THE ANSWER TO THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS

And having written that arresting title, I hesitate to continue writing as the reader may be anticipating a new or different approach to the problems that surround us every day.

Recently, we were traveling back to New Iberia following a few days' stay in central Florida, and on the 14-hour trek, we turned on a Daily Evolver podcast by Jeff Salzman of Integral Life. It was a brief broadcast, and the speaker concluded with a few words that most major religions talk about: the answer to healing the hole in the heart of humanity is love. He expressed his ideas much as the French Jesuit mystic Teilhard de Chardin had—in a provisional, experimental, and post-modern form which is open-ended and creative, and he touted a theology of healing and reconciliation centered on the act of love.

This sounds like an oversimplification, I know, but I nodded my head in agreement as I had just preached a sermon at St. Mary's Convent church two weeks preceding our trip to Florida in which I cited an example of how babies are helping to change the world and foster love through an amazing program called "Roots of Empathy." In the November issue of Science of Mind, the author wrote an article entitled "Changing the World Child by Child," reporting how Canadian and American babies are involved in a program that has a mission of building caring, peaceful, and civil societies though the development of empathy in children. In the program, mothers bring their babies into classrooms nine times over the course of a school year so students can learn to sense the emotions babies are feeling.

The children also observe the loving relationship between parent and baby and see how the parent responds to the baby's needs. This attachment between a baby and a parent is an ideal model of love and empathy. In short, children who have participated in the program are kinder, more cooperative, and inclusive of others and are less likely to bully (a common problem in contemporary schools), compared to children who don't participate in the program. The ethic here? The ethic here is that the heart is the true center of human life.

As I said, love as an answer to healing humanity's problems isn't a new concept—it's just an irrefutable law that says we need to take the neighbor we are sent and love him/her. As George MacDonald, the mentor of C.S. Lewis, says: "We mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils instead of issuing it to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe..."

I don't often publish excerpts from sermons or belabor the idea of love as a burning fire that cleanses and reconciles, but the podcast I heard caused a lot of musing about "this funny thing called love." And the speaker's ideas advocating a respect for our neighbor seem to be a part of every major enduring religion and ethical system—a system that calls for its followers to develop integrity, accountability, responsibility, steadfastness, fairness, and loving service. Our unity is as important as our individuality.  

The photograph above is of my great-grandson as an infant, one of those babies getting his share of empathy in a private lesson from his great-grandmother. Photograph by Victoria I. Sullivan

A SITE ON "THE RETURN LIST"

From Martin's Quest by Billy Ledet
inside St. Martin de Tours

When I return to New Iberia, Louisiana every year following a sojourn on The Mountain in Sewanee, Tennessee, I usually have a mental list of places I want to re-visit while I'm in Cajun country. Yesterday, after I received the news about a friend's daughter being seriously injured in an automobile accident, I thought immediately about St. Martin de Tours Church in St. Martinville, Louisiana, a few miles down the road from me. Although I'm not Roman Catholic, I've made many short pilgrimages to the beautiful, historic church on the Square to light candles for family and loved ones. I'm always consoled while sitting in a pew of the old church, and when I return home I find that small miracles have occurred.

One of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in the U.S. and the third oldest in Louisiana, St. Martin de Tours was established in 1765 when Acadian exiles who had been driven out of their homes in Nova Scotia landed in Acadiana. A Capuchin missionary priest named Jean Francois helped establish the church and by 1814, it had become incorporated. The church that stands on the Square today was built by lottery funds in 1836 and dedicated in 1844. As I said, I'm not Roman Catholic, but I like to think that when I sit in one of the church pews, I'm sitting near one of my ancestors, an Acadian exile named Pierre Vincent who must have been a member of the predominantly Roman Catholic congregation at St. Martin de Tours.

Inside St. Martin de Tours are gated pews, remnants of a time when congregants were assigned pews according to their donations to the church. Crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling, and a blue ceiling with stars overhangs the altar. The space inside is large and has the ambience of a country church, and brilliant light fills the interior. For me, it is one of those "thin places," so designated because the space between God and the people is thin... and the connection with God is easily made. I've been in a few thin places and experienced this connectedness—near the red buttes of Sedona, Arizona; at St. Mary's Convent church on the bluff at Sewanee, Tennessee; in a small church named Church of the Holy Spirit in Graham, Texas; and in the Garden of Evangelism in Tehran, Iran. On my bucket list of thin places is the Isle of Iona as I've read and heard that it is the thinnest of thin places where spiritual experiences frequently occur.

