learned angels and those in community finish what they start. We returned to the bottom of the observation tower and those two camouflaged angels were waiting, knowing I wasn’t going to pull off the descent without killing MQ.

We safely traversed that infinity of rock and root and descended to level solid terrain. I would not be eating hospital food after all, by the grace of God.
As it happened, on the drive up to Mt Mitchell from the Blue Ridge Parkway, we were listening to a Barbara Streisand tape and the lyrics from the song “Higher Ground” caught our attention. “Hold me safe, take my heart to higher ground. I have walked too long in darkness. I have walked too long alone. I would trade the wealth of ages for a warm hand to hold.” These words resonated with us as we anticipated literally climbing to the highest ground around. What I had not quite caught yet was that it was only in community all things are possible. We had reached higher ground because four of us shared the space of an hour. As it turns out, angels have e-mail.

We stopped at the ranger station to use the facilities and while there fell into conversation with two older women who were out roaming around on this fine cerulean day in the mountains. They made it clear they had no intention of climbing up on top of that big rock we had just come down from.

These women told of us of an experience they had in the Grand Canyon with their husbands watching a sunset that left them absolutely stunned. The only problem was that normally it is dark when a sunset finishes its flamboyant outburst of color. The rim of the Grand Canyon is not a place one wants to be walking around at night in total darkness unless one is interested in a single last opportunity for free flight into a six thousand foot abyss. The freefall flight might be grand but the landing would ruin the overall experience.

As it turned out, the group had not thought of the mundane things of life – like a flashlight. As it happened, four other nearby people were also gawking at this spectral outburst and as frequently occurs, God protected the foolish and ill-prepared. One of the group of eight happened to have a tiny key chain penlight, and with this tiny speck of illumination this small community was able to safely back away from the edge of the vast darkness and live to tell about it. For but a few minutes, a tiny community of eight found life instead of death on the rocks because they shared what little they had and trusted and depended on each other.
As Barbara Streisand so aptly sings in the song “I believe” we heard going down the road from Mt Mitchell, “I believe some where in the darkest night a candle glows. I believe for every one who goes astray, someone will come to show the way.” And so it was with a community of eight in the Grand Canyon and a community of four on Mt Mitchell.

“Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, the hearts of men have not even imagined the things I have prepared for you.”

Vanderbilt, Pennsylvania