Author Archives: Christine Sunderland

We woke to blue skies on Monday and headed out to revisit two of the major basilicas, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and San Giovanni Laterano, both built along the ancient Aurelian Wall.

Santa Croce, once the atrium of the Empress Helena’s third-century palace, has long entranced me.  For many years it was scaffolded for restorations and closed, but since the millennium celebrations, it has remained open mornings and afternoons.  Set back from the busy street behind a lawn and cobblestone drive, the church is welcoming with its white façade and gently curved portico.  We entered and gazed at the cerulean blue apse, Christ in the center, holding a book that reads I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We followed the marble-tiled central aisle to the canopied high altar and turned up the south transept and then left to the back of the church where, I recalled, Helena’s rooms could be seen.

When the present basilica was built, Helena’s bedroom and private chapel formed the back of the church.  The chapel housed the wood of the True Cross she brought back from Jerusalem as well as Jerusalem soil she spread upon the floor.  Today the wood has been transferred to a relic chapel off the north aisle.

We followed a tunnel-like passage down a gentle slope to the first room, the original chapel, today empty.  The second room through an archway has become the monastery chapel (the church is cared for by Cistercians).  We paused in Helena’s Chapel and gazed at the incredible mosaic vault above, Christ in the center again holding a book, this time open to the words, I am the Light of the world.  I realized this church was all about truth – the True Cross, the Truth of Christ, the Light, the Way to Truth.  Today, that is heady stuff, for truth is difficult to come by, constantly assailed, and often ridiculed.  It is generally believed that it doesn’t exist, a concept in itself that, to me, seems unbelievable.

Thinking about truth and authorities and real and unreal I gazed at the many other relics in the northern relic chapel.  Somehow I trusted that they were real, given their pedigrees, and their association with these early years of the Church.  A nail.  A thorn.  The title bar raised above Christ’s head.  And others.  The wood of the Cross.

We paused again at the foot of the nave and pondered the stunning spherical apse bathed in blue.  This was a church of the Cross, I knew, used by popes on Good Friday, and associated with the Passion of Christ, the crucifixion.  Yet while the wood of the Cross remained behind the glass, the risen Christ spoke victoriously from the apse and ancient chapel vault.  He reminded us that by that wood He conquered death, and with Him we too could conquer death.

We would not forget His truth as we headed out into the bright morning, finding the long straight path that led to the church of Resurrection, St. John Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome.

We walked down the wide path linking Santa Croce with St. John Lateran, passing alongside the ancient wall of Rome and a park where children played on brightly colored gyms and swing sets.  Tall shade trees lined the path, and I sensed I was on an old pilgrimage route, the triangle linking the basilicas of Maria Maggiore, Santa Croce, and San Giovanni Laterano.  Here, stepping between buzzing traffic and apartment houses, children playing in the sun and third-century walls staunchly watching, I prayed God would sanctify our time here in Rome, and that we would be receptive to what He wanted us to see, and, perhaps, say.

Nearing the hub of traffic in front of the Lateran, we passed the giant statue of St. Francis raising his hands into the air, arms reaching toward the white basilica set back.  Francis faces the papal basilica where he met with the Pope to form his order of Friar Minors eight hundred years ago.

As we approached the church, workers were setting up or taking down stage settings and chairs with cranes and forklifts and vans, obscuring the entrance.  We passed street sellers of handbags displayed on blankets and walked up the steps to the porch.

We entered the nave through the south aisle and paused to view the marble tiles swirling along the floor, the white sculpted apostles leaping from their niches along the sides, the altar and confessio and baldachino, the golden filigree reliquary with the heads of Peter and Paul higher above.  Sun slanted from the south through clerestory windows, throwing squares of light onto the center aisle, and I worked my way toward the high altar, turning to photograph the twelve apostles.

