Action After Pilgrimage

Today is St. Aiden's Day. Three months ago tomorrow, our group arrived on Lindisfarne. It seems like a good time to share this reflection on action.

The sense of ultimacy generated by a good pilgrimage can draw us into the joy of feeling really alive back home in our own communities. Such a completed journey serves as an invitation to a greater awareness of our own spiritual unfolding, and we continue onward with fresh views of God’s presence and provision. 

To some extent. 

For a while.

But then what?

There are some paths to pursue from there, paths illuminated by the radiance of those pilgrimage experiences. 

To get started, we need not be in a hurry to let our pilgrimage go. Medieval pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, or St. David’s would have taken a more sustained effort than ours, and that effort would have shaped pilgrims in ways that profoundly affected the whole person. Those journeys were a matter of months, not weeks, and we would do well to adopt a similar pace in processing ours if we are truly to be transformed by it.  

As we take that time, we can consider our personal individual paths first. Many pilgrims carry specific questions on their journeys, and those questions can lead to new practices, as well as to the enrichment of familiar practices, back home. If being pilgrims has stirred our creativity, that newness and enrichment might also guide us in making something new. Further, the clarified perspective that sometimes comes with pilgrimage can open us to the discernment, calling, and courage we need for whatever our next steps might be. 

Beyond ourselves, we have opportunities to keep the discussions of pilgrim days going. Many times, such journeys provide new topics and new partners with whom to consider them. In choosing to continue those conversations, we foster a greater fullness in relationships both old and new. But if that feels like too much, we can at least connect with our fellow pilgrims sometimes in passing over shared memories of moving experiences that are now common points of reference. 

As our view broadens over the weeks and months, we should look for our understandings of our time away to shift and settle. The things that impressed us most while we were traveling might turn out not to be so significant, and we might even be amazed to discover that our least favorite aspects were carrying the most important messages for us.

Past all of this, we will go through times when it seems like the inspiration of our pilgrimage has run out and our worlds have become inundated by the humdrum. I believe those are the very moments we most need to stay true to the fruits of Spirit that were so sweet on our journey and to adopt an outlook that sees all of life as a pilgrimage. 

Thoughts After Pilgrimage

To go on pilgrimage is to engage a vision of God. It is a mystical striving to see ourselves traveling from/to/for/with/about the transcendent. 

But what do we make of such experiences once we return to our everyday lives?

As a journey takes time, pilgrimage invites us to consider various modes for processing time. Pilgrimage is a sustained engagement with sacred time, but it is not the only way of functioning in that mode. Regular participation in corporate worship is the most familiar way, and in our sabbaths, we pause something of our mundane concerns and return to the metanarrative of our tradition. Retreat is another way of infusing our perception of time with a sense of sacredness and is often defined by an intentional quieting to listen for "the heartbeat of God." Pilgrimage is distinct from worship and retreat as it typically incorporates physical travel to move us spiritually. 

As we do that traveling with others, we become mindful of the uniqueness of each pilgrim receiving the divine through their own spirituality and history. We understand our shared journey in ways distinct to our own conditioning while our understandings of ourselves are challenged by traveling together.

As we return from pilgrimage, we have many stories to tell, and we go through a process with those stories that is as old as inspiration itself. We are fortunate to have lived the very context of the stories. We were present for all the details, and pilgrimage provides the added benefit of being able to compare our memories with those of fellow pilgrims. Beyond those rich resources of first-hand knowledge, we provide interpretation as we tell our stories. We know what was most meaningful to us and we continue to track that meaning as it develops in our spirits. Finally, we have opportunities to apply that meaningfulness. As we pursue those opportunities, we find ourselves following the dictum of Father Gildas of Caldey Abbey: "What matters most is what we individually make" of the ways God has come to us. 

What forms might that making take in the weeks and months following a pilgrimage? 

