Aloha, everyone. It’s been one month since the horrific wildfires devastated Lahaina. I’ve been living in Oahu for almost thirty years. Dennis and I lived on the island of Lana’i for 4 years in the mid 1990s. We were married on that tiny island which used to be the world’s largest pineapple plantation. You can easily see Lana’i from the shores of Lahaina. Every few weeks we’d hop on the ferry to Lahaina to go shopping or alleviate my island fever. While I have no family or close friends living on Maui, the events of August 8 shook me to the core. It felt, to me, like Hawaii’s 9/11: A sudden and shocking and unfathomably brutal attack on the innocent.

I needed to somehow write about this but truthfully I’m not sure I even have a right to. Men, women, and children on Maui lost everything – their homes, their possessions, their loved ones. Gone. Wiped away in a hellish firestorm. The images are almost too much to bear. Lahaina looks like a nuclear wasteland. Stories of mothers and fathers fleeing with children in their arms, leaping into the ocean to escape a flaming hurricane intent on incinerating practically everything in its path.

But I feel compelled to write about this because of something I’m struggling with; something I think many of us may be struggling with who were hundreds or even thousands of miles away from this incomprehensible event.

I’m writing this for those of us eating home cooked meals right now or dining out at our favorite restaurant or curled up in a cozy armchair watching our favorite show on television. I’m writing this for those of us who are fine, really, even if we have problems or sickness, we’re fine, really, when we look at the ashes of Lahaina.

I’m grappling with this deeply painful and confusing question:

Do I – do any of us - have the right to feel safe, to feel comfortable, to feel content in our lives knowing what we know about Lahaina?

A few days ago I was driving down a tree-lined boulevard in Mililani headed to the supermarket. It was a beautifully clear day. I was listening to praise music as I often do to lift my spirits. As the music filled my car, I was overcome, swept away, by the gorgeous parade of flowering trees dancing blissfully in the wind. It felt to me like they were saying, singing, everything’s gonna be okay… everything is okay.

Then a little white dog caught my eye, waddling happily alongside its owner, sniffing the sun-bleached sidewalk. All I could do was smile.

How do I hold this strange and difficult paradox? How is it that joy and tragedy can exist in the same breath?

Yet suffering and sorrow is certainly not a foreign experience for most of us. Like many of you, I have lost too many loved ones to the ravages of cancer and illness. I have wept over the warm body of my sweet dog Zoey. I grew up with stories of my father waking in the middle of the night, screaming, trapped in horrendous nightmares from world war two where his battalion had to clean out the human ash-covered ovens from concentration camps.

So, yes, I’ve known suffering and pain. But, right now, that’s only a memory. It’s not present day. Right now I’m sitting at my computer with a roof over my head and a warm mug of my favorite tea. Right now I’m not searching desperately for fresh water in Lahaina or begging strangers for diapers for my newborn or twisted in agony because my child or my brother or my mother is still among the hundreds missing.

How can I swim laps in my neighborhood pool under a perfect azure sky while heart-broken families on Maui sift through blackened memories? How can both of these exist? How can there be grief and destruction on one island at the same time there is beauty and cloud banks on another?

I remember my mother’s similar lament the day after her beloved sister Hilda died of lung cancer. My mother stared blankly out the kitchen window of her one-bedroom apartment. Children were laughing and playing outside in the sunshine. She turned to me, lost in such confusion and anger and sorrow, and whispered, “How can life go on when my sister just died?”

How do I – how do we - hold this catastrophe? Is it okay to feel serene, stretched out on my couch, listening to the motor purr of my nineteen year old cat? How can those swaying trees on Meheula Boulevard seem so blissful when ashes lay scattered across the sidewalks of Lahaina?

How do I – how do we - live in a world of such paradox? What right do I have to sit in my backyard, reveling in the charmed song of the Shama Thrush while men and women and children in Maui … and around the world…  confront such impossibly devastating experiences? I don’t know if there is an answer.  I don’t know if there is some deep truth that explains it all. 

What I do know is that we live in a world of vast darkness and infinite light. A world filled with heart-stopping beauty and ugliness. We live in a world flowing with compassion and hatred. 

Where do I stand? What do I do?  How do I live?

The Dalai Lama, a beloved spiritual teacher who has faced suffering with courage and grace, once said, “Choose to be optimistic. It feels better.” 

