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Breathe in Place
Breathe In Place explores how the practice of pilgrimage can help young people find purpose, resilience and hope in a world that seeks to keep them from hard histories and deny them stories of justice. Through conversations with pastors, educators, youth workers, and scholars, the podcast invites listeners to imagine new ways of guiding emerging generations to engage history, place, and story with courage and meaning.
Breathe In Place is a podcast brought to you by the Pilgrimage Innovation Hub at Point Loma Nazarene University. Follow us on Instagram @pilgrimageinnovationhub or visit our website: https://www.pointloma.edu/pilgrimage-innovation-hub.
Breathe in Place
Pilgrimage as a Family Practice w/ Tricia Elisara
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In this episode of Breathe In Place, Montague Williams speaks with Tricia Elisara about family, memory, and what it means to be rooted in a place over time.
Tricia is an educator and community leader whose work has centered on environmental stewardship, place-based learning, and formation through everyday life. Alongside her husband Chris, she co-founded the Creation Care Study Program and has helped lead school garden and farm-to-school initiatives in her local community.
They discuss a unique family practice she leads each year on her children’s birthdays, retracing the route to the hospital where they were born as a way of remembering and telling their story together in an embodied way. The conversation explores how these kinds of practices shape family life, and how meaning is formed through the ordinary rhythms that teach us how to belong.
Welcome back to Breathe in Place, a podcast about how the practice of pilgrimage can help young people find purpose, resilience, hope, and meaning in a complex and confusing world. I'm your host, Monteg Williams. Birthdays come with rituals. It can be cake and candles, it can be visiting a particular restaurant, it can be a parent retelling the story of their child entering the world. Today's guest turns her family's birthday tradition into an annual pilgrimage. Her name is Trisha Elisara, and each year on her children's birthdays, she and her husband Chris retrace the route to the hospital where each of their children were born, telling the story of that day to their kids as they go and meeting people along the way. It's a fascinating and embodied act of remembering that quietly shapes how a family understands belonging. That same attentiveness to place runs through Trisha's work. She spent years exploring what it means to live responsibly in a particular community, especially as it pertains to the environment. In her writing and public work, she's returned again and again to the question of what it means to root a family in a place and how pilgrimage can create a family culture rooted in sacred rhythms, places, and commitments. Alongside her husband Chris, she co-founded the Creation Care Study Program and has helped lead school, garden, and farm-to-school initiatives in her local district, all grounded in a commitment to the land, to schools, and to the slow work of community formation. In this conversation, we talk about the birthday pilgrimage, but we also talk about families and formation, about staying rooted in a place over time, and about how meaning is often made not only in singular moments, but in the repeated practices that quietly teach us how to belong. Here's my conversation with Trisha Elisara.
SPEAKER_00We believe that the good life is living in a place with our neighbors, engaging that life with the gifts that we have to bring. So, what what's the intersection of my gifts and my experience with this place that I'm living? Probably everything we've ever done comes out of the intersection, which is not a new idea. This whole idea of you know the world's greatest need, your greatest joy, and where those two things intersect.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me. This conversation will be a very unique one compared to some of the others that we've had on this show so far, uh, partly because what you bring is a creative leadership to community and family. And I hope we really dive in and hear about this. And what I mean by creative leadership is that as I've looked at the various things you've been a part of, the projects you've initiated, led, and even the way you engage family, it seems like you are in this continual discernment to develop new things to accomplish particular goals you have in mind. What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00I like that. I that that tracks with how we have approached life.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Now, when you say we have approached life, I know that you and your family, you moved to Julian, California, and that in itself is a journey. Could you tell us a little bit about your move there and what life was like there for you?
SPEAKER_00My husband and I founded a study abroad program in Central America and New Zealand, and it focuses on environmental stewardship. It draws students from Christian colleges and universities that want to integrate faith in science. And so we were talking a lot in our program. One of our courses is sustainable community development, but we were living abroad and moving around a lot. And so we really started to long for a place to root in when we weren't abroad and we weren't doing the study abroad program. And a variety of factors led us to Julian, where we have long-standing friends. And um, it's a longer story, but we ended up renting and then buying a house together and a property and fashioning it as an intentional Christian community and then raising our children in a small town in San Diego County.
