Down the Aisle

Our son is getting married next month, and my husband and I are co-officiating.  No surprise then, that as I wondered what I would write this week about walking, I recalled that special, once (or twice) in a lifetime walk we take, down the aisle.

If you think about all the walks you’ve taken in your life, walking down the aisle at the beginning of your wedding, while brief, may be one of the most memorable walks of your whole life.

Let’s compare walking down the aisle with other walks or runs we take, and let’s “walk through” some of the steps on this significant stroll.

By “walking down the aisle” I mean whatever way you arrived at the place you made your promises, literal aisle or not, church building or not.  How did each of you get to the place where you said your vows?

Having the bride and groom come into the service from two different directions and then standing together at the altar is a symbolic way of showing that, while they have lived up until now separate lives, now they commit to shaping a shared life.

Traditionally the bride makes a dramatic processional entrance that’s a combination of a fashion show catwalk and a flashbulb press conference.  As Brides.com says, to the bride, “Your walk down the aisle is the most epic, most photographed, most significant brief walk of your life.”

The groom, on the other hand, skulks in from the side and stands there waiting while everyone looks at the bride.  I’ve always found this disparity disconcerting.  Why have the groom sneak in the side door unceremoniously and the bride get all the fanfare?

I went to an outdoor wedding in the country once where chairs were set up in a field and various friendly people welcomed us, but the bride and groom were nowhere to be seen.  Suddenly there was a little buzz in the crowd, and people pointed up the hill, and there, walking arm in arm, strode the happy couple, arriving from some distant point out of sight, and coming together to the ceremony that united them.  They had taken a long walk, together, before even walking down the aisle.

When I celebrate weddings I try to encourage couples to pay attention to the patriarchal symbolism in much of the traditional service and realize they have lots of modern choices.  Beginning with how they begin.  This is not a property exchange, a transfer of ownership of bride from father to husband.  Both members of the couple can come down the aisle together, if they like, as my outdoor wedding story, since they have actually been together for some time already.  Or each come down the aisle one at a time, both on the arms of both or many parents.

For gay and lesbian couples it is sometimes easier to overcome these binding traditions and equalize the symbolism.  Not always - traditional roles associated with genders still prevail.  But there is often more of an openness to make the ceremony personal and real.

Let me offer some other training advice, having officiated at hundreds of weddings:

-Practice, practice, practice.  Practice walking down the aisle or however you are going to arrive.  We don’t do these slow walks very often, in new shoes, a long dress or new suit, with everyone looking us.  Try it out.  Like doing a pre-run of a marathon the week before.  Actually marriage is sort of a marathon.  It’s good to pace yourself, and remember you need to be in shape to hang in for the long haul.  (And in my experience, there really is such a thing as the runner’s high kicking in about half way in.)

-In the wedding rehearsal, practice leaving the altar first, and only then practice coming in, recessional before processional. I learned this odd training style, sort of like running backwards to practice agility, from wedding march coach extraordinaire Donna Hook, who coordinated the weddings at a church I served where we did 80 weddings a year.

Start the rehearsal with the whole wedding party standing in front, lined up as if the wedding were just about to begin.  Then practice the recessional, going out.  Only then practice coming back in, the long walk.

Coach Donna gave me these training words that I repeated to many a wedding party: “If you know where you’re headed, you’re more likely to end up there.” 

Sort of like the way some coaches say to visualize the whole race in your mind, especially the finish line.  If you know the point at which you will stop, and in this slow race, turn and face each other, you can figure out how to pace yourself to get there. Maybe a better analogy is practicing getting a good start out of the gate.  Racers practice that a lot.

-I always tell couples to take their time coming down the aisle, it actually isn’t a race.  But an Anglican priest I knew who was serving an American church said that the ponderous processionals drove him crazy.  He said the British tradition is for the priest to walk fast with the couple straight to the altar – is that true?

