Armchair Travel
Monday, December 24, 2007
  Hildegard of Bingen and the Living Light


In his book Walking to Canterbury, mentioned in the last entry, Tony Ellis mixes a lot of interesting information about the Middle Ages in with his account of his walk from London to Canterbury to the shrine of the martyr Thomas Becket.

In his discussion of "The Nun's Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," Ellis cites a passage from the writings of Hildegard of Bingen, the abbess of Disibodengerg, who actually corresponded with Becket, as well as numerous other historical figures including Pope Eugenius and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

She was a pretty gutsy person, it seems, because she told the legendary Barbarossa, "Take care that the Highest King does not strike you down because of the blindness which prevents you from governing justly. See that God does not withdraw his grace from you."

When I read this passage, written by Hildegard in her old age, I knew exactly what she was talking about, because I saw the same light once in a dream:

"From my infancy up to the present time, when I am more than seventy years of age, I have always seen this light in my spirit... The light which I see... is more brilliant than the sun, and I name it the cloud of living light.

"And as the sun, moon, and stars are reflected in the water, so the scripture and sermons, and virtues, and works of men shine in it before me...

"But sometimes I see within this light another light which I call the Living Light itself...

"And when I look upon it every sadness and pain is erased from my memory, so that I am once more as a simple maid and not as an old woman."
 
Friday, December 21, 2007
  Walking to Canterbury
I've been really wrapped up in Tony Ellis' book Walking to Canterbury. At first I thumbed through it and read little snippets. Then I read the whole thing.

Ellis has written another book about walking 900 miles from Oklahoma to Alabama retracing, in reverse the "Trail of Tears" traveled by 18,000 Cherokee under the guns of 7,000 US soldiers. Four thousand died on the way and were buried in shallow graves. I'm dying to read that book.

Then Ellis, who is half Cherokee and half English, decided to explore the other branch of his family tree and take the old medieval pilgrimage from London to Canterbury. He talks about the people he meets and works in a lot of historical information about the Middle Ages and Chaucer and pilgrims.

At one hotel he meets a friendly old Scottish chap with medals on his suit, and explains he is walking to Canterbury. The man, whose name is Frank says he and his friends have just been on a pilgrimage of their own -- to Normandy.

"'Ours hasn't been a pilgrimage of sorrow,' Frank told me.

'Not with Frank Atkinson on the bus,' said [his friend] George, as he nudged me with his elbow.

'Oh, you got to laugh at life,' said Frank as he, too, nudged me with his elbow as if competing with George. 'See where I skinned my nose?'

He pointed to a scab on its tip.

'That's where the ground jumped up to kiss me one night,' Frank continued.

'Aye,' said George, 'the ground has poor vision in the dark, for who would kiss the likes of an Atkinson otherwise.'"

There's a lot more joshing around, and some interesting discussions of the Normandy invasion. Ellis likens the WWII heroes to Chaucer's noble knight. Then later comes a passage that I found really moving:

'Our group is getting smaller every trip. A few more years and we'll be just a few hairs on a dog's back. We lost Jimmy back in the spring. He was a good one, knew how to laught at himself.'

Frank seemed to see his friend somewhere in the great distance.

'I've had a few friends die,' I said. 'Sometimes they say hello in my thoughts when I least expect it.'

He raised his elbow, and I assumed he aimed to poke me again. But he placed his hand on my back. 'Aye,' he said, 'you understand.'

When the sadness eased from his eyes and he lowered his hand from my back he got that funny look...

'I kept a little secret from the others,' said Frank, 'until Jimmy was being lowered into the ground. I had arranged for a trumpet player to hide behind a tree on the hill over the cemetery, and when I raised my hand he began to play. Oh it was sweet to watch everybody hear music as Jimmy went his way.'"
 
Thursday, December 20, 2007
  My Mom Cheats
You probably know the old expression, "I trust my mother, but I cut the cards." Well I'm a subscriber to that philosophy.

We have a no gifts rule this Christmas, but my mom is already cheating. I just received a box of oranges and grapefruits from Florida and a year's subscription to Old News, my favorite publication. Fresh-squeezed orange juice and red-hot historical articles -- my holiday season is jolly already.

We used to have a drawing where each person gave one gift, but that was a pain. Our new rule is everyone brings something they want to get rid of. Don't we all have enough stuff?
 
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
  Saving His Grandfather's Farm
My friend David is having some difficulty with his neighbors. They're trying to take the farm his grandfather bought back in 1916 where his family has lived for three generations.

