A Taste of Things to Come: Watching "Religulous;" Art and Culture in Chicago; My Filter: Non-Catholic Mystic; God in Everything

Part 1: A Taste of Things to Come

Many times I’ve experienced that spiritual retreats or pilgrimages begin weeks or months before the actual start date.  I think my Easter pilgrimage to Medjugorje and Italy started one chilly January afternoon on my mother’s leather couch in Iowa.  My mother and step-father had been to Medjugorje twice before, and they invited all their children to join them this time.  My folks are practicing Catholics, and they always go on these trips with a Catholic tour group.  Though it had not felt right to go when they first asked in the fall, as I sat on my mother’s couch and listened to her describe the itinerary, I heard myself suddenly say – “Mom… I think I have to go on this trip.”  It was not really a decision, it felt more like a recognition. 

I’d heard of Medjugorje years ago from a spiritual teacher who’d had his awakening through Mary on the mountains there.  It had intrigued me ever since.  Medjugorje is a small village in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina, near the border of Croatia.  In 1981, this little town became the location of what is believed to be a miracle: six children walking in the mountains saw an apparition they believed to be Holy Mary.  Since that time, these six people have been receiving visions and messages from Mary and sharing the messages with the world. Many healings, calls to faith, and miracles have been reported there. I’ve read and heard a lot of different stories, and one thing I hear consistently is that if you receive “the call” to go to Medjugorje, you have to go, whether it makes sense or not. 

I have also always wanted to go to Italy, and the stops listed on our itinerary were very compelling: Padre Pio’s shrine, Assisi, and the Shroud of Turin.  The story of St. Padre Pio, a dynamic and fiery priest who had received the stigmata, had been captivating to me for a long time. St. Francis’ harmony with God in nature drew me to him and St. Clare as well.  I had been fascinated by the spiritual and scientific mystery of the Shroud of Turin since I did a research paper on it when I was eleven!  I knew this was going to be an interesting trip.

Plus, I love food – honestly, it’s probably my second religion – and Italy is, of course, known for its incredible cuisine.  If it really is Mary who calls us to go on these pilgrimages, then I’m sure one of the tools she used to get me to go was my stomach.  I couldn’t wait to start eating.

Before I spend three pages talking about all the ways we can enjoy pasta, I need to acknowledge that my state of mind before the pilgrimage would inevitably effect my filter and reactions for what would become a very surprising trip. 

My brother came for a spontaneous and wonderful visit just days before my departure.  One night we watched Bill Maher’s Religulous.  While I feel this documentary has some limitations (including that it doesn’t really cover any kind of depth of spirituality, only religious practices), Maher’s film is a scathing review of how we believe mythologies to be fact and allow our beliefs to impact all our decisions in life, reaching all the way up to our government.  I began reflecting again on dogma, religious structures, and the power of belief – an interesting state of mind before going on a Catholic pilgrimage.

Oh, and by the way – I’m not Catholic. I was raised Greek and Russian Orthodox Christian.  While much of the theology and prayers are the same between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, there are some important key differences – like how we don’t have a pope, and how I never heard mass in English until I was an adult (only Ancient Greek and Old Church Slavonic).  To make matters a bit more interesting, my experience of God is not what the Bible or the priests describe. I experience “God” as oneness, living and breathing behind and through all of life and beyond.  This experience is palpable and defied my mental concepts of God a long time ago. 

It’s important to note that the way I opened up to this knowing of Oneness was ultimately through many traditions – including Wicca, Lakota Sioux spirituality, Tibetan Buddhism, Sufism – and ended up “awakening” through the tradition of Non-Dual Vedanta. For five years, I worked for the spiritual teacher Adyashanti, managing his silent retreats and ultimately all his events as Program Director. So while I never lost my connection to Mary and Christ, and even my love for the more mystical traditions of the church, I embrace any and all traditions as paths for knowing the divine.  In my experience, it’s just a matter of how each individual is moved and called.