-We never walk or run alone.  Your friends and family on either side of the aisle are like the cheering crowds that make a huge difference for any walker or runner. Keep going, you can do it!   But in my services I point out that these folks actually are not mere spectators.  They have a promise to make as well, and I ask them to promise to love and support the couple, honor their commitment to each other, and never come between them.  If so, please say with feeling, we will.  So they are more like part of your running team.

Thanks for hearing me out.  That helped me prep and practice a bit for Owen and Sophie’s wedding next month.  They are not especially religious, and are being married in her parents’ New York City apartment, where we will fashion some kind of aisle for the 15 or so guests to line.  But I might just hum to myself the old Christian spiritual:

“Guide my feet, while I run this race.  For I don’t want to run this race in vain.”

Copyright © 2017 Deborah Streeter

Voltaire at the Women’s March

Writing here weekly about walking, I usually describe the deep satisfaction that comes from a good hike, or how even a challenging pilgrimage can heal body and soul.

But taking a walk can also be a form of political protest, better known as marching.  I was one of 60,000 walkers, or marchers, this past Saturday, in Oakland, for the Women’s March.

Actually, so many people filled the streets that our pace was more like a crawl than a march.  But move we did, slowly, to make our convictions known.  A moving movement.

Among all the bold and witty protest signs held high in our march from the park around the lake and to downtown was a hand-lettered poster that read “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities – Voltaire.”

I’d been smiling at all the signs with puns and jokes about nasty and pussy: “You can’t birth a nation without pussy” written on a pink Lady Liberty torch.  “Make American nasty again.”  “Our rights are not up for grabs.”  “No more pussy footing around.”

And we all were charmed by the kids holding up homemade signs, like “Toddlers 4 Sharing” and “Trains for Peace.” “My Mom is a Badass!  Show some respect!”  And “Girls just wanna have fun-damental rights.”

But Voltaire?  That was pretty classy. Sure, we were in the hip and well educated San Francisco Bay Area.  One would expect that among those 60,000 marchers at least one person had read the great French Enlightenment thinker’s essays on freedom and human rights. 

And what an apt quote for the day; I think all 60,000 of us agree that our new president spouts nothing but absurdities.  And that his policies, both domestic and international, will produce nothing but atrocities.

I happened to be marching with two teenagers who are high school exchange students, Erika from Ecuador and Emna from Tunisia.  They are spending a high school year in California and living with a friend of mine in the northern part of the state.  She couldn’t make the march, because she had an all-day meeting in Oakland.  She had put out a Facebook request for someone to show the girls around the Bay Area while she was in her meeting.  I replied that I was going to the march if they wanted to do that, and if it was OK with her.  She said it was great, that the girls had worked the polls during the election and were interested in seeing more of American democracy in action.

Like most teenaged girls, it was a little hard to get a conversation going with them.  Their English was pretty good and they both said they had watched a lot of American TV growing up.  They did ask me about the pink hats with cat ears that so many people were wearing, and when I said they were pussy hats, you know, like what Trump said….? they knew exactly what I meant.

Emna, the Tunisian, and I had discovered we both spoke French (thank you, French colonialism in North Africa.) Somehow it was easier talking with her in French.  So I said, “Look, a quote from Voltaire, know who that is?”  And she did. 

I wish I could say that we then had a long discussion about Voltaire and how daring and prescient he was in advocating for freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  We didn’t.  But as we walked we got into conversations with other marchers about what were our favorite protest signs.  And I said, “There was one by Voltaire, but I can’t quite remember the quote.”  And it was Emna who recalled both key words, absurd and atrocious.

I bet she finds a lot of America to be absurd and even atrocious.  I asked the girls if their parents knew they were taking part in a march that day, and Emna said her mother was a little worried, she had seen pictures of the violent protests at the inauguration the day before.  She had assured her mother she would be ok. 

