2910 East Morgan Evansville, IN  47711 (812) 474-1704

This morning I’d like to welcome you on board the cruise to nowhere. As your cruise director I would like to orient you a bit, point out some of what you might experience and make a few suggestions on how to make the best use of your travels.

Perhaps, you are startled to find out that you are on this cruise. You may not have planned this trip – probably didn’t. I don’t imagine you read our company brochure, or talked to friends who have traveled with us. Perhaps you are not even sure if you know anyone who traveled this way before since no one has shown you any pictures.

But let me reassure you – many folks have taken this cruise and safely returned. People have been traveling with us since way before digital cameras or even before paper for that matter.

Let me introduce you to a few of your fellow travelers.

A young boy of thirteen sitting on his fathers lap discussing his plans to invite a girl out on a date.

A woman dieting her way to a new figure who has a closet full of clothes from before and does not want to buy new clothes because her size will change again.

A man who retired from the company he worked for for his entire adult life. He is happy to be retired but who is he now?

A woman who graduated from college – her life was full of classes, plans, social activities. Now she has a job, in a new city where she doesn’t know anyone. She should be happy, she thinks, but she is not.

A woman who raised children and lived with her husband for 25 years and then he met a younger woman and divorced her. She is hurt, confused, angry and lost.

A man who had been a member of the same church for his whole life – then a crisis occured and he discovered his faith no longer made sense to him.

A woman who worked on her dissertation for 4 years and now it is done.

No matter whether you have been on this trip before or this is your very first time – you will find there are some similarities to our various cruises to nowhere but also much that is new.

One thing that you’ll notice right off – is that before you knew you were even on board, the ship had left the dock and now there is no land in site. When traveling in Between the view is different. This trip takes you out of the context in which you had known yourselves.

It could be a job loss, a move, the end of a relationship, a death, and illness or a dozen smaller events that precipitate the change. But it doesn’t have to be a crisis – it could also be something you might  regard as positive – like a marriage, the birth of a child, a promotion or graduation.

The next thing you might notice is that you lose your identity, the way you knew yourself might now be challenged.

A person who led an active life might find that because of ageing she can no longer do the things she once did. Her body seems to have betrayed her – it all happened so fast. Who is she when she can no longer do the things that were important to her?

A young man took care of his elderly mother for years and then she died. Who is he now? He knew himself as the man who took care of Mom. How is he to structure his day when she no longer needs him? Who is he if not the saint who gave up his own life for his mother?

The man was a good provider, responsible and successful and now he has no job. If being a man means providing for his family – is he a man?

I want to warn you that as travelers to Between you may experience disenchantment.

Many American tourists start off with an enchanted view of life. Life as they understand it is to be a forward progression. They think they will move through school and then find satisfying work, marry a prince or a princess, inherit the castle and live happily ever after.

Some become disenchanted but others manage to make it through a series of passages with their enchantment unshaken. They might miss Santa Claus but they find no reason to doubt the notion that life will be onward and upward. That hard work and loyalty will be rewarded.

Some like the Buddha who learned about poverty and illness and death by leaving his fathers castle, might find that their eyes are opened by their experience and that they have awakened to a new understanding of reality.

Perhaps you will learn that people are not perfect, that they make mistakes. That one cannot find the perfect partner, the perfect church, the perfect job, the perfect life. In fact you might even realize that you too are not quite who you hoped and believed yourself to be.

It is at these times that you will want to consider whether an old view or belief was a spell cast on you to keep you from seeing more than you might want to. Or perhaps your old views or beliefs were sufficient in their day but will not longer serve you well.

Some people get stuck at this point they seem to create the same situation over and over in their lives – they never seem able to let go and accept the disenchantment.

As travelers you might also find yourselves to be a bit disoriented.

Before you left home you knew what time it was, you knew which way was up and which way was down. When you were standing on the ground in Indiana it was central time, and summer was ending. If you were to arrive in Australia the air would be cold but warming and you would have crossed a date line at which point it was neither today nor tomorrow. Where is Between? It could be forward in time or behind. And when you are in between summer and winter which will come next spring or fall?

Welcome to living in Between. I hope you enjoy your cruise. It has the potential to be a rich experience. Perhaps not enjoyable but certainly meaningful.

Now that I’ve told you about what you’ll experience on board – I’d like to explore how you might use the journey to grow as human beings.

The first thing to note is that it is a cruise. You and your fellow travelers are all stuck here together. Human beings having a human experience. Not a bad one- not a good one – a human one. So talk to each other. You aren’t the first to take this cruise and you won’t be the last – but you can companion each other on the journey.

Second – on this ship there are lot’s of ways to divert your attention. We have dances, movies, books, classes, bridge games, video games, wireless internet, a weight room and lots of food.

But there are also many large decks. I would encourage you all to spend time there. Pull up a lounge chair and stare at the sky and the water and do nothing.

Get to know yourself. You might journal or draw, consider your dreams, watch your thoughts.

In this place we can see below the surface of life. You may not want to look for long – but it is these moments of your life that produce wisdom. The potential of this time is for awakening to new understandings of yourself, others and your world.

Most of our suffering is caused not by our reality but by our thoughts. The way we order our experience. One of the obvious ways of ordering is the idea that we can make time stand still – now when I put it that way you don’t believe it. But isn’t that what we try to do when we try to keep things from changing.

We hold on to the things we label good and suffer when they change. And we hold onto what we label bad and project it into the future as never ending.  The reality is impermanence.

We are, all of us, always in transition. We are moving from moment to moment, day to day, from birth to death.  The illusion is that we are standing still. That we are not changing, that others around us are not changing. It is the illusion which we hold on to so tightly which makes the transitions, which is our life in Between, so emotionally and spiritually difficult.

The truth is we are changing, the earth is spinning and if it wasn’t true we would fall off.

So let us gives thanks for the spinning and our  lives in Between.

I hope you enjoy your trip and that I see you the next time you pass this way.

Amen and May it be so.

Reference: William Bridges, Making Sense of Life’s Changes, NY: Addison-Wesley, 1980.