Rumi, the great mystical Sufi poet, said “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” 

Perhaps we are invited to live in the tension of these inexorable opposites. To dwell in the paradox and let go of trying to figure it all out. To treat ourselves and those around us, no matter who they are or what they’ve done, with grace and compassion, as much as we possibly can.  To listen, deeply and intensely, to what is wanting to emerge right now within each of us. 

 So… is there a resolution here? A truth that I – that we – can lean on, reach towards?

An art piece I created for an art show back in 2019 speaks to this in a very small but significant way. It’s an interactive mixed-media assemblage, titled Touchstone, hanging on the wall in my office. The original idea was simple and fun: To wire a gumball machine inside a wooden crate. The viewer would walk up, pull down the gumball lever, and out spilled something delightful or delicious. But that idea never came to fruition. Here’s the artist’s statement that is now displayed on a plaque alongside the piece:

TOUCHSTONE

My original idea was to create an interactive piece using a gumball machine I found at a yard sale. My plan was to collage the red plastic gumball machine with colorful, light-hearted words and phrases torn from old calendars and magazines. And that the gumball machine would spit out some sort of word-ball souvenir for the viewer to take home.

But that’s not what happened.

I hated the silly colorful collage. In a moment of impulsiveness, I painted everything black. Then I fell into a dark place, grappling for days with discouragement and despair, not only about the piece itself, but about my life. Amid the messy pile of torn-out words and phrases, the only one that called to me was “The light always returns.” I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I wrote about it.

The light always returns.

Day follows night.

Sunrise follows sunset.

In the blackest skies stars still shine.

The light always returns.

It is true. It is always true.

The art piece itself became a journey for me out of the darkness. It offers pearls of wisdom, a touchstone, an antidote you can hold in your hand. I hope you’ll take one home.

It is an undeniable truth, isn’t it, that the light always returns. That sunrise always follows sunset. That stars do shine even in the blackest of night. Maybe that’s what the Dalai Lama was pointing to when he said, Choose to be optimistic. It feels better. It feels better to know that the light always returns. It feels better to know that sunrise does follow sunset. That day does follow night. 

Maybe that’s how we hold the paradox of joy and sorrow, ease and suffering, beauty and tragedy. To know they are inescapably linked, sister and brother, and that always, always, always, no matter what, no matter how dark and unfathomable the abyss, there is something else at the other end, an opening, a breath, a promise of rebirth and renewal. The phoenix that rises from the ashes.

That’s my prayer for Maui. That’s my prayer for this planet, for all of us. May our hearts and minds and bodies lean into the grace of that eternal wisdom. May we have the courage to be witnesses to the beauty and brutality of Life’s transformative power; to act according to our deepest knowing; and to embrace the Divine Truth that, in the end, always emerges.

There are many ways to support the families of Lahaina and Maui. Best, I’ve heard, to donate to local organizations where there may be less bureaucratic red tape. Here’s a link with numerous non-profit organizations.

I remember the moment vividly.  I’m driving on H1 into Honolulu, smack in the midst of the wild roller coaster called menopause, the 50-something mother of a screaming toddler, feeling trapped, stuck, like I need to do something. Something Different. Something Fun. Something Frickin’ Exciting.

Ever since I was little, I wanted to be on stage. In front of an audience. As a child, I remember playing the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland at a Jewish community center in Brooklyn where I had to make my entrance by walking backwards across the stage. I remember begging my mother, when I was about five years old, to let me take acting classes but she said no. So, I grew up to be a writer instead. But I always loved theatre. Loved standup comedy. And absolutely adored improv.

The traffic slows down so I call a friend in Makiki, complaining. “I can’t stand it anymore. I have to do something new! I want to study improv.  I want to take classes. But I want a really, really, really great teacher.”

My friend, a talented watercolor artist laughed. “You must be psychic,” she said. “I literally just read in the paper that Alan Arkin is coming to Honolulu. He’s teaching a weekend improv workshop through the University.”

I almost slam on the brakes. Alan Arkin? THE Alan Arkin? The Russians Are Coming Alan Arkin?  Second City improv pioneer Alan Arkin?!

Barely able to contain my excitement, I immediately call UH. A young man answers. It’s a very brief conversation.

 “The class is full.”

His words fall on deaf ears. That’s impossible! How could I not be in that class? Alan Arkin coming all the way to Hawaii? To the most geographically isolated land mass on the planet? To teach improv? Exactly what I just said I want to study? The class is meant for me. It’s destiny! It’s exactly what I need. They can’t possibly say no to an exhausted, fifty year old menopausal emotional wreck!