But surely much of the world, maybe including their parents, sees the US as pretty absurd and atrocious for having elected Donald Trump as our president.  I can say he’s not my president or I am not going to believe his absurdities.  But we are all vulnerable to ideologues and all capable of atrocities.  It was good to walk with those girls and be reminded of how big is our world and how interconnected we all are.

After an hour of searching we finally met up with my daughter the high school civics teacher.  She carried a poster she had made that read on one side, “Read, understand and protect the Constitution,” and on the other, “14^th Amendment: Equal Protection Under the Law.”

I doubt Trump has ever heard of Voltaire.  He has no concept of how Voltaire and other Enlightenment thinkers gave us the ideas in our Constitution like equal protection.   And that he described the same rights we were exercising that day, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. 

“Tolerance, Reason, Facts – Make America Think Again.”  I think Voltaire would have liked that sign we also saw.  He might very well have voted for a president with that slogan, like maybe the one we’ve had for 8 years.

Merci, Voltaire.

Copyright © 2107 Deborah Streeter

Walking from 2016 to 2017

Who spent a lot of time this past year walking and running?   Where and why?  Since I’ve been writing on these pages about walking, here’s one of those “2016 in Retrospect” lists, about folks famous and infamous who hit the road in 2016.

-Already in January there was a huge group of folks running every day, and they kept it up all year.  The US Presidential race.  I guess we call it “running for office,” because it’s a race to the finish.  But I didn’t see much actual running or even walking by the overweight Republicans and the not much better Democrats.  After 8 years of an incredibly fit and physical president, we now have an overweight slob whose only physical activity is chasing women and grabbing pussy and headlines.

-Continuing on the political theme, tens of thousands of women (and men) are strapping on their walking shoes and making plans to take part in Women’s Marches on Jan. 21 in DC and other cities in protest of Trump and his policies.  My daughter and I will be at the March in Oakland, on whose Facebook page 18,000 women have already said they are going and another 43,000 are interested.

-A big televised walk in August was the Parade of Nations that opened the Olympic Games.  I decided to watch until the US team came in.  I was touched by the different national teams’ excitement and pride and their interesting different outfits.  Then came the US team with their dopey Ralph Lauren shirts promoting the great people’s sport - polo.  Most of the US athletes entered with an entitled swagger that was strikingly different from the other national teams. Embarrassing.  Walk, don’t strut.

-But absent from the Parade were many Russian so called athletes whose walking and running was fueled by doping.  No power walking or marathon medals for them this year.

-Lots of people got swept up in the Pokemon craze, walking and running all over looking for those little creepy creatures.   Its founder says he started it as a way to get his kids away from their video games and outside walking and moving around.  OK, maybe it was a fitness craze.

-Way too many people walked this year out of necessity, not choice, marching hundreds and thousands of miles.  They walked across borders, they ran for their lives.  That would be Syrian and many other refugees, walking and dying or maybe finding a new home.

-Too many great people took their last steps on this earth in 2016.  Surely they are strolling in heaven.  John Glenn, Gwen Ifill, Leonard Cohen, Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, Elie Weisel, Muhammed Ali, Gene Wilder, Umberto Eco, Alan Rickman and my neighbor Owen Greenan are among the ones I miss the most.

-Some of the best walking and running took place this year on a historic field in Chicago, when the Cubs walked to first base, ran around the outfield, ran around the bases and ran home, and won the World Series for the first time in 108 years. Go Cubs Go!

We say “Walk, don’t run, to the nearest exit,” when there’s an emergency, like fire, or earthquake.  But this year we saw the UK run to the nearest Brexit.  And here in the US we who worry about what President Trump will do to our nation wonder if we should walk calmly and deliberately and see what happens, or run like hell to the barricades.  Either way, 2017 looks to be another year where we’ll have to keep moving just to stay alive.

For the sake of our souls, and our health, I recommend a good walk. Or run.