We continued to the head of the aisle, where the confessio beneath the altar held the remains of Pope Martin V who built the present basilica, and looked up to the relics of Peter and Paul, enshrined in gold.  To the left in the northern transept Blessed Sacrament Chapel, wood from the table of Christ’s Last Supper is kept behind a golden frieze.  The chapel is anchored by two giant gilded columns, and the Sacrament is reserved in a marvelous tabernacle, a church of its own, domed and columned and porticoed, golden, bright.  In this chapel, pilgrims kneel and pray.  There were fresh flowers on the altar, celebrating Eastertide.

We stepped around to the apse where the cathedra, the episcopal chair, sits against a patterned marble background, but high above is the glorious apsidal dome, the risen Christ in glory, frescoed in stunning color.  Here, on Maundy Thursday, in this chancel, Pope Benedict, imitating Christ, washed the feet of his priests, dipping their bare flesh into a basin and drying them with care, his eyes on theirs, signifying the moment with grace.

We continued to the Baptistery, an outer building dating to the fourth century, and entered a large octagonal rotunda.  In the center a massive empty basin recalled the original pool, dry now, today containing a marble altar and Paschal candle, marking the forty days after Easter.  Several ancient chapels extend from the baptistery.  I gazed at the old walls, and the huge font, imagining the full immersion of the catechumens in their white robes on Easter Eve, washed clean by the Holy Spirit and made a member of Christ’s Body, the Church.  I felt their joy as they took part in the Divine Liturgy for the first time, the secrets of the Church no longer secret, the mysteries revealed to those who could now understand them.  I understood there was a time and place for these things, and with their acceptance and understanding of the Apostles Creed (which was largely developed through these first catechumen classes), with their instruction throughout Lent, and with their washing in the baptismal waters, they could unite with Christ in the Bread and the Wine.

St. John Lateran is a church of resurrection and rebirth, a fitting seat for the Bishop of Rome, for it unites the Eucharist (the Last Supper Table and the washing of the feet, the Reserved Sacrament, the many daily Masses) with the rebirth of baptism, the promise of resurrection through Christ’s drawing us up with Him.  For it is through the Eucharist that this drawing us up and into Him is effected.  This is a theme of John the Evangelist, and it is appropriate that this church is dedicated to him, the apostle who first saw the risen Lord, and the apostle who wrote God is love, explaining that it is the gift of the Spirit, of Christ, that brings us into communion and out of separation, with God and with our fellow men.

As with each visit to St. John Lateran, I left understanding better with both heart and mind the mystery of our Faith, the mystery of life, the mystery of love, the mystery of God.

The rain has cleared and a dome of blue sits gently upon the Bay Area making us believe in spring, the air light with promise.

We are in glorious Eastertide, and the high altar this morning remains covered with white lilies.  The sweet Madonna and Child to the left of the pulpit, votives flaming at her feet, rises above a bed of flowers.  Floral scents mingle with frankincense as the thurifer leads the procession up the red carpet.  Would Heaven be like this?

Far away, on the other side of the world, a volcano erupts through glacier blocks, sending plumes of smoke and fire, filling the sky with glassy ash that slowly blankets Europe.  Lightning bolts through the plumes creating infernos from the earth’s depths.  It is as though the earth itself is exploding, laughing at man’s claims to control her.

My thoughts this morning wandered, I fear, away from the great Action of the Mass, to these massive acts of the natural world, and to man’s smallness, his creature-ness.  We had planned to fly to London soon, but perhaps not so soon.

But even so, the great Action of the Mass continued and I returned to my prayers, to take part in the liturgy, the work of the people.  I listened to the Epistle and Gospel, and turned toward the pulpit to hear the words of the sermon.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday.  In the Gospel for today, Christ says He is the good shepherd who knows his sheep.  Our preacher explained that in the East the shepherd leads the sheep, contrary to the West where the shepherd herds the sheep ahead of him.  The sheep know their shepherd, else how could they follow, and the shepherd knows his sheep.  Indeed, Jesus says, He knows his sheep as He knows his Father, God.  It is an intimate knowledge, this shepherd-sheep knowing; it is a knowing full of love and sacrifice.

