- Kudos
to Barbara Hillary. Having grown up in Harlem, survived lung
cancer at 67, and gone dog-sledding in Quebec after that, she
heard that no black woman had ever made it to the North Pole. A
black man had gotten there, but when he arrived in 1909
Matthew Henson had to take second seat to his white companion
Robert Peary, and wasn’t even recognized for his feat for decades.
- A
woman had gotten there in 1986, and it is no surprise that Ann
Bancroft was a hearty Minnesotan, coming from the land where all
the women are strong (and all the men are good looking and all the
children are above average, a secret Garrison Keillor has by now
let a lot of the world in on.) And 19 years ago this morning two
men flew over the pole in a comfy little aeroplane. Today,
you can even book a trip via helicopter for $21,000 and be dropped
dead center at the top of the earth without ever breaking a sweat.
- But
Barbara Hillary, well, she likes her life served up real and
rugged, and she hates the false inequities that still prevail in
our world, little annoyances and obstructions like racism and
sexism and ageism. And when she heard that no black woman had made
it yet, she strapped on her skis and said it was about time.
- Oh,
yes, and she happened to be 75 years old when she did it, and had
never skied before in her long life.
- No big
deal. She signed up for cross-country ski lessons, hired a
personal trainer, raised money from private donors, and got
herself to her launching point, Longyearben, Norway, where people
fear polar bears more than political terrorists. "Before I
arrived, the word was out that soul food was coming," she joked.
- When
she reached the top of the world she was speechless.
- Back
home in Harlem, she has decided to become a global-warming
activist. (AP, 5.7.07)
- Ever
since the moon, low in the southern sky, brighter than expected
halfway through its phases, and framed by the feathery branches of
the pine tree outside my window, silently slipped its light onto
my sleeping eyelids last night, startling me awake without making
a sound, I’ve been thinking about speechlessness. About what
happens to you when you come up next to something you can’t find a
way to talk about. And about how it changes how you see things,
and what you think is important, and about how it can leave you a
different person than you were when you thought you had all the
words you would ever need.
- In some
circles, they call this magic. In some, grace. Some give it a name
like conversion. Some people say it is like being born
again, which was once a wonderful
-
metaphor for unbidden transformation before it was over-used and
accompanied by irreverent coercion and demeaning arrogance on the
lips of too many of those who claimed it for themselves.
- Call it
what you will, what we’re up against is the fact that your life
can be changed in the blink of an eye. You hear the warning sirens
and take cover, and when you come up for air 10 minutes later,
your whole town is gone. The heavens open up and the dam breaks
and everything you have given your life to runs downstream with
the flash flood. Someone you love leaves the house in the morning
and never comes back. Something breaks in your brain, and you
can’t remember a thing anymore. Something breaks in your heart,
and you can’t trust anyone any more.
- But if
you can lose it all just that fast, you can also gain it all just
that fast as well. Your small daughter is dying of an incurable
disease, and you keep on praying anyway, and the next morning she
is well, and you both have advanced degrees from top schools and
you can’t explain it any more than the doctors or the priests can.
You’ve been the head of a multinational plastics company that
hires expensive lawyers to reduce the damages you must pay for
fouling the earth, and then you go deep-sea diving, and when you
come up for air, you quit your job and vow to do all you can for
the rest of your days to reduce pollution. You find you can skim a
little from the office petty cash box, and when you’re not caught,
you find you can skim a little more from a certain account, and
pretty soon, you’re driving that sports car you’ve always coveted,
and then one day, just in the nick of time, you realize you are no
different from the murderer on death row.
- You are
Secretary of State for a while and suddenly you say out loud, with
the cameras rolling, "If we want to win the war against terror, we
must win the war against poverty," and then you decide you don’t
want to be Secretary of State any more, or someone decides it for
you, even if your name is Colin Powell and you are a credit to
your extended family, and you go home and hug your wife.
- How
long has it been since you have been speechless? How long has it
been since you stepped outside yourself, as far outside yourself
as you can manage to go, spit in the face of fear, and trekked to
the top of the world? How long has it been since you felt yourself
changing right out from under your tight self-control?
- If it’s
been too long, so long that you feel a little dead and are
thinking about some new thrill or pleasure you can seek, maybe
it’s time to get yourself to the edge of something so vast and
strange and beautiful and beyond yourself that all you can manage
when you get there is a whisper, if you can even manage that.
- And
don’t forget – that place, that edge, could very well be the face
of the person you most wish to ignore or obliterate in this world.
- May
you be less anxious today than you ever thought possible
Reflections
on faith and life by Rev. Kathryn Timpany