Friday, July 3, 2020
The Rev. Anne Williamson
Go
‘Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage’ (Psalm 84:5-NIV)
Go
Pilgrimage is a word that signifies movement, a word that means moving our bodies, but also our spirits. Sometimes, when the body is not willing or able to move, the only way to go on pilgrimage is in the spirit, allowing our mind to take us where our bodies cannot go.
Back in 2016, I had so hoped to go with a group from St. John’s to walk part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela (The Way of St. James), an ancient pilgrimage. As with many traditional pilgrimages, there are various ways to travel, on foot is the traditional form, but there are others; many pilgrims now make their way by bicycle. For the Camino de Santiago, there are a variety of starting places and routes as well (rather like life!). From the North, the pilgrims traverse the Pyrenees, the mountain range between Southern France and Northern Spain. We did not go…sometimes we make plans to go, and life gets in the way! Pilgrims who planned to walk the Camino this spring were not able to go…their pilgrimages upended by Spain’s lockdown to counter Covid-19...sometimes we have to go on pilgrimage in ways we did not plan for, in ways we did not expect…
Not everyone can undertake a rigorous pilgrimage on foot, but we can all go on pilgrimage. The beautiful labyrinth in the Cathedral at Chartres in France, and other cathedral labyrinths around Europe were constructed for pilgrims who were unable to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem which many early Christians undertook. For those who cannot undertake a labyrinth walk, there are hand labyrinths, which one can use with a stylus or a finger to trace the path:
The physical journey is an aspect of pilgrimage but for me, the pilgrimage of the heart, the willingness to go, to get out of my comfort zone, to intentionally spend time on a journey of getting to know Jesus better, is the heart of pilgrimage.
Our gospel on Sunday contains an invitation to go – to go to Jesus when we are weary, to go to Jesus when we are weighed down with burdens. When the cares and concerns of our daily lives and what feels like the weight of the world is on our shoulders, Jesus bids us to come to him. And when we go to one another to share our burdens, we have the opportunity to be Jesus to one another.
Today I invite you to go on pilgrimage. Blessings on your day. Ann
For further reflection on pilgrimage:
RS Thomas’ Pilgrimages
"There is an island there is no going
to but in a small boat, the way
the saints went, travelling the gallery
of the frightened faces of
the long-drowned, munching the gravel
of its beaches. So I have gone
up the salt lane to the building
with the stone altar, and the candles
gone out, and kneeled and lifted
my eyes to the furious gargoyle
of the owl that is like a god
gone small and resentful. There
is no body in the stained window
of the sky now. Am I too late?
Were they too late also, those
first pilgrims? He is such a fast
God, always before us, and
leaving as we arrive.
There are those here
not given to prayer, whose office
is the blank sea that they say daily.
What they listen to is not
hymns, but the slow chemistry of the soil,
that turns saints' bones into dust,
dust to an irritant of the nostril.
There is no time on this island.
The swinging pendulum of the tide
has no clock; the events
are dateless. These people are not
late or soon; they are just
here, with only the one question
to ask, which life answers
by being in them. It is I
who ask. Was the pilgrimage
I made to come to my own
self, to learn that, in times
like these, and for one like me,
God will never be plain and
out there, but dark rather, and
inexplicable, as though he were in here?"