SPEAKER_01So you and your husband, Chris, you started this program for students to engage faith in science. Uh could you just share a little bit more about that? Because I do know that can be a difficult thing for some communities to connect dots there. I mean, what kind of scientific exploration is a part of this?
SPEAKER_00So within the Christian colleges and universities, this um fills a hole in that many students that are biology majors or chemistry majors are not able to go abroad because they have so many classes that they need to do on campus. And yet we believe deeply in the study abroad program, the holistic education, living in another country, studying another country. Um and so this program allows science majors, although they're not all science majors, to go abroad and do courses that connect their faith with science. So they do a theology course, they do biology courses, and then they do sustainable community development courses. So it's a 16-unit semester. Sometimes they do literature and we travel together and we live in community life together and they engage the culture. So it's a very holistic program, but it allows students on lots of different levels, academic and community, to um to integrate their faith with science.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell And then you wanted a home base. So you planted your family in Julian, California. And there it seems like you also engaged this intersection of faith and science as you started this kit for school parties. Could you share a little bit about that? Aaron Powell Sure.
SPEAKER_00My son was in my older son was in second grade. And um, you know, there are a lot of classroom parties for birthdays and holidays.
SPEAKER_01I definitely know that.
SPEAKER_00And I could see my future. I could see, you know, 12 years of um bringing disposable goods to soccer games and uh classroom parties. And um, and I just started calculating the waste that that was gonna generate. So um I would bring my ceramic dishes and my glass glasses to the second grade, you know, class party. Uh-huh. And then I thought I should kind of think through like a lightweight version of this where there's a box and there's plate, a full set of plates, cups, spoons, and forks that could be carried away, washed, and reset for the next party. And so I did that with my own plates. My husband saw a little ad for a contest that was being sponsored by National Geographic and Cenships called like something like your green idea. And Chris said, Well, you're already doing this. You should write this up and submit it. And as it turned out, there were five winners, and I was one of the winners. So I received a $20,000 grant to develop the idea. So at that point, I, you know, spoke with manufacturers about plates and I investigated, you know, environmental products rather than just my home kitchen plates and um and hired a designer for a logo and created a whole kit.
SPEAKER_01This sounds like something you'd see on Shark Tank.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And it was more money than I needed to make a kit for each classroom at Julian Elementary. So when I wrote the grant with you know, all of like 15 minutes, I wrote this little idea and uploaded some photos of kids washing dishes in the staff room. Um I I suggested that it that I make 100 kits for 100 schools in San Diego County and that I deliver them. And and I did that. Um, and many of those schools wanted me to not only deliver the kit, but do a talk about sustainability and single-use items and how to, you know.
SPEAKER_01So in some ways, you allowed this place where your family now makes life happen when you're not doing this faith in science travel abroad program. Right. Now this home base becomes a place to really engage faith in light of scientific understanding, environmental care.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we we we started off with this very academic program that still runs today. Um, but then, like I said, we were just longing for a hometown and a place to like make these ideas real. And so this was one example of like, I'm just, you know, the room mom for second grade class, but bringing my values about environmental stewardship to just an ordinary s neighborhood school. And this was kind of the idea that I had, and then it took on a life of its own.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell It seems like in some ways you allowed the place to become a part of you.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And you wrote this essay that was in the This Is Our City um contest. And even right there, it seems to me that you all you didn't just move in, but you allowed the place to move in your family.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah. That is our that's our way of being in the world. So when we moved to Julian, you know, we wanted to send our kids to the public neighborhood school and be involved there and in the sports program and in the library and in the local church and um the town events and the music scene. Um we this is this is how we how we live in the world is engaging the place that we are. So Tell me a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_01I mean, and we are going to talk about this particular birthday pilgrimage practice, but before we get there, I you know, you're talking about your family being a certain way in the world.
SPEAKER_00Why because of deeply held values informed by Christian faith. And it's one thing to hold a value in your mind, but at some point it's gotta play out in the world. So we um we believe that the good life is is living in a place with our neighbors um and engaging that life with the gifts that we have to bring. So what what's the intersection of my gifts and my experience with this place that I'm living? And I think probably everything we've ever done comes out of the intersection, which is not a new idea, this whole idea of you know the world's greatest need, your greatest joy, and when those two things intersect.
