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.

TAKE YOUR INSIGHTS WHEN AND WHERE THEY ARE OFFERED especially when the alternative is to complain and whine about something that can't be changed. I turned to the in-flight publications having gone through my carry-on reading material while waiting over an hour on the tarmac for an already delayed flight - the third of the day! An article about a successful immigrant businessman caught my eye. What inspired further thought was nothing to do with the actual business product or service or how much money the man makes or what he now does with his riches but how this business owner emphasizes the importance of spiritual growth and human values and personal development among his employees especially for anyone who would move up in his company.

The man, the article maintained, holds himself to a higher standard than the dollar and demands no less of his associates. His approach to business (I wish I could remember the man's name) is counter-intuitive, different in practice from most American corporations today although many now use the language of his approach if only for marketing purposes. BP, the largest oil company in the world, for example can say all it wants about being "green" and socially responsible these days but until they stop leading the industry in preventable worksite accidents and deaths, BP will remain the ugly profiteer that it is.

This more uplifting business standard is comprised of three central concerns about employee wellness or said in different words, three concentrations of employee self-interest that if managed properly lead to employee wellness and social happiness and therefore continued business success for the company. The concentrations of interest - are your ready for this? - are spirituality, effective parenting and personal ambition. We get the last, but the first two?

An employee must be ready, willing and able to talk intimately and in detail during ongoing employee reviews about his or her spiritual life, the problems and opportunities of parenting, and lay out what one really wants to accomplish or achieve or acquire, and why. If the employee fails to convey a sincere desire to focus on these interests and to pursue them freely and enthusiastically, passionately if you will, the relationship at least on any promotion-track is abruptly ended. You can readily see what it was about the article that got my attention . . .

The thought of a business leader coming into a room full of employees and talking about the spiritual life, being an effective parent and personal ambition is so refreshing as to make me half reconsider my own choice of profession. Where once an employee was only a commodity or disposable good in the American corporate scheme, and any business relationship was in the corporate nature of things necessarily competitive and therefore all-consuming if one has any aspiration to succeed and advance in the corporate culture, one can almost imagine in this enlightened employment scenario a community of shared interests and mutual cooperation and common vision.

I work for the church as a paid professional because it is the only institution I could see at the time of my choosing that left sufficient room to accommodate my soul's needs. It still seems that way to me. The idea of a successful for-profit company premised in an employee's soul's needs and interests, and not exclusively on profit or client or customer is mind-boggling. If this is true and not simply another exercise in clever marketing, there is hope for the American enterprise system yet . . .

What further caused me to linger over this article while on my way to a vacation destination, and what will continue to hold my attention until I am able to see this thing through into the life of my parish, is the spot on focus of this businessman's vision. He sees the things we see as the people of God, specifically the importance of a relationship with some higher authority beyond the self, the importance of forming sustainable and supportive human relationships that will benefit society over time, and the importance nonetheless of bringing one's own self up to speed in doing the very best that we can and becoming who we are truly meant to be and become.

We of course have our own language in the church for these primary interests, namely the Summary of the Law, but the very fact that a successful contemporary for-profit business owner sees these things as we do is, well, inspiring of hope for the future of "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

I'm looking forward to working this man's standards of interest into the life of the parish, not that we don't already do these things in one way or another but rather because when done with deliberate and intentional purpose such things work out better than they might otherwise. I actually prefer his language insofar as it speaks more directly to identifiable secular needs. The church needs to address real secular needs. Ambition, family and God, perhaps even in that order would be for us coming at things from where common, ordinary everyday people are. It's all about having one's eye on the ball - where people are at - at a time when many in the church have lost this focus and our vision has clouded.

EASTER IS A GOOD TIME TO REFLECT on the nature and experience of the risen Lord, though I find it increasingly difficult to think about such things at the moment. I would rather go on a whole new trajectory. To soar uplifted on the wind currents of the Holy Spirit would be nice . . .

Right now though I'm spent and the spirit of Thomas weighs me down. Thomas crowds in when tired as I am at the end of a good Lenten run, especially after the holidays. Thomas pokes at us like an importuning child at the bedside - wanting this and that, to know and understand, to analyze and categorize, to name and control, to objectify the mystery of the risen Lord - precisely at the moment when we're least of a mind to respond! I wish Thomas would lighten up and let me rejoice and be glad in the mystery.

I’m reminded of the Black Dwarfs in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. Black Dwarfs though confessed to be on the side of the Narnians were nonetheless drawn to the Witch. At every turn in the adventure they made things difficult for the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, the Talking Beasts and Walking Trees of the celebrated kingdom where all creatures were blessed with light and love and the joy of living happily together. Tough-minded Black Dwarfs - always looking out for themselves, withholding support and encouragement, always practical and pragmatic, always demanding, never seeing, unable to share in the light!

Such small thoughts and -behaviors and -attitudes have a way of getting under the spiritual skin, like a tropical parasite that then malingers and undermines the spirit. They crowd aside the reality of the risen Lord. This year the early occurrence of Easter Day certainly doesn't help! Spring in Central New York is still two weeks away. Or perhaps a simpler fact stands out, namely that I’ve delayed too long a post Easter break until I could take time away with my family. There's this added pressure - always striving to balance the needs of others, even the needs of those we love don't always fit well with what's happening to us already.

Or maybe this feeling of enough and too much already has to do with tax returns. Surely I'm not the only one in that slough of despond! Or the war, or the White House and the national election campaign, the housing market and recession economy, or the state of the church, this time of year in Central New York . . . yes, I think a vacation is indicated.

It is time for a bit of letting go and letting God. We must do this more often, taking time to be away, to refresh and restore. And when we return to steward again the blessings and burdens that are ours to have and to hold as they say, may we do so with a greater trust and patience and confidence than I feel at the moment. And please, Lord, help us to be more understanding and accepting of the Thomas sorts (akin to those Black Dwarfs) who would drive your saints to despair. They are your children too. Help us to love them better.

If only they would be as happily open and accepting and engaging as when I greet Maggie after a time away. She goes to puppy spa eagerly enough. But when I return to pick her up Maggie is ecstatic, out of her Chocolate Lab skin with joy of deliverance! Tired beyond belief, hoarse from endless barking, Maggie nonetheless literally jumps for joy at the sight of me. If only we could be this happy in the knowledge of the risen Lord . . .

Aslan, I could do with a sighting! Maybe in the "Ding" Darling Wildlife Refuge . . . or maybe just in returning, refreshed in mind and restored in body to know, love, live and serve the Lord among friends, at home again.