Art of Pilgrimage

The Art of Pilgrimage

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

Phillip Cousineau’s The Art of Pilgrimage, The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred, has been a book that I have gone back to time and again, preparing for a trip and hoping to make the journey a pilgrimage.

Cousineau’s family traveled a great deal in his childhood. He relates how his father thought travel was good for the mind while his mother felt it was good for the soul. Cousineau reminds us that a traveler visits a place. A pilgrim allows a place to become a part of or visits within him. As travelers we often plan trips and then, upon getting to their destination, have a sense of unfulfilled expectation. This disappointment results from the way we engage with the place, not the site itself.

The Celts would tell us to imagine the moment of our departure as like crossing a threshold of a door.

Cousineau also asks us to imagine our first memorable journey. What images rise up in our soul? They may be a childhood visit to the family gravesite, a visit to relatives who live on a farm, or a trip with our favorite aunt to a religious site. Do these feelings have any connection with our lives today? The author asks us if there are some place that are sacred to us, our family where we long to visit? He suggests that as we undercover what we long for, we will discover who we are.

Cousineau reminds us that we will reconnect to our soul, the part of God within us by learning to be aware and listen to our surroundings. On the pilgrimage we are to look and listen intently to everything around us. Listening to music in solitude is his recommendation of how to get back into the habit of listening to our surroundings. We also usually do not look, but we overlook. Keeping a journal may help us to look more closely as we describe what we are seeing.

There is an old Nigerian saying that “the day on which one starts out is not the time to start one’s preparation.”

We are to begin the Sacred Journey with our journal. We are encouraged to keep sacred a silent alone part of our day where we write in our journal. Our journal can help us relive our pilgrimage, but we can also relive the journey by bringing back pictures, stones, or shells as did Anne Lindberg in Gifts from the Sea.

We are also to plan ahead how we will reenergize ourselves each day. We are to be open to serendipity, coincidences, that may take us off our planned path.

I remember a time I spent at the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral. I was walking through the Cathedral near the entrance, and a large group of elementary students, perhaps ten years old, hurried in. They were distracting my silent mediation. But then I most vividly remember one young boy tilting back his head and looking up at the high vaulted ceilings and immediately shouting out, “Wow!!” To this day, I can still see and hear that young prophet.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Natural Disasters

Natural disasters

“When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was not dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’ Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.” John 6:16-21

After Ivan

Fourteen years ago, on September 16th, Hurricane Ivan made a direct hit on the town of Orange Beach along the Alabama gulf coast near the Florida line. There were twenty-five deaths in the United States including fourteen in Florida. This category three storm caused major destruction to an area that had become our family’s beloved vacation spot for years.

My heart goes out to the people on the North Carolina and South Carolina coasts who have just been visited by Hurricane Florence. I remember the days of looking at any picture that might show if our special place had been destroyed. It was weeks before we could go back to survey the damage. When we finally were able to return to our condo on the fourth floor, the elevators were of course not functioning, so it was a major trek up and down the stairs.

Major parts of the front of the build were gone. Every condo on the first floor had been destroyed by wind and water. We hardly recognized the building. It took some time to figure out exactly where the stairwells were. Two large glass doors had blown out of the condo and furniture had been blown out of the gapping exposed spaces.. We made multiple trips to dispose of the rotting food left in the refrigerator.

My greatest remembrance is the disorientation that came when so many of the familiar markers were gone. Besides the damage to the front of our condominium, street signs were gone, familiar buildings had disappeared, parts of the roads were destroyed so that we had to take detours.

I think this natural disaster is a reminder of what happens when there are major emotional crisis or significant changes in our own lives such as the death of a loved one, a life-threatening illness, a divorce, a move, even sometimes a new job.

All of our usual markers are gone. We become disoriented. Every decision may become agonizingly difficult to make. It is sometimes hard to find our way. Often it is like we are in a foreign country, and many of the people we are talking to are speaking a language we have never heard before.

It is important to recognize this state of mind, to take care of ourselves, and be open to help. My experience also is that recovery comes with the help of friends and the community that supports us. If we try to white knuckle it and get through the crisis by ourselves, the burden often becomes intolerable.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Cloud of Witnesses at the Eucharist

Cloud of Witnesses at the Eucharist

“The gifts of God for the people of God.” “Holy Eucharist II, p. 264, Book of Common Prayer, Church Publishing 1979.

I cannot keep thinking about and praying for two women, Vicki and Diane, in my spiritual direction class who live on the North and South Carolina coasts and whose towns are being battered by this storm. My mind wanders back to Kanuga Conference Center at one of the graduations at the Haden Institute for Spiritual Direction. We are in the Chapel of Transfiguration. A flute is playing in the background. The eight women graduating process in and sit in chairs in front of the raised altar. They share their story and their journey and the work they have done on this spiritual quest to learn how to lead others to find God in their lives. They receive their certificates and plaques and then begin the Eucharist together around the altar above us.

“The gifts of God for the people of God.” As the bread and wine are offered, they ask each person to come up the several steps to the altar to give themselves the bread and wine.

Suddenly I panic. There is no rail for the steps to the altar as was built when I started as the deacon at St. Luke’s and at St. Mark’s when members realized I had difficulty with steps and quickly built a rail. I say a prayer of gratitude for the kind and thoughtful people of both congregations. What will I do?

I remember the ten amazing women that I had spent the past year with studying about spiritual direction. We had prayed together, eaten together, done spiritual direction, verbatims, dream work, and most especially shared our life together.

Suddenly my group surrounds me. They do not miss a beat. We will all go to communion together, they whisper, not separately. They will all stand with me at the bottom of the stairs to the altar. Ann, the priest in our group will offer bread and Bridget will serve wine. There are not words to describe what it was like standing in the middle of that long feminine line with my spiritual friends at the foot of the altar that seemed so far away but instead was moved to be right in front of us. I had a glimpse of what it is like to feel Christ not only inside of me but beside me, standing, walking with me on this journey, present and surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.

The picture today is from the following year at our own class’ graduation. I hold that group of spiritual friends in my prayers daily, and now especially Vicki on the coast of North Carolina and Diane in South Carolina, and I will never forget their kindness. I have experienced how well they care for others. I pray someone also is caring for them today.

Joanna joannaseibert.com