“Such knowledge is too excellent for me,” the Psalmist says, and again I am stunned by the love of God.  For each of us deeply wants to be known, really known, truly loved.  How do we respond, find this love?  We follow the Shepherd; we enter this miraculous, amazing relationship.  We follow in His steps, reading His word, partaking in his Sacraments.  We unite with Him in the Eucharist where, in the Consecration of the simple creatures of bread and wine, His words become flesh.  The Good Shepherd knows his own; He knows me.  The disciples knew the risen Christ when he broke bread with them.  Just so, we know Him in the bread of the Eucharist.  He abides in us, and we in Him.

The volcano continues to spew from the heart of the earth, through ice into sky, and as the images fill our screens, I am grateful for God’s immense love, that He shepherds us through this world of cataclysmic change, through wars and famine, through unknown futures in time and space.  I rejoice that as I journey through this life, I am reminded by the Church to simply follow the steps of our Shepherd, the one who pulls us to Himself, through word and sacrament, through His Body the Church.

Simply follow, and all will be well.  Such excellence.

It’s raining hard today, the earth drenched and quenched, the hills a deep green.  This morning we heard the rain on the roof of St. Peter’s, a steady gentle sound as though Heaven was stroking our ark, this sanctuary of God, as we sailed through the rising waters.

They call today Low Sunday and many think this is because attendance is low after the great festival of Easter, but it actually refers to a lower form of ritual used.  Still, the Mass was sung, and the liturgy much the same, as the amazing Eucharistic sacrifice was offered once again.  And our attendance wasn’t too low after all.

Perhaps Heaven wasn’t stroking us but rather washing us.  In the Early Church of the first centuries, the baptismal candidates from Easter Eve were allowed the full rites of the Eucharist on this First Sunday after Easter. The Introit (a sung opening prayer), I Peter 2, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word…” reminds us of that time and our new life as we emerge from death to resurrection, from the womb to the air, from Easter to Eastertide.  We are babies, taking our first sips of milk, growing in faith through the Word of Scripture, the water of Baptism, the blood of the Eucharist.

Our good preacher explained all of this and more, and as I listened, once again spellbound by the richness of grace woven into the tapestry of the Church, I learned we are called on this Sunday “overcomers.”  The Epistle appointed for today is I John 4, “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world…”, so we are born again through Baptism and in every Eucharist, through water and blood and spirit.  And our faith, our presence and participation in these sacraments, becomes the conduit, the way, by which we overcome the world.

Certainly first-century Christians faced a dangerous world – persecution, martyrdom, torture.  Today we face not-so-different dangers, as our world challenges and circumscribes our freedoms, freedom of religion to name but one.  We are overcomers, though, through membership in the Body of Christ, allowing Christ’s spirit to penetrate our own bodies and souls.  We are reminded that God wins in the end.

I read recently that our own resurrections when we die are effected by our bodies being joined to Christ, that He brings us up with Him, in Him.  The image has remained with me all this Easter Week, and combined with the humility of Lent, I know that it is only in our humility that He is able to pull us close, and only through the Eucharist, can he fully unite with us.  In this way, we shall rise with Him, be given new, resurrected bodies, for we shall be one with Him, we in Him, and He in us.

In the Gospel for today, John 20:19, Jesus appears to the frightened, hiding disciples.  He breathes the Holy Ghost upon them, giving them the power and authority of the Church, the power to forgive sins in His name. He breathes upon them the power of God.

We sang homely hymns today, fireside stories of the Passion and Redemption, simple melodies.  We have experienced the glory of Easter and are settling into a quiet, steady, walking the Way, living in the Spirit, being washed by God.

I received Christ at the altar and was thankful as the pouring rain washed my heart, overcome by this love from Heaven.

We stepped from the rain into the warm sanctuary and moved toward the altar covered with white lilies, finding places in the first pews.  We sang Charles Wesley’s victorious hymn, Jesus Christ is ris’n to-day, Al – – le – lu – ia!, as the clergy and acolytes processed joyously up the red-carpeted aisle toward the chancel where light streamed through the ceiling windows onto the medieval crucifix.

