Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

After the ceremony people spread out as they chat before Mass. Dad and I walk to a nearby rocky shore with a group of four young Hawaiian men. I talked to one, Joshua, yesterday as they returned from a morning of fishing. He offered to give me some pointers on spear fishing. I don’t know if he was planning on anyone else being a part of it, but Dad was eager to learn some new tips, too.

I pause for a moment on the road, let the group get a few steps ahead of me, and apply some lip gloss.

Joshua invited me out surfing yesterday afternoon. Surfing on Moloka`i! I could have died and gone to heaven. But I didn’t go. Dad never left my side at the clinic, and I couldn’t leave him now.

“Let’s try this for a bit, eh?” Joshua says. His buddies drop their empty five-gallon buckets and inspect their poles. Joshua readies his spear and moves me through the basics while Dad watches, his arm useless. Joshua spends most of his time talking about the fish and the coral. This cove has been protected as a fishery, so there’s plenty to catch.

“This island has always tried to be self-supporting,” Dad observes. “God help O`ahu and the other islands.”

“Yeah, they’d better figure it out. We can’t feed the whole bunch,” one Hawaiian grumbles. Another turns his catch bucket around to show us a bumper sticker:

SUST `ĀINA BILITY.

Dad and I laugh. “That’s fantastic ,” he says. “Why didn’t I think of that?” ` Āina means “land”; kama`āina means “child of the land.” But the word goes deeper. The play on words offers a glimpse of Hawai`i’s future. I’ve witnessed a lot in the past few days that leaves me hopeful—at least for Moloka`i.

“The answer to our future is a return to our past,” the owner of the bumper sticker says.

Grandpa always said things like that on his blog.

I laugh, and then wince: Grandpa . I let the pain sit there. I miss him so much. It’s so sad he doesn’t have his blog anymore. But he’s okay. I know it. He’s always been a time traveler, effortlessly shifting back and forth between the past and the present.

He knows so much about spiritual health and old farming and cooking techniques, he’s the perfect person to keep Mom and Kai safe—and the rest of us, once we get home.

I try my hand with the spear several times, with no luck. Dad drifts away after a few minutes and sits down along the ledge of a rocky pool. I go to him. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, honey. A little tired. Go have fun. I think Joshua likes you.”

“You kill the whole thing when you say it out loud!”

“Sorry.” He laughs as I pretend to swat him.

A large green sea turtle surfaces just in front of our dangling feet. It watches us for a few seconds before dropping back down below the choppy surface. I lean against Dad, and we sit in silence watching the honu graze on the coral and pop up for breaths of air. I think I can see a kind of wisdom in its placid eyes—ancient, calm, and vast, something far beyond human intelligence. No wonder the Hawaiians hold the honu in such high esteem.

A church bell rings in town. “Shall we go do this Mass thing?”

“Look.” He points, smiling. A second turtle has joined the first. This one’s smaller. Dad makes no motion to rise. I relax and settle back down next to him. The turtles dance through the coral in slow synchrony.

“ Honu ,” Dad says. “Aren’t they church enough? They kind of represent the true nature of God. For me.”

“How’s that?”

Dad smiles. “Did you know that some turtle species cross the entire ocean to lay their eggs? Why would they do that?”

I shrug.

“They didn’t always. When the supercontinent of Gondwanaland was just breaking apart, the turtles would simply swim across a narrow strait, lay their eggs, and head back home. Over the next hundred-or-so million years, the continents drifted apart, about an inch a year. The turtles went about their business, doing what they used to, what their parents used to do, each generation unaware of the imperceptible change. Now they cross oceans. And they’ll be here still, following their ancient paths, inch by new inch, long after we’re gone.”

I absorb Dad’s story, watching the turtle feed obliviously beneath us. “And you see God in that? It just makes me feel smaller than ever.”

“I do. To me, it makes Him bigger than ever.” Dad shakes his head.

“Does everyone become a philosopher when they get shot?” I ask. The bells ring again. We help each other up. “Saved by the bell,” Dad says.

“I think I’d rather listen to your sermons than some priest’s.”

“That’s why you call me ‘Father.’ ” He winks at me. I roll my eyes.

I wave goodbye to the fishermen, and we shuffle back into the heart of the village.

We’re caught off guard by the size of this Mass. People have gathered outside the church. Folding chairs cover the spacious lawns surrounding the building, sprawling in large blocks out from a wide center aisle. We find seats along the aisle.

The sound of ukuleles and ipu drums roll over the crisp morning air, and everyone rises. We turn to watch the priest walk up the aisle and my jaw drops.

“That’s him! He’s the priest.”

Uncle Akoni is adorned with a faded white habit, a hand-woven green stole, and leis of kukui nuts and plumeria flowers. As people sing a hymn, he advances up the aisle of folding chairs and camp stools, holding high a leather-bound gospel for all to see. Two young altar servers walk beside him. He scans the crowd attentively, offering warm smiles and a few jovial winks. He sees me and his eyes light up. I smile sheepishly. Why has he taken such an interest in me? Or does he treat everyone as if they are important?

Akoni celebrates Mass with solemn wonder. It seems so fresh for him, though he’s probably performed thousands of Masses. The chanting, the standing, the kneeling are all a blur. I only remember his face and his eyes—and his homily:

“Shhh. Listen. Can you hear it? Can you hear the whisper?

“Our first reading may have escaped you. Old Testament babblings from First Kings. But speaking for myself, today, I am forced to listen—and to marvel. To marvel at the profound insight we are offered into the fabric of our creator. To marvel at the wisdom of our ancient prophet Elijah, who, in the context of his time, could only have assumed that the great forces churning around him were the works of an angry and righteous hand, and yet who ignored all of it, focusing instead upon the truth so plainly etched into the fibers of our being.”

Is he looking directly at me?

“I’ll repeat it for you. And you should listen this time. For it has already been written as well as it could ever be said:

“And the Angel of the Lord said to Elijah, ‘Go outside and stand on the mountain. There you may find the Lord.’ Elijah did as he was told, and traveled to the mountaintops to find the Lord. There he witnessed a strong and heavy wind rending the mountains and crushing the peaks—but Elijah did not seek the Lord in the wind. And after the terrible blowing of the wind there came an earthquake—but Elijah did not search for the Lord in the great tremblings of the earth. Following the quake there arose a white-hot fire. The mountainsides were scorched in blazing flame, and still Elijah found no sign of the Lord. Yet, after all these mighty displays, Elijah heard a whisper . Only then … only then!—did he hide his face in his cloak and drop to his knees before the mouth of the cave. And at last, the Lord God spoke to him, saying, ‘Elijah, why have you sought me?’

“Shhh. Listen. Listen well! Take this simple truth with you in these frightful times: the mighty God of the cosmos has no need for grand displays when His whisper will do. But can you hear it? Can you hear the whisper?”