Of course I should also confess that I am a mystic, for better or for worse; complete with (sometimes not-so-fun) visions, dreams, messages I’ve been receiving my whole life.  Some might call this special, others might call it nuts, I say it’s just what I’ve learned to live with day to day.  Curiously, my visions seem to have an international translator of some kind. I have had visions and messages in every spiritual tradition I’ve practiced. This has been a gift in my healing work with others; not only can I give visions and messages to my clients, but I can receive them within a spiritual and cultural context that’s relevant for them.  I was well aware that part of the call to go on this trip was visions I had been having of Mary for the last two years and her messages for me.  You can imagine with all this life experience that it wasn’t hard for me at all to accept that a bunch of children in Medjugorje could have visions of Mary! 

However, even I can be skeptical about mystical experiences, including (especially) my own. I learned a while back about something I’ve come to call “vision interpretation” – anything we see or hear (whether mystical or not, actually) is subject to our cultural, emotional, mental filters. These filters are perceptions based on our life experience; when we can’t imagine seeing the world any other way, we tend to take our perceptions as fact, rather than just a small piece of the giant universe of possibilities. While I try very hard to stay as true and honest about my experiences as possible, it’s also true that it’s impossible for any human to be completely free of cultural filters and biases.

Finally, whatever began that January afternoon in Iowa burned a pretty clear fire through my life.  By about two weeks before the trip in March, I was in an open (and pleasurable) free fall about many things in my life, particularly my career.  It felt so appropriate to leave the country for a pilgrimage with this sense of freedom, without an anchor to what would happen when I returned.  I had a sense that I would gain some clarity about my next steps on this trip.

One humorous note – about a week before the trip, the pilgrimage tour company sent each of us a package that included some helpful things, like flight information and luggage tags.  It also included a little sheet meant to prepare us to be humble and well-behaved on our journey, here’s a brief excerpt:

If I do not get the seat of my choice on the plane, Lord,

May I remember that I am a PILGRIM, not a Tourist!

If I should get tired and inclined to become short tempered, Lord,

May I remember that I am a PILGRIM, not a Tourist!

If someone else is always ‘last on the bus’ and I am always on time, Lord,

May I remember that I am a PILGRIM, not a Tourist!

I loved this!  After years of organizing 300 people on week-long silent retreats (yes, it’s a bit like herding cats), I thought this was absolutely brilliant and quite funny.  It was also a good reminder for me – nope, this is not vacation and the agenda for this trip is not mine: time to surrender.

By the time I was packing my bags, I was feeling pretty surrendered and available to whatever was going to happen next.  I was coming to this pilgrimage open minded about the Catholic path to God and the mystical experiences of Medjugorje. However, after watching Religulous, I had an even sharper awareness about the power of belief, our cultural filters and how we can color the way we see the world.  Additionally, I was going on this trip with a clear and established experience of God, and inevitably my own “spiritual business” that was calling me on this trip. 

What I did not in any way expect was that the group we would tour with would be devout Catholic and not open minded about different paths to God at all; they would be more focused on religious dogma instead of the essence or spirit of the divine.  I also did not anticipate how rigorous our schedule would be, which included travel all over Italy seeing sometimes 3 or 4 towns a day.  I would be surprised to experience a deeper level of surrender through confession to a dead saint; to have vitality and creativity renewed in my body; to actually enjoy going to Catholic mass twice a day; and that I would have a delicious memorable meal at a gas station.

Part 1b: Chicago

My folks were flying with the rest of the pilgrimage tour group from Chicago to Rome.  I wanted to use my miles to fly from San Francisco to Chicago to meet them. In one of those weird booking-with-miles loopholes, I could only fly to Chicago three days before my flight to Rome.  With three days to spare, I thought I might as well see some old friends!

Following an intuitive pull, the first person I called was a professor from Northwestern University for whom I had been a research assistant for three years while I was a student; we have remained friends ever since.  Unbeknownst to me, the timing of my call was remarkable; Professor Fran had just finished teaching her last class before retirement and had been thinking about me on her way home. I was so touched and happy to speak with her I decided to spend those three extra days with her and her husband, Bill (another NU professor), in Evanston. 