“Christ is risen!” the priest cried out to us, his flock.
“He is risen indeed!” we responded in unison.

The mysterious, fantastic truth of Easter filled me this Easter morning.  Christ’s resurrection from the dead meant the restoration of relationship between Man and God.  My meager Lent had taught me humility, as I craved the things I had given up, as I learned how needy my body could be, how helpless, in the end, I was, dependant on my little habits.  I learned humility and, from that place of humility I learned separation from God, and I understood Lent better.  I understood the desert.  I was thirsty.

But now resurrection made restoration and, knowing my great desire for Him, I moved through the happy liturgy knowing my humble body would be one day resurrected, that when I passed over into this new life, I would be given a new body, a perfect body, just as Christ, the paschal lamb, thepassover lamb, had been given one.

For, our preacher reminded us, it is Christ’s appearances in His perfect body, his new body, transformed into something else, that attest to the truth of His resurrection.  Jesus was seen by many, many who didn’t believe, but soon did believe.  Over the forty days walking the earth after His resurrection from the dead, these appearances transformed the ragtag group of terrified disciples into the first Christian Church.

We read the Gospel (John 20:1+) and again I was touched by the homely narrative, as though it was penned in a diary that evening.  Instead, I knew, these were words heard again and again in a world that did not use written words as we do.  Accounts were communicated orally, in sermons, in speech.  Eventually the words were placed on codex, preserved.  But by this time – a generation later or so – the words were certainly known by heart.  These are the words we hear in the readings of the liturgy, in the Gospel for Easter Day:

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.  Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.  And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying…

There is a good deal of running in this vital passage, a good deal of sudden amazed excitement.  Mary Magdalene arrives in the dark and makes the discovery that will change the world and runs back to the others.  John, the youngest of the disciples, wants us to know (he is the author after all) that he has outrun his friend Peter, showing a curious boyish pride in winning the race.

It is the same amazement and excitement that fills my soul each year on Easter morning, as the frankincense billows up the red aisle toward the high altar, filling the air above and around us, a sweet cloud settling upon the Easter lilies and the tabernacle itself.  Soon, we would partake of His Body and Blood in the Eucharistic mysteries and continue the transformation of our own bodies.

The joy was steady all day, feeding my humble heart.  Sons and daughters and grandchildren, nieces and friends, rang our doorbell this Easter afternoon, entered our house and filled the rooms with laughter and light.  All of the many tribulations of life (which challenge us daily) seemed far away.  The rain continued to pour, and we lit a fire in the grate, played Handel’s Messiah, and gathered around a tray of chips, veggies, and guacamole.  We said grace, holding hands, around the buffet of salads and ham and salmon, and once more thankful for another year together on this good earth.

We praised God for his great gift of life, his promise redeemed this day, a promise I shall hold close to my heart in the weeks to come.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed! Allelulia!

“It is our whole faith that by His own death Christ changed the very nature of death, made it a passage – a ‘Passover,’ a ‘Pascha’ – into the Kingdom of God, transforming the tragedy of tragedies into the ultimate victory.”  Alexander Schmemann

Tall palm fronds – twelve feet? – rise on either side of the high altar, reaching up the brick apsidal wall.  They are signs of hope, as green often is, amidst the swathes of purple.  For Lenten purple still drapes the crucifix, the tall candlesticks, the Madonna and Child.  The processional cross too is hidden, and as the clergy and acolytes step toward the altar amidst clouds of incense, we recall the donkey stepping toward the gates of Jerusalem, the City of David, two thousand years ago, a humble animal carrying our humble God, parting the sea of humanity, the ocean of welcoming palms, heading toward the proud gates of the proud city.  The crowd would soon change, Christ knew.  Soon they would would condemn Him, acclaim His death before Pilate, taunt Him along the Way of the Cross, as foretold.