SPEAKER_01Sure. But you know, so much of Christian a lot of talk about Christian faith seems to assume the goal is to get away from the place you're in, to escape the place you're in, to, you know, find uh a ticket to heaven, to to be able to, you know, reject the place you're in. But the way you're talking about it sounds I mean, ultimately more Christian, but it doesn't mean it's more common. You know, this is this is not a common way of talking about Christian faith, where you are so committed to Christ that you seek to live in the world as Christ lived in the world, you know, to to really dig in, dive in. Um when you when you try to talk about this with your family and upbringing, is this something you would explain? Is this something you and and Chris would explain to your kids, or is this something they more caught by the way you lived or both?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think kids you know, every kid only has their experience. You know, so I think when like my son Ethan went to college, you know, there were a lot of phone calls home his freshman year going, Oh, is that why we did that? Or he'd come home and he'd be in the garage and he would see a book on a shelf and go, You guys were reading that? Like that was assigned to me this year. You know, I didn't know that was on our bookshelf in the garage. So I think all kids, you know, there's a point at which they look back at what was just the the water they swam in and and recognize what was driving that from their parents' perspective. They're not expected to necessarily know that, right? They're just children. So um I think sometimes, you know, growing up when we would make choices, you know, one of my favorite things to say to the kids was this is what it means to be an LSR. Like um, that's just that's just what comes with the package. It, this is how we do it. And other things I think have come to them more slowly as they've grown and developed and realized, oh, that's why. That's why we were doing that.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00I think that family culture, building family culture is really important. And I think we've we've valued that a lot. That when, you know, everything has a culture and a language and norms and expectations and celebrations. And I think that's true at the family level. And so I've had people say, like, you guys, it's very obvious that you have invested in family culture.
SPEAKER_01And so And that practicing justice in your community toward people, but also justice for the environment. This is part of your family culture.
SPEAKER_00Right. Right. And there was a time at which there was a very big political issue in our town that split the town in half, and we took a very strong stand on one side of it. And we were going to school board meetings and writing letters and organizing for a vote that was going to come down in our town. And um and Ethan was a part of that. And at what age? He was in like third grade. Okay. Yeah. And um I remember thinking, uh I don't remember going to a school board meeting when I was in third grade. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Especially on a political issue.
SPEAKER_00Right. And and yet, you know, he and he knew who was on our school board and he knew how many votes we needed to pass this thing. And and it was relevant to children in our community because it was about it was about a um an issue in the community that was um that affected children. So yeah, I think we we just that's what we were doing. That's what our kids were doing, and that just became part of their, you know, their worldview. Well, okay.
SPEAKER_01So every year for a certain season of their lives, you did this birthday pilgrimage, and um it involved traveling to a hospital on their birthdays. Now, I'm not gonna give this all away. I'm so excited to hear you talk about this.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Sure. We um have a friend who a few months before our first son was born, had a baby who went directly to the NICU and and is fine, was fine, but had a scary, you know, week in the NICU. And that family decided on his birthday to go to the NICU and give a gift to, I think, a baby that was in the NICU to the family. Um, and I thought, oh, that's a cool idea. So our first uh um son was born a couple months later. And, you know, again, best practices, we kind of iterated that a little bit. So um we lived in Julian and our children were born in Poway. So that's a one-hour trip down the mountain um to Palmerado Hospital. So we came up with this idea of visiting the hospital on their birthdays. So on March 8th, and then again on December 28th, we'd pile in the car and we would retrace the route to Pomerado Hospital and we would tell the story of their the day that they were born. You know?
SPEAKER_01Every year, you would retell the story of the day they were born.
SPEAKER_00In the car, on the way to the hospital. Okay. So our son was first son was born in 2000. So, you know, as we're passing through Ramona, we're like, and then, you know, we had a video to return 2000.
