travel
the art of journeying
One of the most well-known Desert Fathers of 4th century Egypt, Saint Sarapion the Sindonite, traveled once on a pilgrimage to Rome. There, he was told of a celebrated recluse, a woman who lived always in one small room, never going out. Skeptical about her way of life (for he himself was a great wanderer) Sarapion called on her and asked: "Why are you sitting here?" To this, she replied: "I am not sitting. I am on a journey."
Many people throughout history have insisted that if you want to learn, grow, find yourself, or understand the world, you must travel. "The world is a book," St. Augustine once said, "and those who do not travel read only one page."
There is great wisdom in this. Whenever we immerse ourselves in an unfamiliar context, our cultural assumptions and unconscious expectations are challenged. These confrontations with a larger reality invite us into an experience Christians call kenosis, or "self-emptying," a shift in perspective marked by an existential surrender to the "more" of life, wherein we discover that we are not, in fact, the center of the universe. Through these experiences, we can become less fearful of others, and more open-minded, tolerant, and self-aware.
Yet, this is not necessarily the experience of all who travel. Every year, tourists from around the world spend enormous amounts of money traipsing all across the globe, with little to show for their adventures beyond a cell phone full of instagram-worthy photos and a suitcase filled with cheap trinkets. Rather than becoming more open-minded and self-aware, many return from their travels feeling even more exhausted than before, needing "a vacation from their vacation."
For the economically privileged, travel often becomes a competitive consumption practice and a marker of social prestige. "Expats" can now make a living off of travel blogs, in which they boast of checking off their bucket lists, while the travel experiences of immigrants and refugees continue to be treated with suspicion and derision.
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Many people miss out on the transformative potential of their travel experiences precisely because they fail to bring with them the most important thing: a willingness to be changed by the people and places they encounter. As Thoreau wrote, "It is not what you look at that matters: it's what you see." Nowadays anyone with money can travel to far-flung places with relative ease, collecting selfies at World Heritage sites without ever stepping once out of their comfort zone.
But true transformation requires that we make ourselves vulnerable to the world around us. And vulnerability, by its very nature, is uncomfortable. The word "travel" comes from the Middle English "travail," which can mean "to take a journey" but also "to toil, labor." The kinds of travel experiences that invite us to grow, learn, find ourselves, and better understand the world are difficult in some way (and no, I do not just mean the difficulty of making your flight connection on time, or finding the nearest cafe with wifi). For those who want to make the most of your travel experiences, I would offer the following tips:
travail tips
1. Study up on your history. Learn as much as you can about the history and culture of a place and its people before you go. Then be prepared to have your entire concept of what you thought you knew about it from reading completely obliterated by the experience of actually being there.
2. Make an effort to learn the language. Whenever possible, try to communicate with locals in their own language, rather than just expecting everyone to speak English to you. They will probably do so anyway, but your effort will go a long way in conveying respect, and you might learn something in the process about hospitality and humility.
3. Stay with locals. Rather than staying at a corporate hostel or hotel alongside other travelers exactly like yourself, consider staying with a family that rents its rooms out to guests, or at a local monastery. It can be a great way to get to know people and get insider tips on less touristy options. At the very least, try to stay in small family-owned hotels to support the local economy.
4. Find out where locals eat, live, and shop. Don't go to Starbucks. Try to spend your money in locally-owned restaurants and businesses that do not necessarily cater to tourists. Eat foods that you wouldn't normally try. Take some time to walk around a residential neighborhood. Go into a regular grocery store, convenience market, or pharmacy. What do you see? What don't you see?
5. Get to know people. Talk to the people around you. Strike up a conversation with those sitting near you at restaurants, in bars, on park benches. Ask tourists from other countries what it's like where they are from. Ask locals what they love most about living here. Ask what they don't like about it. Talk to the people begging on the streets... what's their story? What are their hopes and dreams? What are their concerns and worries?