Today, Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, is a day that begins the recalling of the great action of God among us: the conquering of death, the transformation of death to passover, pascha (Easter in the West), to a passing into the Kingdom.  Death vanquished by death; Christ is the Paschal Lamb, the Passover Lamb.

Stacks of smaller palms are blessed and given out, and we process around the church, singing All glory, laud, and honor/To thee, Redeemer King!  To whom the lips of children /Made sweet hosannas ring…, waving our palms, led by our children.  We walk the aisles, together, a family of God, linked by time and eternity, as we move toward our own passovers, our own crossings into the Kingdom.

Are we ready for our own paschas, our own Easters?  We examine our hearts, confess our sins, forgive our brothers and sisters, ask their forgiveness.  We have done things we should not have done and left undone things we should have done.  We say these words together, into the air of the nave, and the incense carries them to the tabernacle.  Our priest, imbued with the authority of two thousand years of Apostolic Succession, gives us absolution, frees us from our mortality, grants us our own passover into the Kingdom.

The Palm Sunday liturgy continues.  We hear the words of Scripture, incarnate with Christ himself.  We hear the words of the sermon, the interpretation of those words, a clarifying based on the promptings of the Holy Spirit weaving through the Church.  We offer the Mass, and in the sacred liturgy are forgiven, freed of ourselves to become ourselves now offered, souls and bodies to God.  Soon, we see, He offers Himself back to us, as He does in each Mass, as He becomes a mystical part of the bread and the wine, and we consume Him.  In the Eucharist itself we pass over, we experience pascha.  We enter His Kingdom, part the veil of the tabernacle and unite with God through Christ.  The Kingdom is now, not of this world, but granted through the matter of this world.

We enter Holy Week, a time of reflection, and of participation in the greatest drama of all history. We fast and pray.  We recreate that history in these hours and days as we move toward Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper.  We follow Christ to the Garden, to the trial, to the Way of the Cross.  We pause there on Good Friday and mourn for ourselves, our world.  Holy Saturday is silent with waiting.  In this way we, His Body, prepare for Easter, for Pascha.

The giant candlesticks framing the tabernacle were draped in purple, like funereal palls.  The tabernacle too was tented in purple, and the crucifix above was veiled in purple as well.  I looked to the left of the chancel, and there, also, the sweet Madonna and Child were covered, but the bank of votives still burned bright.

The honest morning light fell through skylights upon the violet swathes and the red carpet as though saying, “See what is happening. Pay attention.  Do not turn away.”

Today is Passion Sunday, a day which reminds the Church that the Body of Christ is entering the last weeks of Lent and the coming of Holy Week.  It is a time to recall, as part of His Body, His Passion, the last weeks before His death and resurrection.  Passion comes from the Latin passio, meaning suffering, and Christ’s passion is often defined as the union of love and suffering.  As I gazed on the purple drapes, I wondered about suffering.  And I wondered about love.

For it was God’s immense love that redeemed us, continues to redeem us.  Today it is God’s immense love that visits us through His Body, the Church, in the sacraments and in the parish family.  It was that love, and the suffering inherent in love borne out in willing sacrifice, that walked the path to Calvary so that we might live.

And not only live in eternity, but live today.  Live in the Resurrection by living in His love in the here and now.  How do we do this?  Through the Church.

I looked about the nave at my sisters and brothers kneeling in the pews.  We, like every family, and all of mankind, are a dysfunctional lot, full of petty jealousies, sullen secrets, and powerful egos.  But a sacramental river runs through us, washing us clean as we confess our sins, receive absolution, and partake of the Eucharist.  With every Mass we are redeemed again, to love one another better, with greater humility, with greater sacrifice of our own wills.

We walk with Christ the Way of His Cross, for it is a familiar path.  Each day of our lives is barbed with the little pains of love.  To escape these is to withdraw from life, to hide from others, to be alone.  Our Way of the Cross lies in the minute minutes of our time here, in the everyday bits of our hours.