Copyright © 2017 Deborah Streeter

A Walk around the Block

I call my most common weekly walk "walking around the block" although there’s no block and it’s got some scrambling and jumping as well as walking.

When I was a kid in the New Jersey suburbs we walked around our block, and it just a quick, level, paved, ten-minute walk on sidewalks, past houses, no going across streets.  My father and I would do it late afternoon to get out of the way and work off some steam before dinner, or my parents would sometimes in exasperation say to me, "Go take a walk around the block!"  When my own kids were little in California suburbs we too lived on a block you could walk all the way around, although it seemed to take us much longer, so many cool puddles and plants and neighbors and stories to slow us down.  And as a free-range parent I too sent my kids out to walk around the block by themselves sometimes, to work off steam. 

So I guess that's why, even though my walk now is a steep dirt and forest loop through woods and landslides, down the path, jump over the creek, up the grade and then back down the dirt road – that’s why I call it "walking around the block." It's a loop, you do walk around.  But it's no block.  The operative work is "around." 

Unlike my New Jersey or California sidewalked suburbs, there is hardly an inch of level in my Big Sur forest walk.  All walks in Big Sur are steep.  That's called geology, granite meets ocean, and it's up or down, great views, winded lungs. And this is no suburb - only a third of my walk is paved, and that's a steep road with no sidewalk at all.  The rest is dirt roads, fire roads, paths I've made through the woods, and sometimes a little cross country around a fallen tree.  Walking alone (as opposed to with a curious kid or an unsuspecting guest) it takes me 30 minutes.  When I'm training for a longer walk I use it as my stair master or laps, and I've gotten it down to 25 minutes. 

Like all good loops you can go either way.  In the suburbs, you come out of the house to the sidewalk and go either left or right.  That was the choice at 1133 Evergreen Avenue and 40 Grand Street.  But at 37755 Palo Colorado Rd the choice is whether to start going up or going down.  Do you want to end the walk coming up the steep path from the creek or the gentler return down the dirt road?  I usually start going down, to the creek, then up the steep grade and the dirt road, then end with quarter mile of downhill dirt road, so I can catch my breath before arriving home.

There are several points on the walk where I usually pause and take it in, or catch my breath, or say a word of thanks, or all three. 

When I jump across the creek, I am happy, this winter, to see it full and rushing with water, after a long dry summer.  I think of the lines from the Robinson Jeffers poem “October Evening:”

In an hour Orion will be risen.
Be glad for the summer is dead
And the sky turns over to darkness.
Good storms, few guests, glad rivers.

A glad river is our creek these days. 

Not far from there, I look up on the hillside at the big burn scar from our terrifying wildfire this summer.  It got this close to my house.  The winter rains have forced some scary slides and runoff down from that burn scar.  But there also has been some wonderful surprising new green growth, like these redwood trees.  When we first came back from our three-week fire evacuation exile these trees were blackened sticks.  But soon, and now more rapidly with the rains, green fuzz has sprouted from trunk and top. Redwood trees can survive massive challenges, and fire actually helps them resprout.  I am reminded of nature's resilience and how fire can be both creative as well as destructive.  Glad trees.

And last, I stop at these mailboxes to check our own mailbox, the bulletin board, and often to run into a neighbor also stopping at this community meeting place.  We are all as different as our mailboxes, but we all share this canyon forest community.  Glad neighbors.

Then it's up the dirt road to the ridge top and down again towards the creek, easing on into our house with tales of refreshed creeks and revived trees and neighbor news. 

A good walk around the block.  Glad me.

Copyright © 2016 Deborah Streeter

Phil’s Camino

I’m writing these days about walking and roads, and now it seems that everywhere I go I run into pilgrims.

What film could you go to see at both a church and the outdoor store REI?  What subject matter would interest both religious types and outdoor types?  I saw such a film this past week and its director said she has been promoting it at both venues, churches and REI stores. And at film festivals, where it has won prizes at 16 of the 25 indie film festivals where she’s shown it.

