SUCCESSFUL TRAVEL IS ALL ABOUT THE AHA MOMENT, the serendipitous and elusive moment of a soul's awaking to another reality that often (hopefully) leads to the breaking of self-image and a drawing closer to God. At least this is how I measure travel. Travel of this kind which I always intend in going off-campus suggests more a pilgrimage than a vacation or business trip. The three motivations are connected only in that the body physically moves from one place to another: and different for obvious reasons.

About vacationers little needs to be said other than that most travelers of this kind have more in common with their luggage than with spiritual awareness. Moving from the safe confines of surburbia to the scripted "serendipities" of packaged tours or resorts has about the same capacity for true adventure as the clothes in their suitcases. Vacation is literally all about being vacuous and nothing that interests me.

On the other hand, given the intense focus of modern corporate business people, the possibilities for the Aha moment are certainly there, indeed, they may well need such moments more than the average person, uniquely focused as they are on their corporate survival or that of their corporation, in the race for rank and sustaining profits. In this instance, the enlightened business traveler is a joy to behold.

I remember in this regard meeting a businessman in a Benedictine monastery while I was on retreat, just before Compline, the last office of the monastic day. He said, "Whenever I travel (and he apparently did so often) I try to stay at a monastery or convent; it ends my day in the Spirit and the money I would otherwise have spent at a hotel goes to support something I believe very strongly in." The words (the faith of the man) were powerful. I remember them clearly as if heard just yesterday, though they were spoken fifteen years ago. This is the power of an Aha moment which can happen anywhere and not always in such a casual and safe enclosure as a monastery.

Of course, travel today is anything but routine, whatever the motivation. Just recently, I got off a plane at LaGuardia and discovered we had to go outside the concourse, outside the building itself and walk several hundred yards to another building to catch our next flight, this without prior knowledge and late on a Friday night. Having dodged taxis and traffic personnel yelling at me to go this way, not that way, and scurrying along a dark sidewalk as best one can with luggage, I sensed a sudden movement in the shadows from beneath an overpass to my immediate right.

In the instance, I thought a mugging was about to take place (on my person!) and heard myself yelling ahead at my travel companions to move quickly. What we saw in looking back over our shoulders was not what I thought but rather two airport employees using a shift break to worship Allah. I had crossed in front of an Islamic prayer ritual.

My interior consciousness in rapid fire sequence went from tired anxiety in getting somewhere unknown to a fight-or-flight fear reaction, and then to an awkward recognition of what really was happening. A painful reflection on my own lack of calm ensued, closely attended by another having to do with a potential hidden prejudice toward the Muslims' religious observance.

The Aha moment though came later when I realized the Holy Spirit was speaking directly to me in this moment, demanding to know not what I thought or knew or cared about the two Muslim men or Islam in general or even about myself, but rather what am I doing for my God each day. Or said in different words, how am I walking with Jesus through the night of our time? Never mind what others are doing, how am I journeying with our God?

The result was a long meditation including even this moment of sharing with you, on the practice of our religion by common, ordinary everyday Christians like you and me -

• Where do we find the solitude necessary to be in the presence of Jesus?
• How do we make room in our daily busy-ness to be still and know that He is God?
• What do we do to create interior silence for the still small voice of God to speak to us?

Out of these reflections come other questions that demand personal ownership and accountability.

• When does each of us act in overt solidarity with other Christians, especially during our workday and not only Sunday?
• What suffering do we endure willing that others may know that He is Lord of all?
• What is the nature and purpose of our living sacrifice to help save and redeem the world for which He shed His Blood and died?

All this is simply offered as one example of a successful travel moment in my world, though nothing I planned.

I don't like traveling but I do it because it's good for me. I do it for vacation and for continuing education and for pilgrimage. By travel I mean getting in an airplane and flying someplace out of my region and comfort (or stress) zone, which would explain the reasons why I travel. For me it’s more travail than get away, more business than pleasure, this kind of traveling. I do it for my soul’s sake and for the sake of those around me; otherwise, I’m strictly a homebody fixed in local habits of the heart.

I used to think this home-centeredness was a virtue. Speaking with a friend who goes to the Antarctic a couple of months each year, leaving spouse and children behind to study the ongoing global effect of changes in the atmosphere, I said this very thing. “I couldn’t do what you do, travel as much as you do and be away as long as you are each year, I’m more of a homebody.” My friend’s response, gentle and well-intended as it was, pricked my social conscience as only truth spoken with kindness of heart can.

“I guess I have a larger sense of home than you have,” she said. The good news is that my world-mindedness is growing thanks to her and others who live daily in a room much larger than mine of habit and preference. I’m not ready to hug Al Gore but I do admit I’ve hugged a windmill across the valley from the rectory, and this is a positive step forward, don’t you agree?

I find as I get older I need this sort of experience more than ever before or perhaps I mean to say that I recognize the need for this sort of experience more than before, thanks to my adventuresome scientist friend. The irony is that I’m now less physically inclined to the effort of preparing and returning - never mind the actual going forth part of the journey - now that I admit it’s a good thing. Maybe this just comes with being more deliberate and intentional in what traveling I do. I still could not be on the road every month, much less every week or day as some do.

My father-in-law loved to travel. He was rector of his last parish for 17 years (I’m now 20 years here). Ward loved going places - to Jerusalem several times, Africa, Europe, England and Florida especially, and anywhere else anyone would suggest. He loved being with people. Wardie would go to three-day conferences and say, “If you come away with one or two good program ideas or activities to take back home with you, it’s worth all the nonsense that goes with it!”

This said in response to me sitting with him, stewing over things or more likely the people saying things – being a young priest with opinions on everything and everyone - while he the cardinal rector would be just waiting patiently for the one good idea to come along. Suddenly he’d say “Let’s go!” and we’d become tourists enjoying the city we were in. It was fun traveling to conferences with my father-in-law. Later, on the way home Ward would explain what it was we had learned . . .

Now I have to see with my own eyes and make sense of things for myself, and create my own learning spaces and be open to spiritual opportunities when they present themselves. I can if I must and do so with increasing skill learned at the side of my father-in-law. I practice contemplative seeing, that is actively waiting for the momentary Aha when things click into place and the door of my interior room opens, offering new insight or vantage on the worlds beyond me. It's nothing you can force. Yet you must be open to Ahas happening. You must allow the possibility of an interior journey within the actual travel of body and baggage from one place to another, as exampled in the aforementioned LaGuardia experience.

Traveling is a good thing if done with an open, alert and receptive mind, and especially for the purpose of drawing closer to others, to creation and to God. I confess to having been convicted in that recent vulnerable moment. I want to give witness to a faith strengthened and broadened by the spiritual message heard spoken from out of the darkness, from under the overpass.

I love the way the Spirit comes to God's people when we make ourselves, our souls available to His coming again. As with the disciples on the road to Emmaus it is often in the shuttling moments between our destinations that He appears and makes His presence known. Truly, God is great, and everywhere! For what it's worth though, I still don't like traveling.