Our Road Trip Begins:
In my first blog post I promised to share more of my Spiritual Traveler adventures in San Francisco and the Bay Area. And I will. But first, I must share some of the adventures I recently had with my friend Donna Wozniak during our Spiritual Road Trip to the Fifth Annual Afterlife Awareness Conference in Norfolk, Virginia.
Spiritual Road Trip and Spiritual Destination Travel are similar in that they both require a mix of solid pre-trip preparation combined with a healthy dose of allowing yourself to go with the flow as you let the journey present you with signs and surprises. There are some striking differences, however. Spiritual Destination Travel allows you to drink deeply from the well of a city’s or area’s varieties of spirituality. Road tripping is more like taking a spiritual sip here and there as you wend your way along the highways and byways of your journey.
Donna and I started on our Spiritual Road Trip early on Monday, June 1st. Our first stop: The Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto at Notre Dame University. Our intention was to light a candle and say a prayer for the safety and success of our journey. Donna has never been Catholic and I have long since left the embrace of my Catholic upbringing. Both Donna and I, however, have a deep appreciation of the varieties of religious and spiritual experience. And I have a devotion to Blessed Mary that goes back to my birth story—let me share that with you now:
MY STORY
After my brother Patrick was born, the doctor told my mother that she couldn’t have another child. Mom and dad wanted another child and being devout Catholics they prayed the Rosary every night, promising Blessed Virgin that if they had a girl they would name her Mary. Voila! It worked and I was born and, of course, named Mary. I guess you could say I am a true miracle baby.
Hence, what better place to start a trip to a conference dealing with death and the afterlife than at a shrine devoted to the Divine woman who helped me get birthed into this life!
OUR LADY OF LOURDES GROTTO
The grotto is a replica of the one in Lourdes, France. This statue of Mary at the University of Notre Dame pretty closely replicates the St. Mary statue in France.
Our visit to the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto was blessed with two surprises—one pleasant and the other profound. The pleasant surprise was Mark, one of the retired Notre Dame graduates who maintain this sacred place of prayer. Mark lovingly told us stories about the Grotto and pointed out the embedded stone that came from the actual Our Lady of Lourdes shrine in France. Thanks Mark for taking our picture and sharing your time and high vibrational energy!
A SURPRISE ENCOUNTER
I met an old friend near the Grotto. I’m standing near the statue memorializing Dr. Tom Dooley, whose books about serving the medical needs of the poor in Southeast Asia greatly inspired me in High School.
As we turned to walk back to our car, Donna spotted a statue to the right of the Grotto and walked toward it. I followed and that’s when I encountered that profound surprise. The statue was a memorial for Dr. Tom Dooley who just happened to be the great mentor of my high school years at Nazareth Academy. It was like meeting an old friend. Memories of how his books, Deliver Us from Evil, The Edge of Tomorrow, and The Night They Burned the Mountain, inspired my teenaged soul came flooding back to me. His mission to bring medical aid to refugees and poor villages in Southeast Asia helped lay the foundation for my own dedication to doing good works.
At the time of his death from cancer in 1961 at the age of 34, Dooley was proclaimed by a Gallup Poll to be, for Americans, the third most esteemed man in the world, following former president Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Pope. It is no surprise, however, that you may never have heard of him. He has fallen into virtual obscurity. Even I, who had been so inspired by him haven’t thought about him in years.
But now, standing beside his memorial, I read the bronze cast of the letter that he wrote in 1960 to Notre Dame University President Father Theodore Hesburgh. Dooley, a Notre Dame graduate, wrote this letter as he faced certain death from his cancer. One paragraph contained a particularly poignant message for two pilgrims on their way to an afterlife conference:
But when the time comes, like now, then the storm around me does not matter. The winds within do not matter. Nothing human or earthly can touch me. A wilder storm of peace gathers in my heart. What seems unpossessable I can possess. What seems unfathomable, I fathom. What is unutterable, I utter. Because I can pray. I can communicate. How do people endure anything on earth if they cannot have God?
After I returned home, I extended the spiritual journey that began at Our Lady’s Grotto and that memorial statue by revisiting Dr. Dooley’s books and exploring his words and legacy. I discovered that while his name may have fallen into obscurity, the legacy of his good works continues through Dooley Intermed International (www.dooleyintermed.org).
The foundation was established in 1961 by Dr. Verne Chaney shortly following the death of his friend and colleague, Dr. Thomas A. Dooley III. Its current projects include helping Tibetan refugees in Nepal, an orphanage in Nepal, Gift of Sight programs in Nepal and Laos, a clinic in Nicaragua and a Women’s Enterprise program in Thailand. It is the Nepal Earthquake emergency that is front and center on their home page now, however.
Because of its 50-year history of working in Nepal, Dooley Intermed International is able to go places and accomplish things that other organizations cannot. The need for donations is urgent, especially as the approaching monsoon makes providing adequate shelter a major priority, especially for the children.
I clicked on that link and made a donation via PayPal. It is a fitting tribute to the legacy of Dr. Dooley and a thank you for the inspiration he was and now continues to be in my life and the lives of many others.
Resources:
Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes at the University of Notre Dame (http://tour.nd.edu/locations/grotto/): If you’re in the South Bend, Indiana area, lighting a candle and saying a prayer at this shrine will surely make you feel that you have blessed your journey. The Grotto is one-seventh the size of the famed French shrine where the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette on 18 occasions in 1858. We visited the shrine in the morning, but the photo at this website was taken at night with the flickering flames of hundreds of candles and the lighting on Mary casting a soft golden glow against the rocks. Also, the Rosary is prayed there every evening at 6:45 pm. Hmmm… This may rate a return visit or two for this Spiritual Traveler! Oh, by the way, the Grotto may be tricky to find. Make sure you enter through the university’s main gate and turn left when you see the little guardhouse. The attendant will give you a pass allowing you to visit the Grotto.
Dooley Intermed International (www.dooleyintermed.org): When I revisited this foundation’s website, I discovered that they are co-sponsoring a HEAL the WORLD Nepal Earthquake relief Fundraiser through August 24th. If you’re in LA during this time period, you can do a soul-satisfying good work by attending one of the Motown On Mondays-Los Angeles events (www.facebook.com/momdjslosangeles). You can hear some great music and donate some cash to a worthwhile cause. And if you’re not in LA, then let your fingers do the walking and click on the Dooley Intermed site and donate. That’s what I did.
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