SPEAKER_01Blockbuster?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's so we pulled over here and just, you know, at the whatever the video store, and we returned a video, and then we got back in the car and it was snowing. And um so we'd sort of tell every year we'd tell the story, and then we'd get to the hospital. And with our we did two different things with our older son, we um made big baskets of um gifts. So it was like one basket, but we'd have diapers and clothes and lotion and shampoo and things like that. And when he was one, we delivered one basket. When he was two, we delivered two. Oh, wow. And we did it till he was 10. So our last year, we, you know, we had to borrow the little hospital cart and pile up our 10 baskets and wheel them up to the maternity floor. And then we would go to the maternity floor and say hi to the nurses and say that this is our son's birthday. And we would like these um gifts delivered to kids born today, also on March 8th. And um, we had a little note attached saying that, you know, um we are so grateful for our son's life. And you, you're, you know, your child was born on the same day. And so we're sharing in your joy by connecting with you. And we signed it just a family from Julian. So we didn't stay very long. We would take a picture with the baskets every year. And then our second son, Elliot, we had a little bit of a long journey to his birth. So saw a lot of nurses and doctors along the way. So um, on his birthday, we would always deliver a big nurse's basket. So it would have Julian apple pie and magazines and snacks and lip balms and tea bags. And so every year we a nurse's basket. Yeah, to the nursing staff. Oh, wow. Yeah. So that we did a little differently with him. So we would just leave that for the nurses, with just overflowing with little things that they could enjoy to um, you know, be grateful for all the great nursing that we had received on our way to our second child.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So for both uh Ethan and Elliot, they hear their birth stories or about the day of their birth, um, and the little intricate details um that a child could hear and understand. And they make their way to the hospital for Ethan, he's giving away baskets for other children. For Elliot, he's giving baskets to nurses. And Ethan Who's older? How much older? About five years. Five years older. So he also has memory of giving gifts to children, and he can see the difference of what this is.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01Has he ever pointed that out? Noted the difference?
SPEAKER_00Not really, but those they did we did it 10 years for Ethan, 10 for Elliot. So their their times overlapped. Okay. So, no, I think to them it was basically the same ritual, this thing we do on the birthdays, and we drop off gifts and we get out of there, and um we do it as an act of gratitude. I mean, I think pilgrimage, that's one of the reasons people do pilgrimages, right? Is an act of gratitude. So this was clearly an act of thankfulness that we were gifted with these two amazing boys. Um, but it was also this idea, you know, kids, especially when they're young and birthdays are very, I mean, in in the best way possible about them. And they're getting a lot of things and attention's all on them. But, you know, this was a way to sort of extend the gratitude and help them to see, like, hey, let's connect with other families today and give like this little act of generosity, in addition to all the things that you're gonna be receiving on your birthday.
SPEAKER_01And it's so interesting because the American culture of birthdays is that today you are the center of the universe. And this doesn't say you're not important. It doesn't say today we don't care about you. It's saying we care about you. But you exist in the midst of community with other people. Right. We're not gonna trick you for a day and make you feel like the best day of your life is when you're the center of the universe.
SPEAKER_00Right. I think it's a both end because uh we, you know, we did big birthdays. Okay. Yeah. Creative, big, wonderful birthdays. And we did this outward-looking practice of being mindful that there are other kids born this day, and we can share our joy by sharing joy with these other families. I just saw um or listened to Rick Steves. He did a podcast about how he got involved in the travel industry and he took a trip to Europe with his family when he was, I think, 17. And he said he remembered just feeling so loved by his parents that they had, you know, made this trip possible. And I think he was in Norway and um he was in a park and he was feeling very loved, but he was looking at all these families and thinking, all these kids are as equally lovable and loved as I am. The world is so big. And um, I don't know, I think that kind of connects.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So have you heard your children talk about this practice at all? Have you asked them about it?
SPEAKER_00I asked Ethan in anticipation of this podcast.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And he said, I have to think about it because again, you know, he he said, Yeah, I just I I know that's something we always did, and I really haven't thought about it very much. Which was interesting because then we had a conversation and I was able to make explicit well, just for the record, you probably know this intuitively, but this is why we did this. And so we had a great conversation about it. How old is he?
SPEAKER_01Twenty-five. He's twenty five. So at twenty-five, he looks back at this thing he did growing up and he says, I never really thought about why, it's just what we did.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When you said that you gave him a heads up, like, well, this is why we did it. Obviously, you know, you're not trying to pull anything out of him at this point. But did you hear anything from him that gave you some insight into the impact of this practice?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's just part of his story. I I think he he gets it, you know, now as an adult. Like, oh, I could see why they would do that. But again, you know, when you're a kid, you don't know that uh this isn't common. In fact, an interesting story. We we would usually um leave the baskets and then go pretty quickly. But one year we we we we gave the baskets and the nurse took it straight down to a room where there was a baby just a couple years old and was able to come back to us and say, Oh, I just delivered one, which usually we didn't hear any feedback.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And it was a family that had only been in the States um from another country for a couple of weeks. And I don't know why they were here, um, but had the baby here. And the family said, Um, what an amazing American tradition that you like.