There were so many highlights of my time with them (including their cuddly dog Annie and some great conversation), but for brevity I will share with you one of the most transformative experiences.  Fran and Bill had just collaborated on a book: Troubador Poems from the South of France.  I cracked the book open and started reading; it felt like a pipeline into my heart and soul.  Rich in history and culture, the poems were free creative devotion, fiery and vibrant. I can’t resist sharing just a teensy-tiny taste with you, though it’s impossible to pick from such a spectrum of poems.  Here’s the first stanza of Bernhart de Ventadorn, “Singing can hardly be strong” (p. 74):

Singing can hardly be strong

If the song doesn’t come from the heart.

And a song cannot come from the heart

Unless the heart has love that’s true.

My songs turn out the best,

For I bring to joy of love refined

My eyes and mouth, my heart and mind.

I couldn’t have known it then, but this was the beginning of the renewal of my own vitality and creativity.  I went to bed that night feeling nurtured in a way that I hadn’t realized I’d been hungering for.

I got to see some wonderful friends on this trip, which contributed to the feeling of “coming home” – not to a place, but to an energy, to parts of myself.  Then on my last full day in Evanston, Fran and Bill took me to the Art Institute to see a special exhibit of Matisse.  I have always loved the Art Institute, it’s my favorite place to go to downtown.  I loved the Matisse exhibit, but couldn’t stay there long when I felt the pull of other parts of the museum.  Walking into a room nearby my heart leapt – there was an old friend, hanging right there on the wall - and another! - and more!  I had forgotten about these paintings and my love for them.  It might sound strange, but I was feeling a bit emotional as I walked from room to room with a sense of wonder.  Later I was able to stew in this feeling of wonder as we ate a delicious organic lunch (arugula salad with prosciutto and cheese, with a pomegranate lemonade) at Terzo Piano (the restaurant on the top floor of the modern art wing), gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the beautiful downtown skyline.

On Saturday afternoon I met my folks at a hotel near O’Hare airport.  To make the Sunday morning flight easier, we had decided to spend the night in a hotel with a free shuttle to the airport.  It was the Saturday before Palm Sunday, so once we got settled, my parents took me to an evening mass at a Catholic Church they had found in a nearby suburb.

I have strong childhood memories of the magical quality of Palm Sunday in the Greek Orthodox Church.  I think part of that magic was that the liturgy (or service) was in Ancient Greek; this was the same language as the early Christians and it has not changed in all this time. It’s a mystical language, plus it suspends my mind because I understand so little – it leaves me wide open to spiritual experiences.  I always felt like I was being initiated into something very special, especially at the gateway of Holy Week.

I believe that the value we get from mass, or any religious ritual, is what meaning or energy we give it.  As I watched the parishioners file into their pews and go through the ritual automatically, I reflected on the peculiar feeling that they are asleep with their eyes open. They were not alive in this mass; they seemed to be oblivious to the spiritual wealth within and all around them.  When I compared this to the depth of relationship that’s possible with the Divine (by whatever name), it felt like they are sipping the ocean through a straw.  Church is just what they do; it’s part of their lives, part of their social scene, and may even be justified by some story they tell themselves about how it will get them into heaven, how it makes them better people. 

Maybe it does make them better people, I have no idea. I understand that engaging in a spiritual practice consistently over time, even when it’s not wholehearted, can still shape us and improve us as human beings. I feel no judgment about all this one way or another – it’s just a curious observation.  When participating in religious rituals, I have a personal preference towards spiritual depth over social connection, and that’s my bias. It makes me realize how lucky I have been to have had experiences on retreat with Adyashanti, sitting in a room with hundreds of people in deep silence and presence, fully alive and awake (or at least opening their eyes) to God.  Perhaps I’ve taken that for granted to some degree until now.  In retrospect, this Palm Sunday mass was setting me up for a stark comparison to mass in Medjugorje, just a week later.

Afterwards, we ate an unremarkable but nevertheless satisfying meal at a Thai restaurant nearby.  I didn’t sleep particularly well in our hotel room; I could feel things stirring inside of me in anticipation of our trip. 

Coming Next Week: Day 1 in  Rome :  Falling in Love, Getting Lost, St. Paul Basilica, Catholic Mass in a Hotel Room.... Plus cool photos!

I’d love to hear your thoughts and insights! Post a comment here or email Sonya@illuminatedwisdom.com.