.

May 28, 2006

Carry-on baggage



By Michelle Martin

I’m writing this on Mother’s Day, and I’m wondering just what kind of a mother I am.

After all, presented with the opportunity to travel for a week in Israel with a group of media professionals, I took it, despite Caroline’s pleas to come with me and her insistence that “You don’t know how I suffer when you’re not here.”

Suffering, of course, is relative: During the eight days I was away, she was cared for by her father with the help of his parents and my mother. She likely got more attention than when I am home.

But even though I was away, I always had Caroline and Frank with me in my thoughts, prayers and digital camera. I spoke to them by cell phone from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Galilee and the Dead Sea.

They were among the few things I did have with me; American Airlines got me to New York in time to meet the Project Interchange group, but unaccountably left my suitcase behind. It didn’t catch up until we returned to New York, ready to catch a flight home to Chicago.

So I spent the week with what was in my carry-on: a single change of clothes, toiletries, medication … and, of course, books, notebooks, camera and computer. As we traversed the landscape of the Bible (or ran where Jesus walked), I listened to Israeli Jews and Arabs of varying political and religious strips talk about their lives, I wondered at Masada and prayed (quickly) at the Western Wall and in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I didn’t really miss what I didn’t have most of the time. Yes, it would have been nice to have shoes that weren’t sneakers, and I would have liked to dress more appropriately for some of the more formal meetings.

But not having my swimsuit didn’t keep me out of the Dead Sea; a generous colleague provided a pair of shorts to wear with my T-shirt in the water. She also lent me a few changes of clothes along the way. I soon discovered that if I had to be anywhere in the world wearing sneakers with a skirt, Jerusalem was the place to do it.

I also learned that 5-year-old boys, stuck at a church or synagogue dinner, behave pretty much the same the world over.

Far more important than all the clothes I had packed were the thoughts of my family at home, who were thinking of and praying for me even as I was thinking of and praying for them.

I brought back T-shirts and toys, photographs and memories—and the knowledge that people who love one another can leave and come back enriched, ready to share their experiences to enrich everyone in the family.

I came away from Israel more confused about how to resolve its situation than when I arrived, but, paradoxically, it is a confusion born of greater understanding. Now if I only understood where my luggage spent the week.


Michelle Martin is a Catholic New World staff writer.