 My words fall on deaf ears

“Sorry. The class has been full for weeks,” he repeats. “There’s already a wait list.”

Desperate, I call another friend, a grad student at UH, and she tells me that if I really want a shot at getting into the class I have to show up on the first day.  Just show up, she insists. That’s my only chance.

So, with a great deal of trepidation, that’s exactly what I do. I get there early Saturday morning. Walk to the crowded registration desk. I see students taking their seats inside the large glass-walled classroom. The registration guy tells me that if someone who is registered doesn’t show up, then maybe I can get in. But I’m second on the wait list. Someone is ahead of me. I stare through the glass wall and spot Alan Arkin. There he is. Just sitting there. My ex-New Yorker chutzpah takes over and I push open the door, boldly introducing myself.

“Are you in the class?” Alan asks.

“No,” I reply, suddenly gripped with an overpowering desire to be funny. “I’m on the wait list. But I’m hoping the person ahead of me gets hit by a bus.”

 Silence. No smile. “That’s not very nice,” he says.

 STRIKE ONE.

I mill around outside of the class as more students show up. When I notice a petite blond-haired woman pick up the restroom key I follow her, not knowing what else to do.

 “Are you here for the class?” she asks.

 “Yes,” I chirp, a bit too enthusiastically. “I’m on the wait list. But my plan is to schmooze Alan Arkin and convince him to let me in.”

 She looks at me for a long moment, her eyes kind.

“I don’t think that will work,” she says gently. “I’m his wife. He’s very strict about the number of students in a class.”

 STRIKE TWO.

Back at the registration desk, it looks like class is about to start. Everyone who registered has shown up so there’s no chance of me getting in. When Alan steps out of the room for a moment, I make a beeline for him. He’s gotta like me. We’re both Jewish. Both originally from Brooklyn. 

I start talking to him, or rather talking at him, barely able to disguise my wildly desperate need for his approval, but he doesn’t crack a smile. He politely listens, deadpan. Then he excuses himself and heads into the classroom, closing the glass door behind him.

 STRIKE THREE.

I slump down on a stone bench directly across from the classroom and fight back tears. It’s over, Marcia. You tried. You failed. Go home. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and do the only thing left to do. Surrender. Take my hands off the wheel. Let go of my fierce need to control. As I relax, my breathing softens. Then, for some reason, I open my eyes to see Alan looking straight at me. He motions to me. Hesitantly, I walk over and open the heavy glass door.  He smiles. “You’re sitting so quietly,” he says. “I can’t leave you out there.  Join the class.”

That day was the beginning of my life-changing relationship with Alan Arkin and his wife, Suzanne. The weekend of improvisation was one of the most exciting experiences of my life. Being given permission to be spontaneous and not hold back, I felt liberated, enjoying the hell out of following my crazy instincts and impulses, taking creative risks, and at rare moments, seeing Alan Arkin laugh at something I did.

After that weekend, I was hooked. A few weeks later, Alan and Suzanne asked me to help them organize a 6-day improv camp on Molokai. I felt like I won the lottery. Those 6 days were probably one of the highlights of my entire life. There were about fifteen of us, from around the country, eating meals together, laughing together, and spending all day and evening practicing the art of improvisation. Alan was a deeply spiritual, compassionate, and extraordinarily wise teacher, always stressing that improv is not at all about trying to be funny. In the end, it’s about being genuinely present and a hundred percent authentic.  

Alan Arkin’s presence in my life literally changed everything. That burning childhood desire to be on stage emerged in full force. After the week on Molokai, I decided to do something I had promised myself I would do for decades: I auditioned for my first theatre play, The Miser, at HPU. The director, Joyce Maltby, didn’t know me at all since I had not been involved in the theatre scene. But a good friend of hers, a renowned local playwright who had been in the same improv weekend with me, apparently urged her to cast me because of what she had seen me do in Alan’s class. I got the part and had an absolute blast. It was a thrilling experience.  And I never would have tried if it hadn’t been for all the encouragement I received from Alan.