His father and grandfather always told him how important the land was for their family, and he's determined to hang on to the fields and orchards his family has been cultivating for nearly a century.

"Without the land," he says, "there is no future."

His neighbors carry guns and they drive over his land and try to intimidate him. They say God gave them the land. They're that kind of people. David has a more earthly claim - a deed to the land, and receipts for the taxes his family has paid on it. But it's hard to get the cops to do anything.

One time the neighbors came with bulldozers and uprooted 250 trees in one of David's orchards. The cops didn't do anything.

Even though the government concedes that David's family owns the land, they let his neighbors carry guns, and they're allowed to shoot anyone they want any time they feel threatened.

That's because David is actually Daoud, the Arabic form of the name, and his land is near Bethlehem, in the West Bank in Palestine. Daoud can't dig a well or construct any buildings on his land without a permit, and the government will only give permits to Israeli settlers. Oftentimes he and his family can't get their goods to market because of the Wall.

But Daoud Nassar, whom I met Monday evening, is undaunted. He refuses to be a victim and he refuses to hate anyone. He is determined to make the Nasser family land into an international center for peace -- "A Tent for All Nations."

His mission is "to develop and protect the land and to make the land a center for people from different countries to come together and build bridges of trust and hope."

The Nassar family land has become a center for peace building and international understanding. They provide classes in computer skills, English and handicrafts for the women in the nearby villages. They run youth camps for children from the refugee camps and kids from other countries too, including Israel.

People from all over the world come to volunteer at the Tent for All Nations to plant trees, to help with the children's activities and to teach classes.

Americans seem to have taken a collective vow to remain ignorant of the suffering of the Palestinian people and our role in perpetuating these sufferings. There are bomb fragments in the streets of Palestine that read "Made in USA."

We once had a president with the backbone to stand up to the Israeli government and demand that they abide by international law, but his name was Ike and that was a long, long time ago.

But Daoud Nassar refuses to carry a grudge against anyone. As I spoke with him I was reminded of the words of Abraham Lincoln: "malice toward none" and for the first time I saw a ray of hope in what many people see as an impossible situation.

He just wants to save his grandfather's farm, and I think we should all help him.

For more information email me or go to tentofnations.org.
 
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
  Be Bold
I called my friend Vernon tonight to wish him a happy birthday and to thank him for my salary, not to mention my health insurance. He was puzzled by this until I reminded him that in 2002 he had given me some advice which he had heard somewhere:

"Be bold. Strong unseen forces will work in your favor."

That knocked me out, so I passed it on to my cousin Max, who was debating buying a travel website. He put it on his fridge. In time he decided to buy GoNOMAD and the rest, as they say, is history.

I always assumed the advice was from Carl Jung, but Vernon says it might be Nietzche, or whatever his name is, the Thus Spoke Zarathustra guy. We're going to research it.

Wherever it came from, it's good advice; I'm the poster guy for that.

It echoes and enlarges on a bit of historical advice that Julius Caesar gave to an Albanian fisherman when the two of them infiltrated Pompey's blockade of the Adriatic: "Be bold and fear nothing, for the destiny of Caesar rides with your tonight."

I'm just grateful that in this transvoluting space we call the present, there is still a need for the ancient trade of the copy editor.

Spell checkers are fine as a tool, but they won't pick up erroneous homonyms. They are working hard on this, but they just can't come up with a program that can tell plane from plain, bear from bare, effect from affect, or even shall from will. It's just too darned complex. You have to know the history of the English language, and you have to know all the paradigms, old and new.

Brilliant writers can't be bothered to learn all this. And why should they? Their job is to write brilliantly and not have to worry about the stupid stuff. That's what old-time copy editors are for.
 
Literary gadfly Stephen Hartshorne writes about books that he finds at flea markets and rummage sales.

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Stephen Hartshorne worked in newspapers and magazines around New England for many years and served as Information Officer in the New Hampshire Senate under Senate President Vesta Roy. He worked as a material handler for nine years at the Yankee Candle Company until the company was taken over by corporate weasels. He is currently the associate editor of GoNOMAD.com, an alternative travel website, which gives him the opportunity to correspond with writers and photographers all over the world. He lives in Sunderland, Massachusetts, with his daughter Sarah, a student at Drew University, and their cat, Dwight D. Eisenmeower. This blog is dedicated to his mom, who made him bookish.

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