Day by Day 4 - Murmuring Replaced by Hope

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009

A line from Burroughs gave me a way of starting this day's entry. On the evils of murmuring against God, he says, "To have a murmuring heart when God has been a long time exercising them with affliction is more evil." This day saw me giving in to this evil, but also forgiven. 

I woke with a headache this day, which had been my top fear about the trip. Though I have often written about all the things God has taught me during this affliction, I immediately felt angry and despairing. "Why now?" is what I murmured, instead of trusting. While I took my meds, and the symptoms began to evaporate, I still felt out of sorts emotionally, fearing a string of days like this would "ruin" the trip.

Nevertheless, I entered the day, and looked forward to going to our second monarch colony, at Sierra Chincua, the less touristy location. As I usually do, I tried to tune out the background of circumstances and attend to what was going on. The day and the setting couldn't have been more beautiful. I was reminded of the mountains of B.C. as my group hiked for part of the way along a mountain trail and then rode horses along the steep, rocky part (the other group rode horses the whole way). When we finally arrived at the colonies, we were standing among the clusters, and there were thousands of monarchs. This display was much more dramatic that the day before, and we stood in awe as the monarchs cascaded down along the mountains, in an orange stream. We stayed for about an hour and then slowly began our hike back, first with horses and then walking. 

On the ride up, I talked to a woman on the tour who was a mom from Atlanta. She had two young boys at home and she worked part time as a naturalist. We shared stories about our kids and our life back home. It was only once we'd arrived back that we heard about Ellen's fall off the horse. We saw people gathered around the truck and saw that Ellen, a senior on the trip, had broken her arm quite badly. As I shared at a Sunday morning, I am sad to confess that at this juncture, I reminded myself of George Costanza on Seinfeld, where he shoves people out of the way to get out of the fire, thinking only of himself first. When asked to give up my jacket, I had an inner moment's hesitation, thinking of my own comfort and when and if I'd get my jacket back. The anger I had felt at the beginning of the day was still with me, and the lack of trust. This moment was a snapshot of my soul without trust in God's provision.

As we waited for all the details of her transport to get sorted out (there were many attending her), I spotted a child and reached in my bag to hand out a Canada pin, as I had been throughout the trip. Suddenly this one, semi-cute kid turned into a throng of runny-nosed, poor, greedy children, wordlessly asking that they too be given a hand-out. There was no chance for romanticizing the foreign children here since they were not too endearing at this point! More likely, in them I saw my own greed reflected. 

The rest of the day's plans (which had been to go to M0relia, the present day capital of Michoacan), were put on hold as we began to travel to a hospital.  Someone had thoughtfully and hurriedly bought a stack of quesadillas to eat on the bus as we began our descent. The hours drew on and on as we detoured for Ellen. Miraculously, her friend had found some ductape and cardboard among the passengers' possessions, which helped her make a makeshift cast to prevent the arm from moving. Someone else had some high powered pain killers which the friend (a retired physician)  knew that Ellen could safely take. Finally, the bus met up with the Mexican ambulance, who took her to the hospital. 

We ourselves also went to the hospital to see if she would be joining us. Marcos stayed with her for help translating into Spanish, and Arlene stayed as the expert medical person. (After an overnight stay, it was decided that both friends would travel home in the morning, since she needed emergency surgery for the shattered bone). After stopping somewhere for a late supper, we arrived back at the new hotel, tired but glad Ellen had found her way and was receiving care.

As if a mirror of Ellen's misfortune, this was the night that I found out about the seriousness of Paul's illness in a phone call with Lyle. He told me of the ambulance ride to the hospital, of Paul's worrying symptoms and his extreme pain. My afflictions paled in comparison.

One of the bits of wisdom I'd heard that day came from Marcos, who told us that the word for hope is the same word as to wait, in Spanish. The word "Espero" had this double meaning. And so it was that I went to bed with a prayer for forgiveness. Ellen's break had shown me the darkness of murmuring, how it disconnects us from our heart, and from compassion and connection from others and ultimately from God. I prayed to be forgiven for my selfishness. I also prayed that I might be given another chance. I also prayed for Ellen, for Paul and Bev, and all those in dire circumstances. I read the quote from the gals and waited and hoped in God. When I awoke in the morning, sick again, there was another presence with me. My complaining had been replaced with a peace that was certainly not my own making.

The quote which I read that night in the hotel room was one from Lorna, "And what was the purpose of our pilgrimage? To let a new intelligence prevail." This new intelligence certainly looks a lot like trusting in God in all of life, and totally opposite from angrily wishing life went "our way".