Over the next few years, I stayed in touch with Alan and Suzanne, helping organize a few more Hawaii-based improv workshops. And I continued to do more and more performance-inspired work, including studying improvisation in Honolulu with various local teachers, then going on to study with Mick and Tess Pulver, doing their amazing Breakthrough Performance Workshops; writing and performing my solo show, WHO THE BLEEP AM I?; and finally co-writing and co-performing a successful 2-woman musical, MONEY TALKS: But What the Hell is it Saying, that my creative partner, Lucie Lynch, and I performed for many years all over Hawaii, and Colorado.

I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico with my husband visiting friends when I learned of Alan’s passing on June 29th. It hit me hard. Even though I hadn’t seen him in many, many years, I had stayed in touch with him a bit through email. And as strange as it might be to say, I loved him. He always felt like family to me. I always felt this deep, profound connection. Maybe that’s why he welcomed me into his class that day. Maybe in some small way, he felt it, too.

I feel so blessed to have known him, to have glimpsed his tender-hearted spirit, to have spent precious time with him and Suzanne. I realize that I can’t in any way imagine the profound loss his family and close friends are feeling. And I know it might seem like he was, to me and many other students, “just” a teacher. But his generous spirit, wisdom, and creative joy had a monumental impact on my life. One that I will never ever forget. 

Mahalo nui loa, Alan, from the bottom of my heart. May your beautiful soul continue to forever soar. 

(Reprinted with permission from LOST & FOUND ON LANA’I: The Trials & Transformation of One New Yorker Living in Paradise, 1995, by Marcia Zina Mager)

The other day a sea shell spoke to me.  It was a moon white cone shell with dabs of amber gold. I was walking along Frasier Avenue, minding my own business by frantically worrying about a personal problem. All of a sudden this shell leaped out at me. (Well, maybe it didn't actually leap but it made its presence known!) So I bent down to scoop it up and it began seriously philosophizing.

         "Life is more than pain and misery," the shell said. "Feel the perfect smoothness of my body. This is the miracle of life."

         Knowing full well how important it is to listen carefully when a shell or a tree or a flower decides to speak, I took a deep breath and did as I was told. Wrapping my fingers more firmly around the shell, I felt the cool smooth surface. Oddly enough, it immediately calmed me down.

         "This is the miracle of life," the shell repeated, "Nature and God have conspired, over eons and eons of time, to create this perfect shell. Thousands of years in the ocean, touched by infinite waves and creatures, washed up on endless shores, played with by countless numbers of smiling children. And then, by even more miracles, it found its way to this dusty dirt road, sixteen hundred feet above sea level, to be picked up by your hand.  This," the shell said for the third time, "is the miracle of life." 

         I thought about what it was saying and started to look around at what I was passing by. Sleepy plantation houses with well-trimmed bougainvillea bushes in every color and stunning bird of paradise displays. I began to notice the soothing chatter of the mynah birds, a sound I would not have paid attention to because of all the miserable chatter in my worried mind.

         "Lift your head up and out of the rushing river of human pain," the shell piped in, "and feel what's surrounding you."

         As I strolled along Frasier, holding this shell and listening to its amazing discourse, I continued to look around at Lana‘i’s beauty: lush banana trees leaning into the shadow of towering pines; mist-covered mountains, endless fields of green and gold. The problem I had been fretting about was quickly melting into the wondrous wisdom of this shell.

         I know all this sounds pretty wild. An ex-New Yorker turned “haole,” living on a small rural island in the middle of the Pacific, listening awestruck to the soundless words of a small white cone shell.

         But then many things on this island are pretty amazing, don't you think?  The wild spinner dolphins who come to rest and play in our bay, the rare gigantic whale shark who gently gives a diver the ride of a lifetime, the amazing cowry and auger shells that look better than any buried treasure you can find. And the miracles don't stop there: Tiny white gecko eggs, smaller than a thumbnail, that hatch inside palm trees; spectacularly painted parrot fish that look like God had a field day with His/Her easel; all those amazing creatures, large and small, that live beneath the sea and upon the land, innocently unaware of their own magnificence.

The truth is ... magic happens. Every day. Reality, I've come to realize, is much, much larger and grander and more fantastic that we can even imagine. But don't take my word for it. The next time you stumble across an ordinary sea shell, pick it up. And listen. It just might have something extraordinary to say.

(Reprinted with permission from LOST & FOUND ON LANA’I: The Trials & Transformation of One New Yorker Living in Paradise, 1995, by Marcia Zina Mager)

I've always envied people who had "faith." That age-old, mystical wellspring which inspires and guides through the toughest storms. I don't think I ever understood what faith really was. I did, however, understand "belief." Belief was something I felt I did possess. After all, I believed in God. But the problem with "belief" is that its very definition demands proof. If I "believe" in God then someone can come along who believes differently. We can then get into a big argument over whose God is better and soon enough the whole discussion collapses into a battle of wills.