The film is called “Phil’s Camino” and it tells the story of a year or two in the life of Phil Volker.  It begins when he is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and he starts taking slow daily walks around his ten acre Vashon Island (Washington) farm, for his physical health and for his spiritual well being.  He imagines he is actually walking the pilgrimage route, the Camino, in Spain, which he has long dreamed of, and he starts marking his progress on a map as if he were passing from Roncesvalles to Leon to Compostela.  He invites folks to walk his farm route with him, to join him as fellow pilgrims. One day his doctors tell him his numbers are good enough for him to skip a chemo treatment and they encourage him to follow his dream and walk the actual Camino.  He goes to Spain, completes the 350 miles walk with various friends, and has touching encounters and adventures.  All this in a half hour film that is rich in landscape (green wet Northwest, breathtaking ancient Spain) and in spirit.  “I am walking not so I will be cured, but so I can find healing, which is peace and acceptance,” Phil says in the narration.

I saw the film practically by accident.  I happened to see a flyer for it in the library of my old seminary in Berkeley.  It was showing that very afternoon just up the hill at the Jesuit School of Theology.  Annie O’Neil the director introduced the film by saying she had come up from LA for a short Northern California tour, to show the film at a Sacramento REI, a church on the old army base Ft. Ord in Monterey (Phil is a former Marine), and now here at the Jesuit School to a class on Pilgrimage.  Actually at this point, waiting for the film to start, I knew nothing of the story, just the intriguing title.  I was here at my old school to give myself a few days of spiritual reading and reflecting.  I had no big plans that day.   OK, why not go see this movie?  Sounds like it’s something about the pilgrimage Camino, which has meaning for me.   I’ve walked part of that route in France, might be interesting.  I wonder who Phil is.

Phil is an older guy, thin, pretty fit if he could do all that walking, but still, there were also scenes of him getting lots of chemo, and talking about the cancer coming back, and even while walking he seemed a little frail, and he faints at one point in a Spanish church.  I wasn’t the only one sniffling a bit at the end when it seemed like he had walked his last steps as he finally made it to the church at Compostela.

Then the lights came up and Annie the director came forward and said, “Thank you, and let me introduce you to Phil.”  And up he comes, thin, a little frail maybe, gentle, sweet, smiling, shy, alive. 

Phil writes a daily blog on the Phil’s Camino website.  He says these promotional tours are a little tiring, but rich and gratifying in how touched people are.  He is a recent Catholic convert, and he says he prefers the talks at churches because they can talk about God more.  At REI the questions are more about the walking, although many of the outdoor hiker types who come to those showings turn out also to have walked the Camino as well.   He says that at the film festivals the God part makes people a little nervous.  But still, he says, we have won all those awards.  The film is also somehow touching those judges.

Recently he speculated about why pilgrimages are becoming increasingly popular, while church attendance is waning.  “Are they related? I never put that together before.  Is the trail the new church?  I know that from my wanderings there are different sorts of ways to belief, one based on knowledge and one on experience.  My stay at the Catholic Church has been brief, but what I appreciate most is the experiential quality of it. There is knowledge where I read and study and try and reach an understanding, but I get so much more out of putting my whole body into something.  Now that is just me, but the trail has that aspect, you have to admit.

“As one walks long enough and hard enough, part of us actually becomes the trail.  We sort of donate it.  We give it away.  We don’t need it any more.  And that sudden empty space in us is where God moves into.  It’s a holy implant.  God isn’t an idea any more.  This is the trail, the new church.”

Part of us becomes the trail, and we don’t need it anymore, so we give it away, and that empty space is where God moves in.  Even REI walkers get that point.  They might just call it a runner’s high, but anyone who has done long distance walking recalls that sense of empty strength, some mysterious persistence, the help from something beyond us that keeps us going.  You need more than just the right kind of hiking equipment for that kind of walk.  

Copyright © 2016 Deborah Streeter