SPEAKER_02Nope.
SPEAKER_00And how wonderful. And then the nurse said, I had to tell them, like, no, this is kind of a one-off. This isn't really part. This is, you know. But how would you know?
SPEAKER_01Right. I see what you're saying, you know, for that family. This is this is their experience. Yeah. And for your children, it's just part of their formation. Okay. So let me ask you this. Have you I g I mean, I guess this is just part of your family culture. So maybe you've not done this, but have you seen things where you could say perhaps this has something to do with that kind of formation?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think both, I I don't know if this is exactly what you're asking, but I think both of our children are very intentional in the way they make choices and the way they craft their lives. And um I think they're both very creative in their own ways about what they're going to do with their time here on earth. So I think I think that's fed into that for sure. They've Chris and I for, you know, for better or for worse, we've most of the things that we've done have been um creative and a little off script where we have you know looked at the world. We've starting with our values and then looked at the world and seen what was missing or what could be improved and what we could potentially bring to it, and then made something. So I think that is something they've definitely internalized that that that's how it works. How else would it work?
SPEAKER_01All right. So, you know, I heard about this story um kind of randomly one day at an event, and which is how I thought, wow, you've got to come on this podcast and talk about this. But have you shared it with other people? Do you know if anyone else has taken on anything like that? Have you wondered about that?
SPEAKER_00I have wondered about it. I don't know. Um, but I have thought that if I had received a basket with a little note on it, I probably would have saved the note and put it in the baby book. So there's a good chance there's, you know, dozens and dozens of kids out in San Diego that maybe have our little note in their baby book, and that's fun to think about. But I think that's just how creativity works. It's wonderful. You don't know. You have no idea.
SPEAKER_01You have no idea.
SPEAKER_00And um just the passing on of a best practice, and maybe someone's doing something similar or completely different, but that's not the point.
unknownAaron Powell Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know, even if someone doesn't have a baby book with the thing in there, it's still they still have the story. They still have the story.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01It's still part of their story.
SPEAKER_00Right. Because it's unexpected, right? Yeah. You're there with your newborn, and it's certainly not the main story the newborn is, but just that you leave the hospital with some token of some other family that's just wishing you well and excited for you because we remember. In fact, we remember today because our our child was born today. So it's very easy for us to authentically enjoy this moment with you.
SPEAKER_01Are you saying your child was born today?
SPEAKER_00Well, no, like on the day of delivery, you know. So we didn't have to we didn't have to, you know create that feeling. We already felt it, you know, I'm sure, you know, on your kids' birthdays. It's like a day of wonder where you think, wow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I definitely think about various details around the birth of my children. Sure. You know, if someone stopped by with a meal, I still remember that. Conversations I had with other fathers in this uh little area, you know, as we were waiting for some things, you know, in the midst of our own story there. But um I remember those conversations very, very well. If someone came by with a basket, that would definitely be part of our family's story. So um yeah, it's I'm sure it's meaningful for a good amount of people out there. Now I know that you continue, you've continued to pour into your children with this creative leadership, trying to help them live an intentional life and embodying a particular kind of intentionality. And I know that you do this through postcards. Do you mind sharing a little bit about this?
SPEAKER_00Sure. I love telling this story. So um when my son Ethan went to college, we did the parent orientation. And I went to a student life workshop and there was a panel of students, and parents were asking students different things about campus life. And I had this burning question, which is do students still like mail? Because um I think Yeah, that was huge in college.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I didn't know if students still liked mail. Like if they're constantly in contact with their parents by text or calling, like, does mail and the students on this panel were like, oh yeah, oh yeah, we love mail.
