The Salvation Army: This Sunday it was the Salvation Army for a 10 am worship service. Of course, we have all come in contact with the Salvation Army: most of us have tossed a coin or two into their pots at Christmas time; some of us have seen their bands perform in holiday parades; and a few of us have done some shopping at Salvation Army thrift stores. I’ll bet that very few have attended one of their worship services. It was a first for me. The congregation was large but did not fill their very large sanctuary. Up front on one side was the chorus and on the other side the brass band. No piano, no organ, no altar, no printed program. Hymns and Bible verses were projected on a large screen over the stage, and it was the most effective use of media I have seen. The sermon was on “Why Pray?” There was a call to the front at the end of the service, i.e., a call to the “mercy bench” for anyone who needed to pray. Two people went forward and each was joined by what seemed to be a senior member of the corps. It was very moving. Afterwards, for tea and cookies, we were all invited downstairs, where I spent some time talking to John. He had been a Catholic, but didn’t think the Catholic Church was doing enough to help people, so he joined the Salvation Army. As I recall, that is why the organization broke with the Methodist Church, which was their spiritual home.
Goodbye to Auckland: The airport bus from Auckland’s CBD runs regularly and frequently. The trip was long enough for me to plan my next trip to Kiwi Land. As we skimmed around the base of Mt. Eden, an extinct volcanic cone, I put that on my list for visit number three. I would climb Mt. Eden. I would also catch a ferry, thought I, to unpopulated Rangitoto Island, another volcanic cone, this one in Auckland harbor. And, I might also muster the courage to bungee jump off the Sky Tower, the tallest spire in Auckland. For a city its size, Auckland seems to attract more than its share of visitors. I sure would be up for another visit. Anyone want to join me?
Sunday + Sunday: So, I woke up Sunday morning, went to church, had lunch with fellow hosteler Kirsten, left for the airport, flew out of Auckland at about 4 pm, transferred in Sydney, and arrived in Honolulu about 11 am Sunday morning. Think about it. I arrived in Honolulu before I left Auckland. I had two Sundays, and two hotel bills for staying over the same Sunday night. Time traveled backwards. The explanation lies in the International Date Line, of course. In the 1520s, when the Magellan/Elcano expedition arrived back in Spain after the first circumnavigation of the world, they had lost a day. God makes each day, and they had lost one! It precipitated a crisis in Rome, which meant that the Pope had to figure out what was going on. Major crisis. The general rule for calculating time is: “As you go east, the time doth increase; as you go west, the time doth grow less.” So if you go east and loose an hour all the way around the world, you have lost 24 hours, a complete day. Since that is impossible, there has to be a point where you arbitrarily add that day back into your life. The addition happens at the International Date Line today, but it remained problematic right through the late 1800s. Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days uses the loss of a day to provide a suspenseful twist at the end the novel, and that was written in 1873.
RHT and LHT: I am back in the world of RHT, my home country, the United States of America. RHT? Right-Hand Traffic. Two-thirds of the world’s peoples live in RHT countries, but I have not been in one for the entire trip. Every country I visited has done things ‘backwards,’ beginning with the UK, and continuing with India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand. (Which one is not a former British colony?) All are in the LHT world. They drive on the left. Moreover, they also put escalators and travelators on the left, and people pass on the left. Actually, when I planned the trip I said to myself: I will visit LHT countries only. Now that I am back in the U.S., I feel disoriented once again. As a pedestrian, I have gotten used to the feel of the “leftist world.”
By the way, travelators are what Australians and New Zealanders (and maybe some others) call those moving sidewalks that you find in airports. Travel + Accelerator = Travelator. Or maybe, the idea is just borrowed from escalator.
Geographically yours,
D.J.Z.
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