Eileen Flanagan

Yesterday, after running into a woman whose husband is in remission from brain cancer, I realized how many reminders I’ve been getting lately of life’s fragility. A member of our meeting has entered hospice after many months of treatment for brain cancer. Another member’s ALS has progressed to the point where, for the first time on Sunday, I couldn’t understand something she said. A good friend, who is my age, just got diagnosed with breast cancer (which is mercifully easier to treat than ALS or brain cancer), and the father of one of my son’s classmates died suddenly of a heart attack on Monday. Another friend’s father-in-law also died this week, all of which prompted me to remember to include our health in the things we thank God for at prayer-time each night.

An awareness of life’s fragility can make us fearful and paranoid (When am I due for a mammogram?), but it can also prompt us to appreciate the present. The meeting member with brain cancer continually posts things on the Internet about trusting God and experiencing peace. The member with ALS made us all get up and dance in our places after worship on Sunday in order to advertise the Brazilian dance party she will be leading from her wheelchair next month. I suspect I’m not the only one who has been moved by these two members’ example.

I finally got through most of The Science of Fear, which I mentioned a few posts ago. It is really a well-written, thought-provoking book. While there were many parts that confirmed things I already believed—(George Bush manipulated people’s fear to lead us into a war that’s not making us safer.)—there were other parts that challenged my beliefs, particularly the author’s assertion that environmentalists manipulate statistics and fear just as much as other groups. He put my fear that my children are being exposed to all kinds of toxic chemicals into the context of childhood mortality rates before we had chlorine in the water, arguing his conclusion that “There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be Alive” in terms of actual risk. Although he may err on the side of underestimating the threat of climate change, he offers a helpful perspective, when so much media is designed to prey on parental insecurity. I found the book just one more reminder that I don’t want to live in fear or encourage the fears of others, despite the real and constant fragility of life. 

So on Saturday, I’m planning to drive my Toyota, full of children, in a snow storm, to take my first snowboarding lesson at age 47. Do I trust God, or what?

Speaking of fear… I’ve been given my own opportunity to work through some. As some of you know, I teach a class on South African history at University of the Arts, which I really enjoy. The course uses the art, music, and literature of South Africa to study the apartheid era. This is the fifth time I’m teaching it, and the student response has been positive. For some students, the course has been transformative. For me, it has been a way to teach ideas I care about while staying connected to the younger me who was in the Peace Corps in Botswana in the 1980s. I’ve been longing to go back to Southern Africa some time, and though the cost has always seemed prohibitive, teaching this course keeps me feeling somewhat connected.

A few weeks ago, the head of Liberal Arts asked if I would be interested in leading a group of students on a two-week study/trip to South Africa next January. My first reaction was that I’d love to, if I didn’t have kids. He said, “You have a husband don’t you?” It turns out my husband is very supportive, especially since the trip would occur while our kids were in school, so I’ve been seriously thinking about it, swinging from wildly excited about the idea, to just a bit freaked out. Here are a few of the questions that are arising: 

How many college students could I handle as a lone adult in a very different country with a high crime rate?

Could I arrange for another teacher to come with me?

Is it OK to leave my children (ages 10 and 13) for that long?

Knowing that they have a very competent father, why does the thought of going make me feel like a selfish mother?

What if an asteroid hits Three Mile Island while I’m gone, and I can’t reach my family?

What if a UArts student gets hit by a car or arrested for drug use, and I don’t have another teacher to back me up?

What if I’m not as brave as when I was 22 and hitchhiked from Lesotho to Botswana?

And then on the positive side:

Could I arrange a trip that would give the students real engagement with another culture and with inequality, without having us seem like tourists on safari?

Could I arrange a way for the students to share their artistic abilities in schools in South Africa, which might be a particularly meaningful form of service for them?

Could I go in 2011 and then bring my family with me the following year?

I’ve thought about bringing my family to Botswana and then writing a book about the experience, contrasting the country today with the one I lived in pre-AIDS. Although the kids are not enthused, it turns out that the hospice my husband works for has an exchange program in Botswana, which seems so serendipitous that it must be some kind of sign, although it hasn’t yet seemed rightly ordered to pursue that. Perhaps this trip is some kind of preparation for that later, longer excursion?

The biggest question, from a Quaker viewpoint, is, “Am I led to do this?” I’ve wanted to go back to Southern Africa for many years, and here way is opening for me to do so. Does that necessarily mean that this is the way to go? That’s where sorting through my fears gets important. I don’t yet have clarity about whether my fears are signs that I shouldn’t do it or just things to be worked through. As usual, writing is a way for me to process. So is waiting, so I’m going to work on something else this week and see which feelings last.