SPEAKER_01We love mail. As long as it's not an Amazon package.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, like a handwritten, oh my gosh, yes, we love mail. And I had heard a story, I think maybe on public radio, about a father whose daughter went abroad for a period of time and he wrote her a letter every day. And those two ideas kind of came together in my mind. And I thought, well, I'm not really a care package person, too much work, you know, buying stuff, collecting it. And I don't you're not gonna write a letter every day, but what about a postcard? A postcard is so simple. It's just one thought. Um and so I, in that moment, I pledged to send my son a postcard every day of his undergraduate education. So on his graduation day, um, my gift to him was this sort of archive linen archival box that was empty. So when he opened that up on graduation day, he said, Oh, I know what this is for. And he sort of put in all the postcards. And I thought, wow, there it is. There's your mom. Like some days, and people say, like, well, how do you how did you think of something to say every day? And I was like, it's just a postcard. So it could be a quote or it could be a memory or a little story from home, a little dispatch from the from the uh, you know, from Julian. Um it could just it could be small, but it was sort of I thought of it as like a daily office, like a way of every single day connecting and um in just a small way.
SPEAKER_01When you say daily office, you mean like a prayer practice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and and knowing that every single day, and they don't always check their mail. Sometimes yesterday, Elliot said he opened his box and he had seven postcards waiting for him. Um so they don't necessarily check their mail every day. But um, you know, just these little things that this is your mom's wisdom, this is her care, these are your memories. Sometimes I would be like going through like an old report, some a box of old stuff, and I'd find the report card and I'd cut it out and make a postcard out of it. Wow. So I was also sort of sending them like family memorabilia type stuff. Um, because it's a lot of postcards. So I was buying them everywhere we went and thrift stores, and people started giving me their postcards. I started making them. I started making them out of like their old artwork and just because I needed a a big volume of them. So my son graduated, and now my second son is in his sophomore year, and I'm obviously doing it for him.
SPEAKER_01He just got seven postcards. He just got seven posts. It just flew out of his mailbox while he's with his friends. And he's like, Do you think he was embarrassed by this? Or do you think he was like, look how awesome my mom is?
SPEAKER_00Um well, it interestingly, with Ethan, the first one. Um, I think a part of like when you write a letter, I think it sort of begs a response. Someone writes you a long letter and you feel like you should, but a postcard doesn't. And people would say, Well, did they write back? And I'd say, it's not really the point. Um, this is just like, I'm here, little bits of wisdom, you know, I'm thinking of you every day. And it just became this little thing. So I didn't know how Ethan would receive it, but um when we visited him in um his freshman year, he had been there maybe like three or four months. And it was the first time we saw his room since we moved him in. When I walked into his dorm room, he had sort of wallpapered his wall with them. With the message out, which was interesting. I thought they would have been so sort of I stopped dead in my trucks. I had no idea he was doing this, but he was just sort of No, was he like, I'm so exhausted.
SPEAKER_01Last night I was up working on this project all night. I had all my friends in here doing something to my dorm room. Was it like that? Or you think he really No, he was putting them up every day or once a week, putting the seven up.
SPEAKER_00It looked cool. It was just this big wall of script. Wow. And so that tells me that he wasn't embarrassed by it. He thought it was cool. Yeah. And then, you know, then there his sophomore year, I remember visiting and meeting some of his friends. And oh, oh, you're the one that writes the postcards. Will you send me a postcard? So I'd say, okay, sure. So then I'd go home and I'd send postcards to all of the friends, you know. And then when he started dating his now wife, he said that it was she worked in admissions. So he'd go to his box and you'd get the postcards, and then he'd walk in and see her, and they'd go out in the lawn and they would read them together.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Um, I think when they were dating. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00And um so anyway, I think he he really enjoyed it. And I think Elliot the same. He he really likes getting them. A funny thing is that um since Elliot started school, they've taken out the individual post office boxes, which is very sad to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh, out of the campus? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And replaced them with lockers. And so, you know, whereas in the past you had a key and a number, and that was your little box, and it'd be stuffed full of postcards. That doesn't exist any longer. So during orientation with Elliot, someone said they're no longer individualized posts because kids really don't get that much mail, but they do get a lot of packages. So they said the way it works now is every time they get a piece of mail, they're gonna get a ding. And I thought this is gonna be a problem. So I went up to and I talked, I went to the post office. I say, Hey, here's the deal. I have this thing and my I'm gonna send a postcard every day. And so I, you know, maybe you could kind of set them aside and like ding him like every couple days. Cause I thought this is gonna get really annoying. And I asked Elliot, like, oh, is that gonna bug you getting a a text message every time you get a piece of mail? And he's like, No, not a problem. But Wow. No, I think they do just like, oh, you know, I think there is a little section where they just keep them.
