Paradise Found

During the summer of 1995, I had the occasion to take a brief helicopter tour in Hawaii. Departing from the airport on Maui we had a perfect Birdseye view of the renowned resort destinations along the Kaanapali coast and the less traveled island of Lanai across the nine-mile ocean channel. However, it was on the far side of the third island, Molokai, where we could see the small array of buildings that housed the leper colony of Father Damien, more than a century earlier. Regarding my statement beginning with “The oldest of all lies”, I am making reference to the epic poem written by Milton during the 17th century regarding the fall of humankind in the Garden of Eden. From there I contrast it to the one word that is the foundation of the Christian faith. “Sacrifice.” With respect to my earlier reference to a place I would be “destined to know”, I am not speaking about the island or the colony, but rather a place of faith where the inhabitants once were and I now am, when any of us are challenged by the spectre of a potentially fatal long-term illness or disease. Likewise, the “vantage most high”, I identify near the end of the poem, is not one of mere flight but rather a renewed worldview elevated by my faith. Paradise Found. A retrospective look at a unique place in the history of faith, which when I first saw it as a tourist, was nothing more than a momentary curiosity.