Sweet Memorial

I periodically pretend to clean out the basement, throwing out or giving away things I've held onto long enough – old clothes and toys, storage containers, empty boxes - rearranging the remaining objects to look like there is less stuff down there than there actually is. On my last decluttering adventure to the basement, I found an old metal can that I had held onto for so long that I don't really know how old it is – more than thirty years, perhaps? I thought about getting rid of it, but it only got as far as the garage, where it eventually ended up in a photo shoot on the front seat of my car.

The can had at one time contained Tavener's hard candy, a fruit-flavored jewel-like sweet in bright colors of green, red, orange and yellow. I don't remember how or why I got the can of candy, but I do remember why I've kept it for so long.

Sweet memorial...

When I was a child, my grandfather had a metal can of Tavener's on the front seat of his car. Always. I do remember the original candy in the can, and it is possible he had more than one can over the life of his cars, but that familiar Tavener's can was a permanent fixture on the front seat, just to his right when he sat in the car. And we kids all knew it was there – me, my brother, my cousins. We knew that where Grandpa was, there was candy. The original candies were just a classic hard candy, ranging from bright red (yummy cherry) to bright green (yucky lime – my least favorite...). When the original candy ran out, Grandpa would refill the can with a random assortment of other sweets. The candy in the can was not often what it said on the outside of the can, but candy of some sort was always in the Taverner's can on the front seat.

My brother and I spent a lot of time in the car with Grandpa growing up. He took us fishing and crabbing, out to nearby lakes to feed the ducks. He drove my Grandma to the store, to doctor appointments, and more often than not, my brother and I were left in the car with Grandpa to let my grandmother run her errands unemcumbered by two small children. We were good at entertaining ourselves, but we knew if things got a little frenetic in the back seat, there was always a bribe sitting on the front seat in a little metal can. “Want a piece of candy?” Grandpa would say, and quiet would reign again – at least for the length of time it would take for my brother and I to finish sucking on whatever we had chosen out of the can.

Objects tied to memories are precious...and biblical.

In the book of Exodus, God gives Moses specific instructions about making an ephod and a breastpiece, overgarments to be worn by the high priest when entering the Holy Place. They both contained jewels, as colorful as Tavener's candy, to represent the sons of Israel – objects, but associated with people, the purpose being a reminder, a memorial before the Lord:

Take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel in the order of their birth—six names on one stone and the remaining six on the other. Engrave the names of the sons of Israel on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal. Then mount the stones in gold filigree settings and fasten them on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. Aaron is to bear the names on his shoulders as a memorial before the Lord. (Exodus 28:9-12)

Then mount four rows of precious stones on it. The first row shall be carnelian, chrysolite and beryl; the second row shall be turquoise, lapis lazuli and emerald; the third row shall be jacinth, agate and amethyst; the fourth row shall be topaz, onyx and jasper. Mount them in gold filigree settings. There are to be twelve stones, one for each of the names of the sons of Israel, each engraved like a seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes...Whenever Aaron enters the Holy Place, he will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastpiece of decision as a continuing memorial before the Lord. (Exodus 28: 17-21, 29)

After crossing the Jordan River, Joshua also directs the making of a memorial. This one is made with stones from the river itself, to remind the people of God Himself, of His power and loving deliverance toward the people of Israel: 

 

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. (Joshua 4:4-7)

We are all surrounded by tangible memorials to God's goodness – family, homes, jobs, experiences - that most of us acknowledge in some way the fourth Thursday of each November. I acknowledge an additional November memorial, a remembrance – November 30, the feast of St. Andrew. In the eastern European culture where my grandfather grew up, name days were celebrated more than birthdays. As children, my brother and I were coached by Mom and Grandma to wish Grandpa, his name being Andrew, a happy “Andrej” - an acknowledgment of his name day.* So I suppose it is timely I came across that old Taverner's can in the basement recently. No, it's not the original can, the candy tin that Grandpa actually had on his front seat – but it is the same kind of can, same size, same old Tavener's graphic – and when I see it, it reminds me of Grandpa. The can serves as a memorial of the times spent in the car with him, the presence he was in my life for so many years, the only in-house father figure I knew as a little girl.

