Month: June 2014

Am here in Sedona in beautiful Red Rock country.  These red rocks rising up out of the land are so beautiful.  I find Sedona a very peaceful place with a good energy that is definitely different from the energy in DC and I find the desert a strangely beautiful place. (I also found the Judean wilderness beautiful in Israel.)  I will be sure to bring back a red rock or two for our labyrinth.

The weather is of course very hot, but it cools off at night, so the mornings are a good time for hiking.

I attended a Taize service in the Chapel of the Holy Cross this evening, which sits in the middle of the red rocks.  It was a great service. I’ve always found Taize services meaningful and it is such a luxury for me to just show up and worship, without worrying about setting up and leading the service.

I will post occasionally on this leg of the trip. I am feeling a need to detach a bit and really rest.  So, to quote a young man I know, I will be “off grid” a bit out here. I think it will do my soul good not to have to be so tied to my electronics and the need to communicate to (and be communicated to) immediately and constantly.  I’ll post when I feel there is something interesting to relate!

Today was my last day at the Family History Library. What a difference Saturday makes! 40 people were lined up waiting for it to open, so I quickly made my spot at a microfiche reader. You can see in the picture that my spot looks like a professional researcher works there! I have a lock for my laptop and everything! Unlike the Library of Congress here they let you bring water in and that is very helpful.

I didn’t make any earth-shattering discoveries here. I found little things out on a variety of people. I found the ship my grandfather’s brother immigrated on, but could not find my grandfather. My research was pretty scattered. I was trying to find something on a lot of people. I was trying to cover a lot of ground in a short time and I had fun doing it! I think it’s best to take one problem, focus on it and run it to the ground before tackling the next. That is what I will do the next time I come- and I will be back! Genealogy will be a great hobby in my old age!

I leave the cool weather tomorrow so I mailed back my heavier clothes, shoes and all my research material to make my suitcase lighter. I’m looking forward to Sedona. I am a bit sheepish to admit it, but even after six weeks off, I find I’m still very tired. We pushed hard in Israel and I pushed hard here, so in Sedona I am going to slow down and allow my body to lead the way. I’ll rest when it says to; hike when it wants to; and sit and read if that feels right.

Update, 10:45 pm:

I retract what I previously said about not learning any new revelations about my family. (Well I did learn my great-grandfather sold birds and fish.) It took me sitting down to write up for my brother what I learned about my maternal grandfather. Between documents my aunt gave me and the research I did here, I have a much more complete picture of who he was. The research shattered some family myths but that is OK. I find the truth more interesting.

This part of my journey relates to the being like an ox who sits around the throne of God. Like the ox I have been frantically digging and tilling the soil. It took a bit of time for something to sprout. I am sure in time I will see more new shoots from my work here. This has been an exciting time of self-discovery!

Wow! The Family History Library is amazing. It is gigantic. Banks and banks of computers. Clean. And the folks are so helpful. I’m used to working in the Library of Congress where you are on your own to sink or swim. Here they greet you as you come in; show you around; and if you look the slightest bit puzzled, they are right there asking if they can help. They show you how to use the machines. And there are genealogists on staff to help. It is clean and bright.

I met a Finnish genealogist. He was able to tell me the name in Finnish of the town where my grandfather was from. He also explained that Russia took that part of Finland during World War II and it remains part of Russia today. Since he speaks Finnish he tried to find birth records for me but was unable to.

I learned how to use the library today and came up with a plan for my time here. I spent most of the day looking at microfilm. I found odds and ends on various ancestors. For example, I have always known my great-grandfather on my father’s side had a store in Baltimore. Today I discovered it was a store that sold birds and fish! Tomorrow I will switch from studying microfilm to books. The Family History Library sends its microfilm out to Family History Centers throughout the country if you request it but they do not send out the books. You must use those here. I could have easily designed an entire sabbatical around researching my roots. Maybe that will be the theme of my next one ! I am so grateful Nikol suggested I stop here.

When you use the library you are allowed to eat at the cafeteria for the staff of the Mormon Church. It is good food for not a lot of money. The library is across the street from the Temple. There are so many brides  getting their picture taken; it must be an assembly line of weddings in there.

Tonight I took a break and went to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearse. I am glad I did. They have a huge orchestra. I counted 9 cellos and at least 30 violins/violas. You can see from the picture how gigantic the organ pipes are. I counted 60 basses in the choir and 80 tenors. It’s such a large operation that the conference center where the choir performs holds 22,000 people!  (The center has 7,000 (yes, thousand) women’s bathroom stalls!)

Hearing the choir rehearse was a lovely break from my library work.

I had a fabulous few days with my aunt and uncle out in Oregon. The weather is cool; scenery is beautiful; and they treated me like royalty.  We went to a Wildlife Park and it wasfun to see animals in a more natural habitat than one sees at the zoo.

            While looking out at a herd of zebras grazing over a large area of grasslands, I imagined what it will be like to see them grazing in Africa. The park has had tremendous success breeding cheetahs, which are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. Yes, there were lions, doing what all lions to in the middle of the day–sleeping!

I also learned some things about my grandfather (who immigrated from Finland) that I didn’t know and corrected some things I thought I knew, so hopefully this new, correct information–and the documentation I now have– will help me be more productive as I begin to dig into my roots at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. My committee was right in urging me to visit my aunt before I began my work in Salt Lake.

I love my aunt and uncle very much and I was a bit sad to say good-bye. I wish we lived closer to one another. It’s good to have people in one’s life who make you feel so loved–and liked!

Dear friends,

As I have rested from one amazing trip and prepare for another, I want to share with you something the woman who traveled with me to the Holy Land shared with her congregation:

“Pilgrimage isn’t something that happens in the Holy Land–our lives are the pilgrimage, a journey in search of God, a path along which we discover and become the person God created us to be. Pay attention for the Holy SItes that you come upon during your daily journeys, and the opportunities they offer you to connect with God and with one another.”

I certainly found holy sites in the Holy Land, and I brought back a stone from many of them for our labyrinth. For me, the holiest sites were the places in the environment where Jesus lived and breathed–the vast harshness of the Judean wilderness, the cool waters of the Sea of Galilee, the muddy waters of the Jordan River, the olive groves and date palms and shepherd boys, a Roman road in Sepphoris and the Western Wall, a wall that was standing when Jesus was dedicated at the Temple and when he returned to clear out the money changers.

Right now, I’m preparing for another pilgrimage–this one in the US. But each of you is on a pilgrimage and you will find holy sites of your own this summer. Any site can be holy–someplace foreign and exotic or your own home or anywhere in between. God is everywhere, waiting for us to notice. When you do notice this summer, please pick up a stone to bring back for our labyrinth. This stone, combined with all the other stones, will create a holy site at St Peter’s filled with memories of other holy sites.

As your summers begin, I pray you will enjoy some unscheduled Sabbath time–time when you have no schedule, but a time when you and your family do, or don’t do, whatever you feel like at the moment.  I’m finding this unstructured time allows me to get back in touch with myself. It’s all part of pilgrimage–discovering, and returning to, the person God created me to be.

Blessings on your pilgrimages this summer.

Ann

Ann’s blog will be quiet for a few weeks while she rests and renews in preparation for the Red Rocks and Salt Lake City portions of her sabbatical and her big trip to Kenya. Be sure to sign up for email updates (at right) so you’ll know when posts resume!