6. Don't romanticize the "other." The philosopher Dagober Runes once rightly observed that "People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home." Cultural others often seem "exotic" to us when we are traveling, giving them a quasi-magical quality that distorts our ability to see them as real people. The grass is always greener somewhere else. Sometimes it seems like other cultures and countries have it all figured out. When you find yourself becoming smitten in this way, try to remember that people everywhere are still just people. Do not let your fascination and appreciation for a new culture slip into objectification and appropriation.
7. If you have a bad experience, try to lean into it. If you end up in a conflict with someone, accidentally get on the wrong train, or find yourself needing medical care in a foreign country, do your best to roll with it and improvise. Deciding that the trip is ruined will only add to your misery and anxiety. Don't be afraid to ask for help! You will discover that human kindness is everywhere.
If you travel in this way, and pay close attention, you will meet people all along your path who, because of lack of money, lack of opportunity, or just plain lack of interest, have never ventured beyond their own small village or hometown. And that's when you learn the most important lesson of all: they, too, are on a journey.
All of us are on a journey, every single day of our lives. The word "journey" actually comes from the Latin root for "day," and means simply "a day's portion" or "a day's work." To journey well is an art that requires no passport or visa, but only the eyes to see what is right in front of you in the place where you actually are. "Without going out of your door," sang George Harrison, "you can know all things on earth. Without looking out of your window, you can know the ways of heaven. The farther one travels, the less one really knows."
"The journey changes you: it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind."
-Anthony Bourdain
Research Trips
Ecumenical & INterfaith Relations course
facolta' valdese di teologia, Roma, Italia
In January 2011, I participated in a one-month study abroad course at the Waldensian seminary in Rome, along with interfaith students and faculty from Italy, New York City, California, and Virginia. As part of this class, we had the opportunity to meet with Cardinal Jean-Louis Pierre Tauran, the Vatican's president of the Pontifical Council for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue from 2007-2014, and also met with local Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim leaders.
The course included scholarly tours of historical sites relating to the early history of Christianity, including the Colosseum, the Catacombs of Rome, the Catacombs of Priscilla, the Basilica of St. Clement, Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, the Vatican Museum, and several other lesser-known churches and basilicas throughout the city, including the home of St. Cecilia (patron saint of music).
Following the completion of the course, I also had the opportunity to take a day trip to Pompeii, and walked the streets of the tragic city to study the ancient walls so well-preserved under the volcanic ashes left by Mt. Vesuvius. I finished my trip with a week's stay with the Benedictine nuns at the Monastero San Guiseppe in Assisi.
My research project focused primarily on issues relating to immigration and homelessness in Rome, inspired by a bourgeoning interest in Italian neo-realism and the Van Gogh exhibit that was featured at the National Gallery of Modern Art during my time in Rome.
Gamelan Music & religious diversity
Universitas Gadjah Mada, jogjakarta, indonesia
In 2013, I received a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to spend a summer in Jogjakarta, Indonesia as an independent research fellow studying the complex relationship between traditional and modern Javanese understandings of religion, culture, and the arts. My research was coordinated and overseen by faculty at the Universitas Gadjah Mada, where I took classes in Indonesian religious diversity and cultural history.
I also had the opportunity to take gamelan music lessons with both Javanese and Balinese instructors, and throughout the summer conducted numerous interviews with musicians, dancers, instrument makers, singers, puppet makers, music instructors, composers, and religious leaders. I observed gamelan music being performed in a variety of different contexts and cultural settings - from large international festivals and government-sponsored palace performances, to private house concerts, bars and restaurants, and religious services of all kinds.
My time in Indonesia also included several visits to schools and rural villages the surrounding region, as well as important historical sites on Java including Borobudur, Prambanan, and the active volcano of Mt. Merapi. After leaving Java, I traveled to Bali for 10 days to conduct comparative research on Balinese gamelan and the impact of modern Western tourism and commercialism on the construction and presentation of Balinese culture.