The Church, I have found to my utter delight, integrates all of this – our way through time with His Way of the Cross.  It pulls together the disparate strands that threaten to unravel our souls, and weaves a fine fabric.  In the pulling, in the weaving, we become resurrected creatures, creatures of the morning light, unafraid of seeing.  We pay attention as never before.

This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday.  We shall listen for His knock as he enters the gates of Jerusalem, as we begin Holy Week, the Way to Resurrection.

Visit us at Saint Peter’s Anglican Church, 8 & 10 Mass, 6013 Lawton, Oakland; http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/
And now on Facebook.

Today, crimson roses, indeed blood-red, framed the purple-tented tabernacle on the purple-draped altar in St. Peter’s Church.  Today is Rose Sunday, a break in the somber tones of Lent, a day also called LaetareSunday, meaning Rejoice Sunday.

Recalling that this week we celebrate the Feast of St. Patrick (387-493), we sang “St. Patrick’s Breast-Plate,” a vigorous and moving hymn based on Patrick’s prayer, beginning with the line, “I bind unto myself today/ The strong Name of the Trinity…” and ending with the intimately delightful “Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me . . .”.   We sang, the organ booming, as the procession, led by the thurifer throwing out clouds of incense, followed by the torchbearers and crucifer, then the celebrant, acolytes, and assisting clergy, moved up the aisle confidently, joyously, steadily to the altar where Christ was mysteriously, mystically present in the Reserved Sacrament.

The Epistle and Gospel brought us back to Lent and its true nature, lessons themed with God’s grace, our reliance on him.  Our Lenten disciplines, our rule, our fasting and abstinence, our assigned tasks, our good preacher explained, are nothing without grace.  We do not earn points, but rather prepare ourselves to receive God’s grace.  As we prepare to receive him in the Eucharist by taking part in the liturgy, the “work of the people,” just so we prepare for Easter with our Lenten discipline.

Two sacraments, we believe, are necessary for salvation: Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.  In each, God’s grace pours upon us.  We are healed of our wounds, forgiven our sins, and given life eternal.

Time passes and we journey through Lent.  This morning we moved our clocks forward, watching time disappear before our eyes.  Our own lives move forward as well, to their inevitable death, to a passage to a greater life, the fulfillment of this one.

We journey toward the blood-red cross and the rose-filled resurrection.  We prepare for Grace to be poured upon us, now and then.  We are transformed by Love, the love of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  We give thanks for St. Patrick, who speaks to us today, sixteen hundred years after he brought the good news of salvation to Ireland.

For Patrick’s original prayer, see:http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11554a.htm
For the hymn (#268, The 1940 Hymnal, Church Hymnal Corp) see:http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/i/i024.html

It’s seems like spring in the Bay Area today.  The air carries a lovely lightness, as though the cold had been somehow heavy.  The cherry and plum trees have blossomed, as they often do in late February, and new growth is working through the shrubbery about our house.  We’ve had plenty of rain this year, and the hills are the green of Tuscany in May, a soothing green of promise, happy to the eye.

And Lent calls us, even as the days do truly lengthen, calls us to prepare for Easter.

I’m working slowly on my additional memory work for the season, John 1:1-14, allowing the words to move into my soul, become part of me. In him was life, and the life was the light of the men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.  I love that this is the Gospel for Christmas Day, when the word did indeed become incarnate.  I’ve revived earlier pieces learned in other Lents, golden melodies heard more clearly each year: Psalm 139, the Ash Wednesday Collect, the Te Deum.  We move through Lent, out of the dark and into the light.

Darkness and light.  Today at Saint Peter’s the Epistle (Ephesians 5:1) was about walking as children of light by obeying God’s commands, that with Christ’s light this is possible.  The pairing Gospel story (Luke 11:14) tells of Christ casting out demons, a true exorcism.  Our good Father Pomroy explained that in the early Church, the Lenten season was a period of instruction for catechumens leading to their baptism on Easter Eve. Only after baptism could they partake in the mysteries of the Mass.  On the first and third Sundays of Lent, evil spirits were cast out as part of this formation.  Remnants of those days of exorcism remain in today’s baptismal liturgy when the priest asks: “Do you denounce the devil and all his works…”  This slow revelation of the mysteries of the Mass was calleddisciplina arcana, or secret teaching.

