Knowing

“And…the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot

It was a week ago at this very moment that I was traveling back to Jordan for the third term of this academic school year. There is always a little queasy-ness about the return from one world to the other world, an admixture of excitement of what will come and anticipation about how we will fare on the journey.

As you know I had spent my spring break in the United States, my, ahem, fourth trip from Jordan to the United States this year (last year actually I had four trips as well, but two of those were school-related and not visiting family). I stayed half the time in New York, and half the time with my family back in Cincinnati.

The day I arrived back in Cincinnati my father met me at the airport, and immediately we we sped to Skyline Chili—a totally familiar choice and a totally familiar menu and a totally familiar good time with my father. Let the comfort food comforts begin! Then we went immediately over to see my sister and her family.

Those first 30 minutes in their house—my first since New Year’s Day—are so funny, and so warm to look back on. My sister and brother-in-law stayed in the background, just watching as Emma and Jack, niece and nephew extraordinaire, filled me in on everything of importance in their lives in the 100 days since I saw them last. Never mind that I speak to them on the phone regularly—this was the important stuff to know. Jack wanted to show me what items he had won in the Cub Scout Popcorn Sale (I should be interested in this, after all, I purchased something like $40 of popcorn) and then it was Emma’s turn to show me what items she was going to choose for her efforts in the Girl Scout Cookie Sale (I should be interested in this, after all, I purchased something like $40 of GS cookies). Equal time! Then Jack wanted to show me the certificate and rating sheets for the recent Piano Competition in which he had participated (he earned a Superior rating). Emma elbowed him beside to show me her certificate and rating sheets for the same Piano Competition (she earned a Superior rating).

Next subject: Emma wanted to show me her medals she had won in a Gymnastics competition just days before (why couldn’t I be in two places at once?!) How many medals were there? Second places and a first place—even the Russian judges loved her! There was also a video to see of the Gymnastics competition—cue the spot…watch…look at her go! Applause! Oh, and then Jack wanted to show me the latest in Karate including his new belt color. As always, we practiced the “bow for respect” line…and now quickly, let’s get the video of the Piano Recital from just the day before…how well they played, and their poise and bow…oh, it looks great. “You went to Graeter’s for ice cream after the recital? That’s where your Mommy and I would go after our recitals??!”

In thirty minutes I had the most wonderful (and a little overwhelming) welcome home and assimilation into the Cincinnati life. Such excitement watching them with the fruits of their labors and explorations! It is hard to describe how exciting it was to go through the de-breifing of the last 100 days (actually so much was just going in the weekend before I arrived!).

On the way home that night to my childhood home, I remembered the words of 14th century writer Julian of Norwich, who observed, “all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.”

The following morning as my father and I went out to go to his Kiwanis meeting (“Would you like to come to Kiwanis today? A couple of the members want to meet you. They don’t know anyone who’s been to Jordan,” my father casually said. Of course. Let’s go to the Kiwanis meeting and see the gang with whom you spend your Tuesday lunchtimes.) we looked at the crocus blooms smiling in the March sun. My father casually remarked, “I remember when your mother and Kewpie planted those bulbs years and years ago. Every spring when they come up, I think how happy they were that we would see these blooms every spring.” Kewpie was a doggie presented at their engagement (actually I forget who the giver was—perhaps my father to my mother—but it was at their engagement and Kewpie was the name that kinda came from Cupid) and my earliest childhood pet, a beloved member of our family.

I have seen these crocuses dozens of times over dozens of springs, whenever I am in Cincinnati for the early spring, but I don’t remember the origins of my mother and Kewpie planting them. Maybe I had been told, but as I look back I remember that whenever I am not in town and they bloom, my father has always loved noting the peeking of the crocus blooms as winter wends its way toward the finish line. Somehow, I saw those crocuses on that Tuesday, and appreciated them, like the first time.

The week was wonderful. I didn’t get to see everyone in Cincinnati I enjoy, but I got to see the Diner gang, and the Griley cousins, and Penny the barber, and Pam the waitress, Edna, the 92-year old marvel, and Aunt Dot, and Sylvia.

From this visit home, like every other visit I enjoy, I knew what it felt like to be part of family, of neighborhood, of community. I belonged to Cincinnati.

During that brief week I also zipped up to mid-Ohio for a quick connection with Tracy, of the legendary Denison clique. We met in Granville, quaint town where Denison is located, on a spectacular afternoon. Again, even though I spent years there, and have visited from time to time, I just felt so refreshed seeing it again on this sunny afternoon with a treasured friend. Before Tracy arrived I gave a quick call to beloved Sue as I drove up and down the lanes of Granville, just telling her I was back at Denison, and it looked wonderful. It was good to be home. What energy is derived from being back at the beginnings of everything.

Granville is not only the home of my alma mater, the place where I decided to teach, but also the place from whence my mother’s mother’s family came. The terrific Aunt Dot has been spending time in Granville looking up the Rees and the Williams and the Evans clans, exploring the origins of our family, wondering how we all came to be.

There is a concept in history called the omphalos, a Greek word for “the navel of the world,” or more pointedly, “the center of the world,” and I remember standing at the spot in Greece, at the oracle in Delphi, which the Greeks deemed the true center of their world. Down the street from me right now, at KA, in the town of Madaba, lies a famous mosaic map in an ancient church. In the Madaba map, what do you think is the center of the world? Jerusalem! And last year at this time when I was in Jerusalem I certainly felt that I was in the omphalos of monotheism. There is, naturally, a sacred feeling to any omphalos. In the map, a tree is a great omphalos, and a connector to Heaven and Earth, a tree giving life from one to the other.

Hundreds of years later, when Renaissance Pope Julius II envisioned his private library, he asked Raphael to paint the scenes on the wall. On each of the four walls is a different piece about “knowledge.” One piece is about Jurisprudence, and one piece about Poetry. One piece is about secular (earthly) knowledge and skepticism, and the other is about spiritual (heavenly) knowledge. One is rational, and one is mystical. One is rejected in the medieval world, and one is now raised as a standard in his oh-so-modern world. Julius becomes the ultimate student, warrior and connoisseur. Remember that the word religion comes from religio, and it means, in Latin, “to bind together.” Obviously, Julius is the binder! The location matters, not just that it is in the Pope’s library in the Vatican but in Rome itself. It puts Rome back in the center, in the omphalos position.

I have had the good fortune to travel widely. I have also had the good fortune to travel with some extraordinary friends. I have seen cultures that I only had dreamed about as a child. But for this sweet spring break, I went back to my omphalos, to the childhood home that was where that dreaming took place, reminded of the mother and father who nurtured me, of the sister who loved me, of the college that trained me, of the friends that uplifted me.

Last Friday as I embarked on the thousands of miles returning to Jordan, knowing that in that 9-hour layover in Charles DeGaulle airport in Paris I would finally finish grading those term exams, I had that quiet calming sensation. Going home, in the presence of my Cincinnati and Granville omphalos was as close to God as I might get in this world.

“All will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.”