About eighteen months ago, a new friend wished me “traveling mercies” as Geraldine and I were heading off on a trip. I had not heard the term before and wondered what she meant. At first, I thought it was a prayer for gentleness and compassion for self and traveling companions when the inevitable travel fatigue and resulting crankiness occur.  But I came to appreciate that traveling mercies were more than that – they were graces or blessings that occur during travel. And they often remind us of how much love and grace there is in our life every day.

Today I’d like to reflect on the traveling graces I received on two recent excursions

The first was in August with the annual trip Geraldine and I take to the beach. I have written about how a combination of Covid and my brother John’s death shaped that trip. It was unlike any prior trip to the beach. It was a time for an unusual period of quiet, being with Geraldine, being with grief and experiencing graces not available otherwise.

In September, we took a river cruise on the Danube with some of Geraldine’s family. We had traveled with them once before and had had a terrific time and were looking forward to it. We flew to Budapest and spent three days there before the cruise departed. One of the blessings of travel with Geraldine’s family is traveling with her brother who has lived his adult life in Europe and is a retired newspaper editor. He is a magnet for learning and enjoys sharing with us as we travel. He speaks many languages, so we are rarely lost or unable to communicate.

Until I had fully reflected on the guidance my brother-in-law provides on our travels together, I had mostly taken for granted the lack of anxiety that comes with traveling with someone who knows the territory. For me, whether it is sightseeing in a foreign land, learning how to use a new technology, or being challenged to grow emotionally or spiritually, it helps to have a guide. And preferably a guide with experience in the territory. Traveling reminds me that I need help. I am not self-reliant and in fact, my life is far richer and more pleasant lived in community.

Lest I seem pollyannish about community, travel also reminds me that we are all human with both our many wonderful attributes and our rough edges that sometimes collide with the rough edges of others. Living in any community, whether traveling for a week or living together for years, inevitably involves encountering triggers – places where old fears or wounds magnify a slight misunderstanding in the present. This is particularly true with family, where we have the longest set of experiences of all kinds. My recent trips, like every trip, remind me of the importance of compassion. And the gift of compassion for myself and for others always seems to be available.

I will spare you the details. But rough spots in relationships and crankiness occur whenever I travel. Some form of pausing to break the negative thought cycle speeds up the arrival of patience and compassion. For me, often a nap, a conversation with a friend, some form of exercise like swimming, or a prayer to Big Spirit can move me out of negativity and back into gratitude.

The bigger grace from the river cruise came from learning the history of Hungary and its capital, Budapest. Budapest has been at the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures in Europe for centuries. And sadly, as a result, war has ravaged it repeatedly over the past 1,500 years. Think about what you may have learned about the Ottoman Empire and Attila the Hun. Then think about the Roman Empire and its reign of domination. And the Hapsburg dynasty and their control of a large part of central Europe. And Napolean’s conquests. And the Catholic Church and its politically powerful bishops and the battle to end Church domination.  And World Wars I and II.

I am not a history buff. Yet I felt the sadness of the people of Budapest from all this war and conflict. I thought about what we now call trauma and wondered how anyone can grow up in Hungary and not have some remnants in their DNA from all this conflict. And I thought about reparations and the complexity of to whom reparations are owed. We visited a Jewish Temple in Budapest that, in an attempt to avoid persecution, was designed to look like a Christian church. Ironically, in the middle of the temple was a cemetery for 6,000 Hungarian Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Traveling graces on this trip reminded me of the fragility of our humanity. It puts the Ukraine and Israeli-Palestinian wars in a bigger context. This larger look at our inhumanity to one another reminds me to look for the good every day. We are all broken and off balance in some ways. This brokenness leaks out in our families, our communities, and our world. We can only hope to change our families and world through compassion for one another and embracing as best we can the big spirit of love and letting that spirit guide us.

I am grateful for traveling graces and how they open me to new blessings.