I’ve been mulling over a statement on a facebook page, looking at how it applies to the kind of people we are and who we would become:
“We are hoping that:
If you enter here as a tourist, you would exit as a pilgrim. ”
It’s part of the headline used by Rev. Karen Oliveto, a Bishop in the United Methodist Church of Mountain Sky Conference, which includes churches in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and one in Idaho.
Defining Tourist and Pilgrim
A tourist is a person who travels for pleasure. Synonyms include: sightseer, visitor, globetrotter.
A pilgrim is a person who travels far, often on foot, to a place of special significance. Synonyms include: sojourner, wayfarer, hadji
Tourist is from tour, which comes from the Greek “tórnos” meaning a tool for making a circle.
Pilgrim is from the Latin “peregrē” meaning to come from abroad.
What kind of a people will we become?
Making Choices
It’s been a few chaotic and difficult years. Some mornings I just sit and listen to our old box floor fan while I sip my tea and the sun rises.
There’s so much happening: Climate catastrophes. Covid19 still hovering around. Supply and demand issues with groceries and construction supplies and many items between. Customer’s being rude with retail or restaurant employees. More mass shootings in the U.S. And a war that exacerbates hunger and human trafficking.
If someone from another planet were to watch our culture and times, how might they view us?
If other people from a far-future generation study about us, how might they describe us?
Societies of every age, from every epoch, have their problems and challenges. People are characterized by the way we respond to our culture’s struggles.
Self-care and Other-care
How do we balance self-care and other-care?
Other-care being neighbors nearby and neighbors living across the ocean,
and other living creatures, domestic and wild,
and creation itself—the water and the sky, the mountains and valleys, plains and blufftops, and the prairies and woodland and desert.
A pastor, who lives on a Wisconsin dairy farm, Rev. Gail Irwin writes,
America is immersed in a mental health crisis and suicide is on the rise, especially among certain vulnerable groups:
Members of the LGBTQ community are twice as likely to experience a mental health crisis versus other adults.
Over 16% of youth have suffered at least one major depressive episode in the past year.
13% of college students reported experiencing suicide ideation or intent.
And 17 veterans die by suicide every day on average.
We are a struggling people. How do we provide care and safety networks for our most vulnerable, for the people who have served our country and are now left to deal with their own wounds.
Though dumped into despair at times when I read all the challenges before us, I also search for and find places of hope.
a nuthatch on the trunk of an oak tree by Derek Otway on Unsplash
Spring is coming. The yellow crocuses pop up through last year’s decaying leaves. The nuthatch perches in its comical earth-facing stance on the huge oak trunk.
In every generation thoughtful people arise, who examine what makes life meaningful. This reflecting and contemplation seemed to accelerate during the beginnings of Covid19.
I look at the circles of people that I am a part of, that I hang out with:
various clergy groups online and in-person
online writer groups and blogs and critique partners
groups and organizations dealing with racism, environmentalism, and promoting inclusive community and care for creation
spending time with loved family and friends—eating, walking, gardening, playing games, and traveling
Being a tourist
photo of a young woman studying with a book, laptop, and smartphone by Tran Mau Tri Tam with Unsplash
A tourist takes pleasure in a new place. Tourists may travel as a group to study and learn, following a guide to wander new areas never been, places and people and languages never encountered. There’s a detachment, an observation mindset in taking a tour.
Tourists may not be able or want to connect emotionally with their surroundings, may only want this place as a mental exercise or a way to admire another place’s geographical wonders or arts.
Some tourists may use travel as a way to dip their toes into shallow waters and test the ethos of the place, checking to see if it’s a safe environment, if this is someplace they want to go into deeper.
Some may decide to immerse themselves in their surroundings, absorbing new sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures. A tourist may decide to return at some point…as a pilgrim.
Being a pilgrim
Pilgrims travel far to a place, often on foot, perhaps seeking a transformation, to immerse themselves deeper within Life, deeper within their souls.
My first journey overseas was to the Isle of Iona in Scotland. I stayed at the Abbey for a week of their Worship and Music Renewal programme led by the well-known Wild Goose Resource Group of composers, John Bell and Graham Maule, and other musicians based out of Glasgow.
Staying at Iona Abbey entailed living in an international and ecumenical community—
sharing bedrooms and bathrooms, and meals at long tables,
setting up for meals and clearing up after, doing daily chores together after breakfast,
attending our programme, a skit night, a ceilidh (dance and storytelling)
framing our days with the 20-minute morning worship service and the themed evening worship, except the Sunday Morning Communion Service with a guest preacher
Part of the stay involved an optional 1-day off-road pilgrimage around the island. We made our sandwiches that morning and followed the staff who guided us. We stopped at particular points—St. Martin’s Celtic Cross, the Nunnery ruins, Marble Quarry, Columba’s Bay, Bay at the Back of the Ocean, Hermit’s Cell, and St. Oran’s Chapel in the cemetery. We learned history, the spiritual significance, then sang a short global chant before we walked to the next stop.
Some people go to the Taize Community in France, and some people go on a pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago in France and Spain.
Pilgrimage
photos of pilgrims walking a road along fields by Burkard Meyendriesch at Unsplash
A pilgrimage is not just a physical journey. It’s also an emotional and/or a spiritual journey.
It becomes a search to broaden or deepen our understanding of ourselves, of other people, of our place in the world. Pilgrimages can lead to a sense of peace, a personal transformation.
For some people, a pilgrimage is a devotional practice to honor and praise their sacred ground, Timeless One, or however we may name the Originating Source of all that exists.
All cultures have their troubles, their violence. People always have the choice set before us as we live in a troubled world, balancing self-care with other-care, and learning our place in the universe.
What kind of a traveler have you been?
What type of a people do we wish to be known as to future generations?