Needless to say, the can didn't get any farther than the garage. And somehow, the basement doesn't seem to be the appropriate place for it anymore. When it made its trip upstairs and into my memories, it demanded a more prominent place in my living space. Memorials are like that...

*My brother and I were taught the abbreviated version of a long Slovak saying that was traditionally said to the person celebrating his name day. Roughly translated, it went something like this: “I'm wishing you, I'm wishing you and I'm not going to stop wishing you until you give me something...” This usually earned a quarter for each of us from Grandpa.

One day, you’ll be just a memory for some people. Do your best to be a good one. - Unknown 




 

The Shrine in the Woods

On Pilgrimage

(Part 2)

The story of the shrine in the woods began fifty years ago when a Franciscan brother from Graymoor, Brother Joseph Zakia, felt led by God to carve out a spot in the wilderness for prayer. The son of immigrants from Syria, Brother Joseph came to the Franciscan monastery by way of the U.S. Coast Guard, still wearing his sailor suit when he showed up to start his new life as a Franciscan brother. He eventually came to supervise the retreat ministry, his favorite retreat being the “nature retreat”, a weekend of being in God's creation, sleeping out on the monastery property, hiking down to the nearby Hudson River. His retreat philosophy? Come and spend time in God's creation with a verse of Scripture as your companion. "Just waste time with God," he would say. "That's the best time of your life.”

The hilltop shrine was originally erected in 1964 by Brother Joseph, a place for people to walk to, as on pilgrimage, to go and waste some time with God. The shrine and its statue of Mary eventually were taken over by nature and mostly abandoned. In 1994, the statue was rediscovered and the local immigrant community became the new caretakers of the hilltop, restoring and caring for the shrine and making it a place of pilgrimage. In 2000, the shrine was vandalized, the statue destroyed, apparently by someone who left a pile of leaflets condemning Marion devotion. The immigrant community rebuilt the shrine promptly, and the visitors to the hilltop increased in both fervency and frequency. Sunday foot tours, special devotions, all-night vigils and processions all found their way to the rock outcropping in the woods. In a 2008 event, over 100 people from the greater New York City area made a pilgrimage to the shrine on a cold night in December for an all night vigil. Though many of the pilgrims were from Hispanic backgrounds, the presiding clergyman that night was Vladyka Mykhayil, an archbishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox church. Part of his address reminded those present that regardless of ethnic heritage, they are all hikers of a sort:

"We are all pilgrims in this life, walking the road together on our journey toward God. Our immigrant community is one of great holiness and spirituality...”*

His words remind us we are all immigrants, each and every one of us, people moving through this finite earthly world, susceptible to decay and sin, but pilgrims heading toward an everlasting, perfect heavenly world where we can finally take up permanent residence. Like thru hikers on the AT, we are just passing through this world with an ultimate destination ahead.

***

I don't know what happened to the shrine on the Appalachian Trial in the past year. I couldn't find any recent information about it. Perhaps nature had taken it back again. Perhaps vandals had struck again. Maybe the caretakers have taken down its weathered structures in anticipation of a reboot of the shrine next spring. The shrine has disappeared before, only to reappear with a new generation of pilgrims, some deliberate followers, like those with a devotion to the Missionary Virgin Mother of Immigrants. Some, like my husband and I, accidental pilgrims, AT hikers who had wandered off the trail. Whether the shrine reappears or not, I'm glad we found it when we did and that I took the time to find what I could about its origins. I'm encouraged by the vision of Brother Joseph, the shrine's initiator, and his invitation to spend time in God's creation with a verse of scripture as a companion.  I'll embrace the reminder of what it would be like to be on pilgrimage with God's word for company, His presence as my hiking companion.  After all, I'm just passing through this life and I want the best time in it to be the time I wasted with God...