SPEAKER_01I mean, your your boys probably got more mail in college than any of their friends. I mean, that's that's gotta be the a fact.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell For sure. And what's so interesting is when people hear about it, they're they say, every day? That's oh my gosh, every day. But it's that thing of like, it's so small. The only thing that's impressive about it is that it that these little things accumulate.
SPEAKER_01Right. Actually, what's really impressive is that they kept them.
SPEAKER_00And they kept them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. That's that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's part of that intentionality that you're talking about. That part of their formation was to be intentional about how they engage life and to take moments to recognize when something is sacred. Yeah, wow. Now with these postcards, uh they likely track time. And so when your sons look back at the postcards, they must show moments and time on their own journey through college.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Could you share a bit about that?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So um I didn't date Ethan's postcards, but you know, I when Elliot's time came, I started dating them so that he could organize them perfectly. But um, yeah, you can there are postcards that say, you know, today we got COVID for the first time or reference a political moment that I'm sure, you know, in 50 years people look back and go, ooh, look at that. Just like I would if I looked back at, you know, today the allies invaded, you know. Um the, you know, history.
SPEAKER_01So your postcards are kind of like a family journal.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell A little bit of a family journal. Yeah. And they're also recollections, things that maybe they've forgotten. They're bits of advice that mom just slipped in, you know, some ideas about cleaning out your dorm room at the end of the semester. There are there are things that I'm learning. So I if I'm if I've jot if I've um you know jotted down a quote during the week, that quote might make it onto it. So it's also a progression of who their mother is and who she's becoming that she hasn't stopped becoming. And so I'm also modeling this lifelong learning and spiritual development. But again, that sounds so heavy-handed. It's it it again, in small chunks, it's just life.
SPEAKER_01You know, I think something else that's so interesting about this, and you said you don't know. If someone asked you, well, what if they don't write back? And you say, that's not the point. You know, that makes this quite different than let's say being a helicopter parent. You know, it's not, it doesn't sound like you're saying, I need to know everything that's happening at every moment. It sounds more like I need you to know that we're here. Yeah. And we are thinking about you. Yeah. We're praying for you. Yes. We wonder about you. Yeah. And we're happy you're where you are. We're gonna send this to where you are.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. Yeah. And there are there are a couple of postcards that are like, um, hi, slow news day. Love you. And and others that are, you know, maybe I just did a um a four-part postcard where there was this great long passage. It was like a Lord of the Rings thing. And it was so long that, you know, I made got four postcards out of it, but read together. They got this awesome little passage that I wanted them to read. Um, so yeah, it I've described it as a little conveyor belt of just little notes dropping off the thing every day, just saying, You're loved, we're here. You know, I'm capturing some of your story for you in a really small little format that over four years is gonna become this catalog of your life in our family. Yeah, a journal, so to speak. For their college students, but in a little tiny way, you know? And so it's just the consistency and the length of it that make it this big project. Because on a daily, it's it's I wrote one this morning before I came that I was gonna be doing this podcast, you know.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I um I know that you are now in escondito as well as Julian. You're kind of in both worlds a bit. So uh after letting Julian become a a place that is a part of you, you're now welcoming another place that's a part of you. How how how do you do that?
SPEAKER_00Um it's been very fun. We the reason for stretching yourself between two places is that Elliot went to high school in Escondito. And so um we rooted ourselves in Escondito for his high school years. Um, and now he's away. So technically, we could let go of Escondito and just be full-time in Julian, but we've kind of come to love Escondido. And uh now I'm teaching in Escondito and we go to church in Escondito. And um again, living your values. Um, Julian has so many wonderful benefits. It's truly our home, but convenience is not one of those values. And, you know, it's a one-hour trip to Costco Trader Joe's and Julian people, you know, they they shop less and they think very strategically about their trips down the hill. Um, so it's not a particularly convenient place to grow up or to live for 20 plus years. So being in Escondido um has been kind of delightful, being close to the city. And um we for the first time in our lives, we live in a walkable neighborhood. So that's kind of a a dream to walk out our front door to our church. Walk out our front door to Main Street. Elliot walked to school for four years. Um so yeah, that's been just delightful new experience, but also in line with our values.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell So let me ask you this. You know, one of the things that we are interested in learning about is how pilgrimage practices, this practice of you could say sacred travel, um, you could say engaging place meaningfully. But these pilgrimage practices we're very interested in talking about, learning about, sharing about how they can help young people discern purpose and hope, resilience uh in a complex and confusing world. And you know, somebody could be listening to this and think, I want to I want to implement this birthday pilgrimage into my family's life. That that's a possibility. But someone could also just be thinking, I want to do something creative like that, but I don't really know where to start. Like, how do I pay attention to my family's story, the context that I'm in, and discern something meaningful, tangible, doable that's a pilgrimage practice with my family. Where do you think people could start? And would you happen to have a suggestion of maybe something you would do or you you've thought of, maybe you haven't done it yet?