         Then I met a man named Peace Pilgrim II. Sixty-eight years old, British accent and sparkling blue eyes. He was visiting Lana‘i for a few days and I had an opportunity to spend time with him. Some years ago, this very normal man with a very normal life heard an inner voice tell him to give away all his possessions, go on the road, by foot, and spread the message of peace. It wasn't as bizarre a directive as it sounds because in 1953 someone else had done the same thing. The original Peace Pilgrim was a woman who gave up everything she owned, including all her money, and began a 28 year walk for peace. In the first 11 years of her journey she covered more than 25,000 miles. It was eight years after her death that Peace Pilgrim II got his calling and began his journey. Following in her footsteps, literally, he too vowed to only eat a meal and sleep in a bed if someone offered. If I hadn't met this man, I could have easily dismissed what he was about. But for some reason I found myself hanging on every word of his story. What his very first day on the road was like, saying good-bye to his family, not knowing where he was really going or when he would eat next. I could vividly imagine the fear he must have felt that first day, no longer having the comfort of a telephone number or address or even a penny in his pocket.

         Yet what struck me most about this man named Peace was how willing he was to do it. Not that it was always easy. But when night came and his stomach ached with hunger and he found himself in a strange cold town, he'd simply ask God for a little help. And like clockwork, someone would always appear; a friendly stranger offering him a hot meal, a warm bed, a classroom to give his talks. And so it went. And so it still goes for him.

         Faith. The man had a wellspring of faith. Listening to him, I found myself envying him. He had the very thing I wanted yet never thought I could attain. I had always felt that somehow I wasn't as spiritually well endowed as people like Peace. That somehow he had claimed a secret that would never be mine. Faith. It was as real and comforting to him as a warm king size bed.

         I went home and began thinking about the difference between faith and belief. I realized that most of my life it was belief in God that I held;  a belief that worked only until it was shot down by life's harsh realities:    a friend's suicide, major career disappointments, losses and hurts that ate away, like termites, at its very foundation. So I asked myself, what is faith? Where do I get it? How do I take that eternally talked about "leap?" Then, all of a sudden, the truth snuck up behind me and pounced! You can't "get" faith, it whispered. You can't learn it from anyone. You can't study it. And there's certainly no how-to books full of rules on achieving it. The reason for this is obvious: Faith is simply faith. You can't grab it or borrow it or steal it because then it wouldn't be faith. It's called a LEAP, silly, because that's what it is! A LEAP! You just do it. Walk up to the edge, look down at the abyss, take a deep breath, and LEAP! That's faith. It lives inside the heart, not inside the brain. Belief is a mind thing. Sure I believe. Here's the reasons why. But faith requires no proof, no list of reasons. Faith is not something you argue with. It's simply there, like the wind. All you have to do is stand up and claim it.

         My monumental realization, thanks to Peace, was that faith is simply faith. You don't have to be intelligent to possess it. You don't have to be literate or articulate. It doesn't matter how long you didn't have it or how long you didn't want it. Once you realize it's available to every human being on the face of this earth, no matter who they are or what they've done, it's well, quite amazing. I knew then and there that I possessed as much glorious faith as Peace Pilgrim himself. And I didn't have to give away my favorite dishes and head out, penniless, across the desert. Faith is mine. It's simply a matter of breathing it in.

         Ever since that moment of divine understanding, things have been a bit easier. When I get worried about something, I remind myself I don't have to figure it out or understand it. I can just close my eyes, take a deep breath and leap into that eternal wellspring. And if the results don't turn out the way my eager little mind predicted, well, that's just more reason to leap even higher. Faith has nothing to do with proof and results. Faith is lying down on a bed of grace that has always been there and always will be there. Faith in the Divine Mystery, faith in the Eternal Intelligence of All Life, faith in my future, faith in my present, faith in the Presence that lives within everyone. 

         Pretty amazing, this faith stuff. Try it. The leap may seem awfully scary at first but I promise you, it offers untold rewards. Like the old French saying goes:

                  Come to the cliff, he said.

                  They said, we are afraid.

                  Come to the cliff, he said.

                  They came.

                  He pushed them.

                  And they flew.