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

*http://uaoc.org/news/index.php?GUID=E3CB074A-FA37-4FDC-BD5B-BC0F10A5B621

A Walk in the (Spiritual) Woods

(The AT meets the Virgin Mary)

(Part 1)

The shrine at the top of a rock outcropping was the last thing I expected to find along the Appalachian Trail. Like most man-made structures exposed to the elements, it had a weathered look. The few small benches with peeling paint sat next to some old plastic chairs, the covered message board contained faded schedules and fliers, printed in Spanish. There was an ornate statue of the Virgin Mary on a stacked rock altar, encased in a glass-fronted cabinet, her clothing slightly faded from the light that filtered through the trees growing on the top of the outcropping. Some perennials had been planted in small beds formed out of landscape timbers, and there were faded plastic flowers in colorful vases. The overall atmosphere was that of a small chapel where the builders forgot to add the walls and the roof...

A number of years ago I read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, a laugh-out-loud account of his experience hiking the 2,168 mile Appalachian Trail. I became fascinated by all things AT, reading all I could about the trail. I read accounts of other hikers – thru hikers, day hikers, their motivations for their hikes - and quirky facts about the trail itself. I thought I knew about most of its hidden gems. Since the trail passes through New York State near where my husband grew up, every year, when we go back east to visit family, we go out for a few hours to hike a section of the trail. (We are “short” day hikers...) We park at the monastery of the Franciscan Friars of Graymoor, in Garrison, and pick up the trail on the edge of their property. We then head into the woods, looking for the iconic white painted blazes on the trees that mark the AT. (The Franciscan Friars have had a long relationship with the Appalachian Trail. Since 1972, they have provided a sleeping shelter, showers and, in the early years, meals for AT hikers passing through that section of the trail. There was a period of time when hikers were housed in the monastery itself, earning it the reputation as “The Hilton of the AT” in hikers' guidebooks.)

We first found the shrine several years ago, a little over a mile along the trail from the Franciscan property. The trail through this area is treed and rocky, rolling but not steep. There are old stone walls and high rock outcroppings on both sides of the trail. It was only by chance that the white painted top of the cabinet holding the statue of Mary caught our eye, a flash of white among the fall foliage. We climbed up the moderately steep rocky hill and found the shrine. My husband and I used our combined eight years of high school Spanish to decipher the fliers on the covered message board. It appeared that the hilltop shrine was a gathering place for prayer and devotion to “Virgen Misionera Madre De Los Immigrantes” - the Missionary Virgin Mother of Immigrants. From the look of the schedule, it was a busy place throughout the year, with eucharistic celebrations and prayer gatherings. It was empty and silent that weekday morning we first discovered it, but when we returned the following year for our hike, we found a young Hispanic family, a father and mother with small children, had hiked into the woods to climb the rocky hill. I wondered how many other people knew of the shrine and purposely sought it out, and how many had accidentally stumbled upon it like we had. There were no signs anywhere along the trail to indicate where it was, yet when found, it appeared to be a much visited spot.

Our hike this year on the AT was later in autumn than in past years. Despite the fall leaves being underfoot rather then up in the trees, the rock outcropping and its shrine were hard to spot. (All hills of rock along the AT start to look the same after a while...) The flash of white wood was not visible, but we guessed we had arrived in the vicinity of the shrine, climbed the next outcropping and found an almost bare hilltop with few remains of the shrine. The man-made rock altar was still there, but all traces of the shrine had been removed with the exception of the signage that had been over the statue of Mary. The sign was lying on the ground among some rocks, the only indication of what the hilltop had been.

My husband and I sat up there awhile, trying to recreate in our minds what the shrine had looked like when we last saw it. My husband took some pictures, and we climbed down and continued on our hike. On the walk back I decided to find out as much as I could about the history of that rocky hilltop. There wasn't a lot of information out there in cyberspace regarding the shrine, but I found enough to fashion a brief history of the shrine in the woods.

Tomorrow: On Pilgrimage

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. - John Muir