Sensitive consideration is needed to answer this question. This is due in no small part to the reality that the thin places visited on such a journey are famously "homes for pilgrims" meaning people of a pilgrim orientation find a welcoming freshness in them. Not everyone resonates with this phenomenon, and its great purity can seem impossibly far from our everyday lives. So it is that our usual settings are the places most in need of the perspectives of pilgrims. 

Perhaps our best hope going forward is to patiently seek a gentle integration of the gifts of those wonderful times wherever we find ourselves. To do so, we might need to navigate undercurrents of disappointment or even despair. Maybe we have failed to follow through on possibilities of a new way of life we glimpsed on pilgrimage, but the effects of our journey are still within us. Such holy stirrings survive whether we nourish or neglect them, and often, it simply takes more time than we imagine to discover all that these urgings might become. 

A Pilgrim Tour

The following is a little tour of Durham Cathedral I gave our group of pilgrims. The purpose was to get oriented in this tremendous space so that each participant might form a clear idea of how they wanted to spend the limited free time they had there. (We had driven from Lindisfarne and needed to beat the tides coming and going, so we were on a bit of a schedule!) 

Perhaps this post can serve as a meditation whether or not readers are able to visit Durham.  

1. Arrival, Cloister, and Ambulatory

These are pilgrim spaces created to provide shelter and access for others who, like us, traveled from afar to the Cathedral in a sense of devotion. 

Drawn into the spirit of Cuthbert, we prayerfully gather in awe and anticipation.

2. The Space Itself

From the outside: Romanesque, rounded, a massive fortification - the most monumental Norman edifice we know. 

Inside, "as big as all outdoors" - towering, sturdy, its pillars like a grove for giants. 

There is a sensation of being outside even though we are inside, a feeling that some land and air deemed sacred have been enclosed with a sublime grandeur of reverence. Indeed, signs of nature surround us, not only in the natural building materials of wood and stone but also in the fossils that fill the locally-sourced Frosterley Marble.

3. The Tomb of Bede in the Galilee Chapel

Above the tomb of this saint and historian we find his beautiful prayer:

Christ is the morning star, who,

when the night of this world is past, 

brings to his saints the promise of the light of life 

and everlasting day. 

This area is airy and bright, and the windows through which the light reaches us incorporate hundreds of fragments of older windows giving a lovely sense of new life to what was broken. This befits the intellect and writings of Bede and is an inspiring image of how we might meaningfully arrange what sometimes seem to be disjointed beliefs, experiences, and parts of our lives. 

4. Cuthbert's Window

While the Cathedral is unmistakably old and remarkably preserved in its singular style (except for the "new" Gothic part), it has room for the modern which somehow gives it a distinct quality without upsetting the impression of consistency. There is a balance - or better yet, a cooperation - of deep, deep roots providing a platform for the flowering of fresh branches. 

This, too, can be a model for our lives as we build on the ancient insights of a historic faith manifested anew in our own lives.

5. The Clock

This artifact reminds us that, despite its spiritual import, this cathedral was, itself, an assertion of political presence and served as a makeshift prison. 

After the 1650 Battle of Dunbar, as many as 3000 Scots were imprisoned here with well over 1000 of them perishing within its walls. 

During that time, the clock was untouched while virtually every other wooden thing was burned for warmth. Why was it spared? According to legend, it was passed over due to the emblem of a thistle in its design, a key symbol in Scottish heraldry. 

Standing in the transept and pondering this story, we are reminded of the embattled world the Church inhabits even today. 

6. The Shrine of Saint Cuthbert

In my experience, this space induces an attitude of humility. 

Perhaps it is the magnitude of Cuthbert's devotion reflected in the present-day simplicity of the room. 

Or maybe it is the striking tester above the tomb and the touching statue of Cuthbert holding King Oswald's head. 

Beyond that, there is a resonance of the prayer rail with that of the rock in Jerusalem's Garden of Gethsemane Church of All Nations. 

As the Spirit weaves these together, our impulse is worshipful silence.

