DAYS 110 & 111 - Bloomington-Normal & Rantoul, IL - 2149 miles from home
- Esther Lisa Tishman
- 20 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Is it because we're getting closer and closer to D.C. - our final destination? Is it the increasing population density - so that now the small farming towns we pass through are less than an hour's drive from major cities like Chicago? Is it all these college campuses? We've passed through Western Illinois, Illinois State, Illinois Wesleyan - heading tomorrow on to the University of Illinois, then Purdue, Ball State.... I'm losing track. Is it the increasing racial, ethnic, political, spiritual diversity we're encountering? - Or is it the undeniable presence of autumn - the Halloween decorations, the cold wind blowing, the crunch of leaves underfoot...?
Something has shifted, and it feels like the pace of everything has quickened. The last two days have been rich with events and interactions. More and more stories, more faces, more folks joining us to walk a few miles. Indeed, Elijah, our documentarian, has joined us for another few days! My husband, Ezra, arrives for a week on day 112! Chris Kellow will join us again next week! Judith Eisen, another Eugene connection, will walk one morning with us in Champaign!
And because I'm such a yakkity-yakker: the last few days have also been rich with opportunities for me to hash out my thoughts - first during an online talk for the Zen Peacemakers, and then in a radio visit with Michael Dunne of KLCC's Oregon on the Record. I've found myself talking about the possibilities of empathy when discourse fails - about the gorgeousness of the humans I've met - about the simplicity of a path that resists division and insists on peace.
And I've found myself challenged, in all the best ways, by folks of passion and conscience. Mark - a member of the Normal First United Methodist Church - shared his experiences as a scholar of Chinese history and culture. Relatively recently he's returned to central Illinois after living more than 40 years in Hong Kong. "I lived there the majority of my life," he shares. He experienced firsthand the breakdown of civil society in Hong Kong, and the rise of authoritarianism. Mark is an impassioned critic of this moment in American politics. "I don't mean to offend you, Esther," he said at a church dinner the other night. "But isn't this Walk of yours a bit self-indulgent?" No offense at all, I said, smiling. You sound like friends and family back home!
These days we often talk about folks on 'both sides of the aisle' - as if every issue or question had precisely two views, and as if our differences were opposed like red and blue, like right and left, like good and evil. But these days I'm finding that our world is chock full of differences - chock full of different differences. We are all such a weird bunch, we humans - such a motley crew - we come to each moment with such a variety of different assumptions. We take off from a variety of different starting points - and we reach an equally variegated world of different conclusions. A world of so many different ways that we are all different!
Yet despite all those countless different differences, most folks I'm meeting these days seem to share a baseline recognition that things have been broken for a long time. The sticky wicket comes, however, when we try to agree on what needs to happen now - what needs to happen next. Our definitions and explanations of brokenness are as varied as we are.
It is a privilege to have time to consider such things - time and space and resources to meet folks like Mark, over a delicious and nutritious meal, in a warm and safe church basement. Time to delight in folks like Ellen, who shares with me fascinating and salacious details of local history. All the lovely, wise and gracious folks we meet! So yes, in that sense this Walk is indulgent. But that's also why, the longer I walk, the more grateful I am to be walking. This variegated world of ours requires our supple hearts and minds. The tougher my soles get, the softer (maybe?) my heart and mind can become. Tough soles, tender souls?
Oh, and many many hosts. The kindness of strangers is a central factor in this tough & tender equation!
And so, along the way, this week, we've been nourished by the kindness of three different pastors. Kent and Kathy King-Nobles welcomed us not only into their church, but into their home. Thoughtful, deep, spiritually vibrant - they both lead lives of committed service, guiding their parishioners to ask the big questions. What, precisely, does it mean to love one's neighbor? How do we reconcile our personal well-being with the welfare and safety of others, even nonhuman others? (The pastors' eldest son is a committed animal welfare and environmental sustainability expert, cofounder of the Fish Welfare Initiative: "an organization of people who believe that fish welfare is critical for environmental sustainability, business resiliency, and global health.")
Both Kent and Kathy also have great senses of humor, a lovely house, unending generosity, a quintessentially goldie golden retriever (if you know, you know), plus two awesome cats (although indeed, as forewarned, Carter was a bit saucy with me, lulling me with purrs into complacency - until he decided to swipe).
On our last morning in town, Pastor Kathy, along with another member of the church, joined us for a five mile stretch on highway 136. She and I walked together, into the brisk and delicious autumn sunrise. I spent a precious 90 minutes with her, asking her about how she got from social work to the pulpit - how she and Kent met - what she loves about preaching.
Later that day, thanks to Kathy's advance work on our behalf, we connected with another open-hearted and generous pastor - and another energetic church community: Pastor Susan Schultz at the Rantoul First United Methodist Church. I asked Pastor Susan to tell her "Call" story: that is, the story of how she came to pastoral ministry. She shared that she didn't go to seminary until she was fifty (that seems impossible, to be honest - she barely looks 50 now!)
I could relate - as someone who began Zen training in her mid-thirties, sneaked away from the university campus in her forties to train as a chaplain, and finally left university life in my fifties... Sometimes the straightest path forward is quite roundabout. Pastor Susan's face positively glowed as she shared her tale.