St. Martin de Tours is mentioned several times in my young adult book, Martin's Quest, and a pencil drawing by Billy Ledet depicts Martin, the hero of the story who is a traiteur, lighting candles in the old church. Martin's grandmother explains to him that the Church "is only against traiteurs trying to cure someone if they leave God out. When the prayers are said, God isn't left out. The Church today believes in the gift of healing, just as in Jesus' day. But the priests don't like superstitious practices," she added.

In St. Martin de Tours

I have lit many candles in the small blue crystal holders on a stand near the side door by the gray-walled Grotto at the left of the altar. The Grotto is a copy of the famous Grotto at Lourdes in France where miracles still occur and was created of mud and green moss by a black man named Paul Martinez. On my return trip to St. Martin de Tours, I'll petition for the complete recovery of my daughter and for the healing of the young woman who was seriously injured in the auto accident. For those who wish to add your petitions, the names are Stephanie and Glenae.

THE HEALING PORCH

Porches, large and small, are healing places. I have been an advocate of their use for many years, and this year Janet Faulk-Gonzales and I published a book about the virtues of these places in a book entitled Porch Posts: Memoirs of Porch Sitters.

Recently, I was called home to New Iberia from my spring/summer stay in Sewanee, Tennessee because my daughter Stephanie had to undergo serious surgery. Following her discharge, I returned to Tennessee but was called back to Louisiana because she wasn't recovering well. The past two weeks have been tense ones, but Stephanie continues to improve daily. During the worst of part of her recovery, I retreated to the glass porch on one side of my home and sat, sunning and meditating  "in the passive life that goes on in the porch world," as I wrote in Porch Posts, and I felt myself recovering enough moxy to deal with the problem of my daughter's illness. I also re-read several essays from Porch Posts and decided to share one that I wrote regarding the glass porch that both Janet and I call "the healing porch." The essay is entitled "The Place of Oaxaca Breakfasts:"

"Of all the porches I've enjoyed, the sun porch in my New Iberia, Louisiana home ranks first among favorites. It's a diminutive glass and aluminum structure adjoining the dining room and has been, variously, a breakfast room, a writing room, and a sitting room. Seasonally, a bed of pansies or marigolds, bordered by giant elephant ears, grows alongside it, and at one time a vigorous sago palm dominated the flower bed before we cut it down because it was beginning to overtake the house.

"The New Iberia sun porch is a three-season porch, unused in summer because the Louisiana heat makes it uninhabitable. Even with an air conditioning vent that allows a small gust of cool air to enter and a ceiling fan whirling overhead, it becomes a steam bath from May - early October. However, it's a curative salon and is often used to heal physical and emotional ills like seasonal affective disorder, insomnia, winter colds, and arthritic pains. We diurnal creatures crave Apollo's bright face, and the glass porch allows salutary rays to beam through on most days when my friends and I are porch sitting.

"The porch has been a place of friendship and shared meals, especially "Oaxaca breakfasts," a name given to hours of intimate conversations, literary discussions, and the heightened consciousness that two friends and I felt when visiting Oaxaca, Mexico several years ago. As C.S. Lewis once wrote about friendship, the porch has the ambience of a "luminous, tranquil...world," a place where friends "see the same truth" while conversing, arguing, and amusing each other. It's a site where equals meet and sit side by side, absorbed in mutual interests.

"As a healing spot, the porch has also been a haven for friends who faced the grief of divorce, broken relationships, and family deaths. Like its transparent glass walls, it suggests the fragility of emotional crises.

"One spring, my son-in-law Brad painted the wrought iron trim of a glass-topped table and matching chairs on the porch a brilliant yellow hue, an evocative color that suggested happiness was always nearby for those who come to sit and talk about their problems. When I had to give up the table and chairs to furnish an apartment next door, my daughter Stephanie replaced the dining set with a comfortable lounging chair. The chair she and Brad brought in as a Christmas gift has soft gold cushions, and I believe she chose this color reminiscent of the sun because she knew I wanted to keep the aura of joy that surrounds this favored space."

If you enjoyed this essay, there are other "healing spaces" mentioned in Porch Posts that may give you some insights into the restorative powers of porch sitting. Porch Posts is available online at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.