SPEAKER_00Or yeah. Yeah. I think part of it is first knowing where you are. So learning where you are and paying attention and being engaged. A lot of times people say, like, gosh, you guys do all these interesting things. Like, how do you find out about them? And I'm like, We we read, uh, we scan bulletin boards, we read our local newspaper, we talk to our neighbors. You know, I think part of it is just engaging your place. Where do I live and what's unique about this place? And um just being sort of a cultural anthropologist. Um, what is what is the culture of this place? And then the discernment piece is, you know, what am I uniquely equipped to do? What do I care about? There's an indigo girl song that I love. I think it's in if you have a care in the world. You have a gift to bring. So what do you care about? Like, and what do you care about? What are your gifts? What's your background? What's your experience? And where where could that fit here? You know, now that you've become an astute observer of where you live and what the needs are and what the strengths are and what the challenges are, what is it that you bring? So this a good example was when we were in Julian, we were just, you know, our kids were just in public school and we were doing academic study abroad programs, teaching environmental stewardship. Um, and I remember as a young parent, as kindergartners, I thought, I don't really want to volunteer for the Halloween carnival. It doesn't really do anything for me. And I definitely don't want to, you know, do the fundraiser, the spelling bee fundraiser. But what's that space on campus over there? Is that being used? Could we put in a school garden? And so that launched me into like 10 years of building a school garden and outdoor classroom with similarly minded moms that kind of became our thing for a solid decade. So that was kind of a good example of like, I already care about climate change. I care about healthy eating, I hear, I care about people being connected to their food on these big levels, macro levels, I understand, academically. But then I find myself in this, you know, neighborhood school that's got space for a school garden. And so that was sort of that sweet spot of like, I could do that. I could do a lot of things here. But like what where where do I fit?
SPEAKER_01So what do you care about? Like where where am I?
SPEAKER_00Where am I?
SPEAKER_01What do I care about? Yeah. What do I bring?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And actually I heard something in your story about the birthday pilgrimage that I feel like is a part of it. Maybe it's so much part of it that you didn't just name it, but also um, where's my gratitude? Because in both of those stories, both of those pilgrimages for both of your sons, it's who how you pack those baskets, who you give them to, it's tied to a deep sense of gratitude. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And joy. When you when you said earlier about um you know, Pete, maybe some people thinking like, oh, the place we live doesn't matter. We're just here temporarily, we're bound for glory, I believe. But when you said that, the thing that popped into my mind was there's so much uh joy that is forfeited by that way of thinking.
SPEAKER_01Joy in the here and now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're gonna miss this. Like what you could do and the the connections you could make, the things you could create, you're gonna forfeit that joy. So, and we can talk about it in terms of obligation and just integrity in terms of you know, uh aligning your values with your actions. But there's also like this just pure joy gratitude piece of what could happen. And I think we look at the things that we've done in our lives and the and yeah, there's a lot of joy and thankfulness.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you so much for being here on Breathe in Place. Uh, Trisha, it has been a great conversation.
SPEAKER_00Thanks so much for having me. I've really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_01Thanks again. You've been listening to Breathe in Place, a podcast brought to you by the Pilgrimage Innovation Hub. This podcast is made possible by generous support from the Lily Endowment, narrative production by Guimel Sabingo, technical production by Danny Martinez, and project coordination and guest booking by Wanda Gailey. Opening music by chaos. If you have any questions or comments about today's episode, we'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at pilgrimage at pointloma.edu or message us on Instagram at Pilgrimage Innovation Hub. I'm your host, Montag Williams. Thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next week.