And to Dust You Shall Return: Hawaii Pilgrimage 2015

In Genesis 3:19 God asserts, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” at the conclusion of His rebuke of Adam and Eve for eating of the fruit in the Garden of Eden. I will be the first to admit that this is a challenging passage, no matter how many times I hear it or study it in class. On the Hawaii Pilgrimage this spring break, though, God transformed my way of seeing these potentially oppressive- and hopeless-sounding words into a beautiful, hope-filled perspective during my time on the island of Molokai.

We did A LOT on the Hawaii Pilgrimage. My favorite part by far, though, was our time on a peninsula off Molokai called Kalaupapa. Kalaupapa is the site of a settlement where people suffering from Hansen’s Disease – commonly known as leprosy - were separated from families and isolated from 1866 to 1969. Over 8,000 people died there during this time. Saint Damien arrived in 1873 and served the people of Kalaupapa as priest, carpenter, doctor, disciplinarian, friend, father, and confidant until he died from the effects of leprosy himself in 1889. His life was one of Christ-like self-gift, as was that of Saint Marianne, who arrived shortly before Saint Damien’s death to continue caring for the people of the settlement. Read more about Kalaupapa and its holy people here.

The view of Kalaupapa and the sea cliffs we hiked down to get there the morning of our journey

Pre-hike pilgrims 

One of many cemeteries in Kalaupapa - this one is the site of Father Damien's grave

The Kalaupapa peninsula is completely isolated from the rest of Molokai (and the rest of the world, for that matter) by 2,000 foot high sea cliffs – some of the highest on earth – and a seemingly endless expanse of the brightest blue ocean I have ever seen. It is a place of sheer beauty, but also the perfect natural prison. There is a certain eeriness to the peninsula that is hard to place, and yet a prevailing sense of peace. This holy land is a place of utter contradiction.

While breathtakingly majestic cliffs tower overhead and powerful currents crash against it’s shoreline, Kalaupapa is in a constant state of transition. Buildings show extreme wear from time and saltwater and have had to be refurbished, graves are falling apart, appliances are out of date, and things are used and reused and eventually sometimes left and forgotten. Nature has taken over in many of these situations.

The smaller segment of Saint Philomena Church closest to us is the part Saint Damien built with his own hands. The rest was an addition he planned but was not strong enough to build himself near the end of his life. Both parts have been restored over the years.

A traffic cone has become a home for vegetation, and a plant reaches tendrils out to grasp the cone and the fire hose.

A tree growing around another tree

At first, I found these sights disheartening. But the more I noticed them, the more I fell deeper in love with this beautiful place. In Molokai, more than anywhere else I have ever encountered, the material world interacts with and becomes a part of nature. The stop sign is still a functional inanimate object, but now it is adorned by a living plant. The school bus makes a sweet picture and is a monument to those who traveled in it before us. The building covered in license plates is a collector’s and photographer’s dream: art. Everything could be viewed in two opposing ways, either with great despair or great hope.

Even the island itself is in transition. The peninsula was formed much later than the rest of Molokai by a volcanic eruption; gazing down into the crater that formed the peninsula aroused the thought that this place practically came about by chance. The beautiful cliffs we hiked and gazed up at in wonder during our time on the peninsula were chiseled into their striking shape by water long ago. The sea is gradually wearing away at the shore around the border of the peninsula, so on some elevated parts the island has literally begun the process of collapsing into the ocean.

The crater of the volcano that formed the island. The lake at the bottom is 800 ft deep.

It wasn’t until a key group conversation that I recognized the new way of seeing that was being formed in me. One of the other girls on the trip posed a question that hit me and kept resonating with the things I had already witnessed and would experience: “How do you see the idea of returning to dust manifested on this island?” So simple. So, so, challenging.

On Kalaupapa, the reality of the delicacy of life becomes painfully apparent. And yet it became less about dwelling in the suffering and much more about valuing the life one is given upon the arrival of Saint Damien, who fiercely insisted upon recognizing the dignity and humanity of each person he encountered. We explored the idea of praying without ceasing a lot as a group – see my blog post on this idea – and realized that Saint Damien must have valued even the smallest of actions and expressions of love for and by the people he cared for in the holy place called Kalaupapa. My fellow pilgrim was exactly right in the question she asked: the peninsula is a perfect manifestation of the life, building, death, change, and rebuilding that occurred and continues to occur there.

Buildings must be rebuilt. Graves require restoration. Plants are allowed to grow in places we on the mainland would never allow. But the beauty of change under the care of the Lord is so apparent in Kalaupapa. This is not to say that it is by any means easy to reflect on the past events that occurred there, and it is not intended to discount the lives of the thousands of people who lived and died there. Quite oppositely, the state of transition on the peninsula allowed me to see clearly that God is active in His creation and in His remembrance, and that even – and especially – in the places that the entire world forgets, He is there. Loving.

There was not a reconciling to be done between the history of immense suffering on Kalaupapa and the sheer beauty of God’s creation there, as my fellow pilgrims and I originally assumed. Rather, there was and is a truth to be sought out, discovered, grappled with, and eventually loved:

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”