7. Chapel of the Nine Altars

Unfortunately, this area was closed during our visit, but we could still see into much of its space, a space of inspiration and imagination.  

Here is demonstrated something of how beauty can serve as a portal to heavenly things. In the richness of its symbols and references, its constellation of altars projects a vision of God through the lives of saints such as Margaret, Hilda, and Aiden, not to mention the soulful Pietà of Fenwick Lawson whose The Journey we had seen in St. Mary's back on Lindisfarne. 

In this city famous . . .

a river strong of wave . . .

in the deep dales deer innumerable

well-known among her sons:

the blessed Cuthbert . . .

the head of the pure king, Oswald . . .

the famous scholar Bede . . .

There dwells among the blessed in that minster 

also relics uncountable,

where many are worthied, 

just as the Book says to do —

in their company a man of God can await his glory.

- excerpts from an Anglo-Saxon poem translated by Dr. Ophelia Hostetter

A Follow-up with Pilgrim Friends

Dear Friends,

Soon we will be traveling together so I wanted to share a few thoughts about preparing and going.

We have considered that a pilgrimage is a journey undertaken with devotion, and that means one is already on pilgrimage from the moment they consider going on such a journey. 

Since this is the case, it is helpful to prepare in a devotional fashion. 

Not like a tourist. Not to study and process every detail of history or geography. Not to have in hand every aspect of the planning. 

But instead, to prepare our hearts. 

To orient in this way, I suggest starting to prayerfully ask the following:

What do I need?

What hurts need healing?

What questions need answering?

What might I take and what might I leave both at home and along the way?

How will I open to the sites of saints' lives?

How will I look for what the land might convey in terms of beauty, spirit, heritage?

Will I travel for someone else, someone who could not take such a journey?

What will my personal spiritual practice be?

What will my creative inlet be? (Often we speak of creative outlets, but our creative activities can be a means for the Divine to reach into us, too.)

And how will I engage hospitality at every point - to fellow pilgrims, to Christ in the stranger, and even to myself?

A Little Letter to Pilgrims

Later this year, Kathy and I will be supporting several groups of retreatants in experiences of pilgrimage. These thoughts were initially written with those retreatants in mind but I share them here for anyone who wants to consider how the spiritual life in the Christian tradition is shaped like a pilgrimage. 

My dear fellow pilgrims, 

Pilgrimage is the metaphor for the spiritual life (and for life in general) with which I resonate most fully.

Since the beginning, pilgrimage has been an element of the Christian experience whether that involved walking the Holy Land, dreaming up our own Bethlehems and Jerusalems, or going on the great spiritual odyssey of the soul with its maker. 

For the purposes of this little letter, my definition of pilgrimage is 

traveling with God to God.

At Epiphany, I think of the first pilgrims: the magi.

They saw signs of the divine and followed to the house of the young king Jesus.

But really, the shepherds came first from a field nearby and were put on their path by holy angels who had, themselves, traveled from Heaven to proclaim the good news. 

And before the magi and the shepherds and those angels, there were Mary and Joseph who travelled most literally with God to meet the Messiah in Bethlehem.

And before that journey, Mary made her way to Elizabeth, and was, herself, the sacred space in which God was reconciling the world to himself.   

And before that, Gabriel came to her.

And before that, 

and before that, 

and before that . . .

Abraham was called by God to travel with him and to him. 

(That's the beginning of the genealogy in the Gospel According to Matthew)

And even before that, Adam.

(That's the beginning of the genealogy in the Gospel According to Luke.)

Adam was already in the place of encounter with God. 

But something happened and their communion was broken. 

Barred from the Garden, Adam wandered into the world, without God, in a sense, and always at least a little bit away from God. Adam's path had became an anti-pilgrimage.

So all our pilgrimages involve a turning, indeed a re-turning: a turning back to travel with God and to God, a movement toward sacred spaces of encounter and communion.  

It is a blessing to know that, even with our first steps on the road of pilgrimage, we are already on the re-turn trip!