July/August 2009

Stepping Off the Platform and Other Sabbatical Escapades

BY JANE RZEPKA, SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP

From time to time, ministers take sabbatical time to regroup—indeed, I have recently returned from just such a time. For me, some kind of jolting adventure does the trick, and while I am “out of use” for a bit, I always return to ministry with new eyes.

I spent my sabbatical in Panama, hoping that in spite of advancing post-polio symptoms, I could still engage in an escapade or two. Well. There’s nothing likedugout canoes, zip lines, snorkels, and rafts to fill that bill. And Central American hammocks afforded a great opportunity to give the muscles a break.

Of course during any minister’s sabbatical, the congregation comes along. Many miles from home base, I think of members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, and new CLF programs occur to me, and budget strategies, and to put it simply, how much you all mean to me. That kind of thing. And yes, a few stories. In the spirit of gratitude, I offer you five sabbatical pieces.

I Got a Boat

He says it in English: “I got a boat.” Those are the last words we understand. So we know the young man has a boat and would like us to hire him to take us on a Sunday outing.

The boat is a standard local boat with a small outboard motor, one sorry life-jacket, and one home-made paddle. We pay him three dollars and get in. He tells us to wait ten minutes—at least that’s what we figure he told us. After a while, two more people join us and we set off.

We go, we tie up somewhere, someone holds the line while we wait for a long time in choppy seas. Then a family climbs in—four little children. They hand me the baby while they get themselves organized. It begins to rain.

Again we go, this time for a long time, occasionally forming this question in our minds: “Where to?” And then we arrive at a jungle beach—clear skies now—mangroves and palms and dense and vigorous green stuff in all shapes and sizes, a place complete with a real McCoy jungle sound track.

We go over the side into the shallow salt lagoon, floating in clear water among dozens of orange starfish the size of Frisbees. A dolphin and her baby describe perfect arcs nearby.

Seven hours later, this boatload of strangers, we kiss each other goodbye.

An island somewhere in the vicinity of Isla Bastimentos

If I Saw Me Coming Up the River

It really doesn’t matter where you are, and aging makes it worse: If you look anything like me, the farther you paddle up-river in a dugout canoe, the more conspicuous you become. You are a tourist. Sure, you could be a life-long missionary or a career change Peace Corps volunteer, but getting pegged as a tourist is a pretty safe bet.

If I lived in this village I would essentially wear nothing at all—maybe a cloth folded around my midsection, and a few beads. I would feel nice and cool, and somehow the jungle insects and the power of the sun wouldn’t factor in.

Instead I am wearing light-weight pants bathed in some kind of toxic bug-repellant-solar-blocking agent. I wear shoes. And all the rest: a little hat, a Cool-Max shirt, a day pack. My skin is light and my eyes are blue. In this environment, I look ridiculous even to myself.

If I saw me coming up the river, I would see a source of money, pens, gum and who knows what else. I would expect to get my picture taken whether I like it or not. I wouldn’t want to see me coming.

I do arrive though, and some men approach who seem menacing to me. One of them begins to speak, and I don’t know what to expect. “Happy New Year, Tourist,” is what he says with a warm smile, and the men continue on their way.

Emberá Community, Chagres

Stepping Off the Platform

You step into a harness, put the thick gloves on, snap a series of clips onto a cable, and you’re ready to step off the platform. Seems like the best way to get a good look at the jungle life, the dramatic waterfall, and whatever goes on in the tree canopy, without tromping through the forest with a machete.

In actual fact, there is nothing about this set-up that inspires confidence, certainly no inspection certificate framed on the wall of the small open-air shack where the equipment is stored, and I don’t have the language skills to absorb safety instructions, had there been any. And the zip lines, a series of four, are really high up!

But there is no going back, so I get my eyeballs prepared, my camera ready, and my spirit open, eager to get to the part where the jungle comes alive to me in a series of transformational moments.

I step off the platform, and began to zip down the first line, lickety-split. At the outset, one significant observation does break through to me as though writ large, but it isn’t the kind of spiritual observation

I was really looking for: “Grip the cable behind you with all your might, or you will spin out of control.”

OK, never mind. I have another chance at a momentous awakening in these extraordinary natural surroundings.

Zip line #2. Step off the platform. Whoosh. Another bolt from above, and the words form in my head, “If you don’t grip those cables harder, you will hit the tree at the end at a zillion miles an hour.”

Zip line #3. Step off the platform. Way up, zooming now over the waterfall. I’m pretty sure it is lovely in a blurred sort of way.

Zip line #4. Step off the platform. The thought of looking for monkeys or tapirs or capybaras or toucans never enters my mind. I will never feel one with the jungle by way of zip lines, of this I am now sure. And clearly, I am not transformed.

Unless you count flying over the jungle, free of everything you know. Unless you count feeling small amidst a universe of unseen teaming life. Unless you count wanting to live to see another day.

El Valle   

It Lasts a Long Time

Into the dim hut I go. They are all there, the grandmother, an aunt, a young mother—way young—and a newborn little girl. Dirt floor, hammocks.

They check me out—my pierced earrings to their nose rings, my jeans to their red and orange beaded leg bands, my blue T-shirt to the intricate molas on their blouses, my tan baseball cap to their yellow headscarves, my plain nose, a little sunburned, to the delicate black patterns on theirs.

I was clearly found lacking in the glamour department.

So they set to decorating my nose.

Using a jagua fruit and a tiny stick, grandma made quick work of it.

Everybody happy.

You would think, wouldn’t you, that this stuff would wash off, that in fairly short order persistent nose-scrubbing would ease me back into a civilization I recognize.

You would think, wouldn’t you, that jagua geometrics go only skin deep.

You would think, wouldn’t you, that a visit to a hut would wear off quickly.

But it lasts a long time.

Kuna Yala Semi-Autonomous Region

The Panama Hat

The Panama hats in the village outdoor market are tempting, but too touristy, don’t you think? Chuck kind of wanted one, but instead we signed up for a raft trip. Didn’t think much about it. This raft trip would be longer than most and wilder—along the Rio Chirique Viejo on the Costa Rican/Panamanian border—but we weren’t worried, we’d rafted before.

Such a sunny day to paddle through the jungle scenery, and exhilarating rapids, even the Class IV’s seemed manageable. But after an hour or two the worst happened, the raft flipped, and we were in the water smack in the middle of the most dangerous rapids on the river.

I knew immediately that I might not survive, that I should keep my wits, and I should draw in my arms and legs so they wouldn’t break against the rocks. I needed to let the helmet and life jacket do whatever there was to do. I had been told that in a flip situation I would not know which way was up during the process of being tossed around so forcefully, that I would not be able to breathe for a very long time, and I would take in a lot of water. All true.

Of course it seemed to take forever, but I did land in calmer water, and I began to hear, ever so faintly, a voice calling “Señora! Señora!” And then I am rescued. I try to get my lungs organized for breathing, and scan for my partner of 40 years, Chuck. Soon he is rescued too, and at last each of us knows the other is alive.

We are still near the beginning of the raft trip, and inexplicably, we paddle for hours down the rest of the river in high spirits. A dramatic pelting, cold, rainstorm; rapids and more rapids—somehow a “can-do” spirit emerged, and by the end of the day, feeling good, we were wondering what we could find for snacks.

If you had seen me twenty-four hours later in the Panama City airport headed for home right on schedule, you would have seen a sobered woman, all beat up, with her hair standing on end. At one of the airport shops, she was buying a Panama hat.

The next day, back at work, people asked about my trip. “Good trip,” I said. “Bought a Panama Hat. Life is too short not to.”

Rio Chirique Viejo