With a little help from my friends, I managed to write an original song in Indonesian, which you can listen to here:
Towards the end of my time in Jogja, I also had the opportunity to perform live on Indonesian television with Sufi mystic Cak Nun and his gamelan orchestra, which was one of the highlights of the trip and of my entire music career.
pilgrimages
Samlesbury Hall, England
London • Preston • Lancashire
The purpose of this pilgrimage was to learn more about my family's history by visiting our ancestral grounds. My maiden name is Southworth, and our family lineage that can be traced back to the 13th century and Sir Thomas Southworth, who according to some accounts was a descendent from the bloodline of ancient kings from the British Isles. The family's homestead, Samlesbury Hall, was built in Lancashire, England in 1325, and is still open to the public.
The Southworths were devout Catholics who suffered regular and fierce persecution during the English Reformation. Their home contains a private chapel with secret passages in the fireplace where priests could be hidden from the authorities. My pilgrimage followed the life of my great (x12) uncle, St. John Southworth, who was a Catholic priest and martyr. He was arrested for administering the sacraments to the sick and dying during a plague outbreak in the time of Oliver Cromwell. For this, he was imprisoned at Lancaster Castle, sent to The Clink in London, tried at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to death. He was hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn in 1654. His relics are still on display in Westminster Cathedral in London.
Family lore also tells the story of how Sir John's son Christopher Southworth turned against two of his sisters, Jane and Dorothy, for their interest in Protestantism. Jane Southworth was tried for witchcraft in 1612, but was later acquitted after a judge uncovered her brother's plot to falsely accuse her. Lady Dorothy was not so lucky, having fallen in love with an Anglican man of the nearby de Hoghton family. On the night of their planned elopement, Dorothy watched as her brother Christopher murdered her lover. She was sent to a nearby convent where she was said to have gone mad with grief.
Many people claim that Lady Dorothy's spirit still haunts the grounds at Samlesbury Hall. There have been numerous modern-day sightings of "the White Lady," who is said to have been found in the gardens weeping for her lover.
In 2010, I wrote an instrumental piano piece inspired by the story of Lady Dorothy, which is included on my album Making Friends with Ghosts. I was grateful to have had the opportunity to perform this lament on the piano in the Old Hall at Samlesbury during my visit. I hope that Lady Dorothy's spirit heard and was comforted by this tune.
celtic christianity
iona • isle of staffa • isle of mull • trinity college • eaglais mhuire
kildare • jerpoint abbey • kells priory • kilree • ring of kerry
In 2014, I made a solo trek across Scotland and Ireland to explore the history of Celtic Christianity and to experience for myself the beauty and wonder of these isles "at the ends of the earth." From Glasgow, I hopped a train to the port town of Oban, and took the ferry to the eastern end of Mull, where I met a local historian at the pub who had spent his life studying ancient rock formations. He drove me across the island, pointing out his latest discoveries, before dropping me off just in time to catch the last ferry to Iona, where I stayed for a week with a local sheep farmer at the north edge of the island. Every day, I would walk the length of the small island, pray in the abbey, and spend time getting to know the land, the people, and the sheep. Thanks to a very kind boatman, I was also able to take a day trip to the Isle of Staffa, where I hung out with some puffins on a jagged cliffside, and sang folk songs into the eerie echoes of Fingal's Cave.
The remainder of my journey was guided by my interest in Celtic art and monasticism, particularly the high crosses and illuminated manuscripts that were heavily influenced by the Coptic monks who had traveled from Egypt in the fifth and sixth centuries. Having carefully studied images from the Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow, and other illuminated manuscripts during my graduate studies in theology and the arts at Union Theological Seminary, it was wonderful to see these ancient pages for myself at Trinity College, and to see so many high crosses at the ruins of ancient churches and abbeys across Ireland and Scotland.
I visited several castles as well, listened to (and learned!) some amazing traditional Irish tunes, and ended my trip with a solo drive around the Ring of Kerry, which included a visit to Staigue, a stone fort dating back to the Iron Age.