Exorcism, demons, darkness.  Do demons exist today?  I believe they do, taking many forms, and always seeking a secure place in my own little heart.  How do I exorcise them?  How do I shine light on them to make them scatter?  I cannot do it on my own.  I can only say yes to Christ, allow him to wash me clean; allow him to live within me.

And to say yes is to receive him in the Eucharist, a mystery those catechumens knew so long ago.  Through the communion of believers, baptized into the Church over two thousand years, we all partake of a great host of light.

I left Saint Peter’s this morning, renewed, cleansed, en-lightened, having swept and brightened the dark corners of my soul.  I stepped out into the nearly spring day, the sun warm, the newly green leaves rustling.  The world, once again, had been reborn.  I had been reborn.

Saturday, February 27, the sirens wailed at six a.m. all across the islands, we later learned, but to us in rural southern Maui, in a cottage too close to the sea, the alarm came from a low flying plane along the coast.

The sun was just coming up over the eastern horizon, where the sea meets the dawn.  It was a remarkably clear day, and the dome of blue would have meant blistering sun, but we knew the weather would change.  Our hotel had informed us by letter and visit with a rap on the door early in the dark of that morning, so we were warned.  We had planned to fly home, so we were busy packing, and now we wondered where or when we would fly, if at all.  Perhaps we would be evacuated with the others, who had been told to move to higher ground, to, indeed, Fagan’s Cross, the lava cross on the promontory on the side of Haleakala.

The uncertainty weighed heavily as I looked out to sea that early morning, out to the bright sun, the rugged lava coast, the green fields.  My novel,Hana-lani, set here, celebrates the setting and the culture of this traditional community, its peaceful and friendly way of life, its embrace of family, both near and far, and writing the story had deepened my love for these folks.  Everyone here is ohana, family, and everyone is cared for.  I prayed for these people who had given us so much over so many years.  I prayed they would be spared this terrible wave that was rolling through the seas from distant Chile.  I prayed for those in Chile too, who had been victims of these terrible rages of nature.

Not for the first time, the fragility of life danced before me, as though the earth of my own world shook a bit, became less stable.  I could be a person living in Chile.  I could be a resident here in Hana as the waters rose.  One day it could be me.

And would we be able to return home?  Would the roads be blocked, the planes grounded?  Would utilities and basic serviced be shut down?

We moved ahead, one step at a time.  The old red fire truck, now the hotel shuttle (a ‘39 Packard) delivered us to the Hana airport, where, in spite of everything, the propjet arrived from Kahului.  We boarded and strapped ourselves in, and lifted into the air, flying low along the coast, amazed at the clear day, the absence of any signs of trouble over the waters.  Cobalt blues rushed against the black cliffs, and the deeply green flanks of Haleakala rose to the blue dome of a sky.  Paradise.

Arriving at the Kahului airport, so quiet at 9 a.m., we joined the waiting lines to check in, slowly moving through the minutes of the morning, praying for Hana.  The wave was due to hit Hilo at 11:15.  The airport lights dimmed, the water, we were told had been shut down, the restaurants closed.

TSA still screened us carefully, and by 11:30 we had reached our gate in the terminal.  Folks peered through the wide windows toward the sea, anxious.  Would a wave engulf the airport for surely we were sea level?  They said no, but how did they know?  Images from movies and news footage passed through my mind, Southeast Asia a few years ago, the Titanic.  The tension in the air was tangible, and we made small talk with others waiting, glancing toward the horizon, which we were sure was growing darker and darker.  As noon approached, we began to feel safe again, as we heard reports of mild waves, nothing unusual.  The world began to right itself around us.  Now we worried – would there be a plane?  Would there be crew and pilot, for the roads to the airport had been closed.

The plane arrived, the pilots arrived, and we headed home for San Francisco, thankful that Hana had been spared, and now praying for those in Chile.