All of these first-hand experiences have deeply informed my classes on Celtic art and spirituality, particularly in understanding the influence of the desert fathers on Irish monasticism, and the complex relationship between ancient religion, Christianity, neopaganism, and the cultural identity of the people living in Ireland and Scotland today.
medieval christianity
notre dame • chartres • cluny • taizé • avignon
barcelona • montserrat • bingen Abbey • assisi
In 2014, I was honored at graduation with a Traveling Fellowship that enabled me to embark on a post-seminary solo pilgrimage across Western Europe, to visit many of the places from church history that I had studied. I began in France with visits to Notre Dame Cathedral, Staine-Chapelle, Saint-Denis Basilica, and Chartres Cathedral, where I finally got to walk the famous Chartres labyrinth that had inspired so much of my spiritual life and ministry work. I also visited the Musée de Cluny to see the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, and traveled to the medieval village of Cluny to see the famous Benedictine abbey that was a major center of European monasticism in the 10th and 11th centuries.
From Cluny, I took a bus to the nearby village of Taizé, where I spent a week living in community with the monks there, along with fellow travelers from all over the world. During my stay, I was able to take advantage of several workshops, lessons, and conversations with the brothers about their unique chant tradition, and their ecumenical approach to monastic life.
From the village of Taizé, I made my way down to Avignon, the site of the (in)famous Palais des Papes, where the seat of the Roman papacy was relocated during the 14th century. My journey continued south to Barcelona, where I visited Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, the Gothic Quarter, and the Labryinth Park of Horta, before making my way to the mountains of Montserrat, one of the stops on the Camino de Santiago where the famous Black Madonna resides in a cliffside monastery. In Germany, I visited Ebingen Abbey on the Rhine, the convent founded by Hildegard of Bingen in 1165.
A few years earlier in 2011, I was able to spend a week on a solo pilgrimage to Assisi, Italy following a month-long study abroad course in Rome. During my time there, I stayed with the kindly Benedictine nuns at the Monastero San Guiseppe and attended daily prayer services in the basilicas of St Francis and St Clare. Because I was there in January, the streets of Assisi were practically empty, making for a wonderfully contemplative time to visit this holy city. I communed as often as possible with the monks and the pigeons, and went to as many sites as possible that were pivotal in the lives of Francis and Clare.
All of these first-hand experiences have deeply informed my classes on contemplative spirituality and monastic practices, particularly my understanding of the role of community in supporting individuals in their life of prayer, and the complex relationship between religious, spiritual, and political life during the Middle Ages.
Ancient Greece & Early Christianity
Athens • crete • Ephesus • patmos• Corinth
Sparta • mystras • meteora • delphi
In 2018, my husband The Rev. Joe Mitchell and I made a 2-week pilgrimage across Greece. Drawing on his extensive historical knowledge of ancient (classical) Greece, as well as my own research into the influence of Greek religious culture on early Christianity, we visited a number of historically significant locations from both classical Greece and the early church.
We began our journey in Athens with visits to the Acropolis, the Temple of Zeus, Aristotle's Lyceum, Areopagus Hill, the ancient Agora, and the Byzantine & Christian Museum, which contains thousands of Byzantine icons from across the centuries. From there, we traveled to the villages of Oia and Fira on the island of Santorini, and then on to Crete, where I was able to visit the ancient remains of Knossos Palace, the birthplace of the labyrinth myth (one of my favorite research topics).
From Samos, we then made day trips to the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey, and the remote island of Patmos, where John was exiled when he wrote his book of Revelation. After heading back to the mainland, we rented a car and drove to the ancient ruins at Corinth, the city of Sparta, the medieval Byzantine city of Mystras, and the clifftop monasteries of Meteora. We ended our trip with a brief visit to Thermopylae and the ancient site of Delphi.
While this crowdfunded pilgrimage also doubled as our honeymoon, our goal was not merely to nourish our own spirits, but to gain experience that would allow us to offer guidance to other future pilgrims. Accordingly, we kept an extensive travel blog with many tips for those traveling to Greece. We hope that someday we might be able to lead a church group on a similar pilgrimage to these holy sites.
photography
Good Friday Blues @ St. Marks in the Bowery
From 2012-2014, I assisted Music Director Jeannine Otis & Rev. Winnie Varghese with planning and performing in this annual liturgy, which combines the traditional BCP Episcopal Good Friday service with a powerful musical and theatrical performance of the Passion narrative according to John's Gospel. This performance/liturgy features Grammy-award winning singers and instrumentalists from around New York City.