Jerusalem Bound. Rodney Aist

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СКАЧАТЬ not their own, seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well, a goal to which only the spirit’s compass points the way.”8 It is an evocative definition, incorporating images of journey, stranger, and arrival, but it is merely a snapshot of the pilgrim life. We need something more comprehensive, something that addresses pilgrimage as a whole, something that holds on to individual experience while developing social applications. We need to resource the pilgrim life with a richer breadth of images, to understand pilgrimage in a broader context, in more creative ways. A comprehensive methodology fuels the transformative potential of pilgrim experience.

      In the meantime, all definitions remain in play. They are likewise open to critique, including my own, which some may consider to be too broad. Definitional tensions will always be a part of pilgrimage. To begin with, pilgrimage refers to specific life experiences as well as to life as a whole. How do we differentiate in meaningful ways between particular, circumscribed expressions and lived experience more generally, especially since any experience—at home or in the Holy Land—can be considered pilgrim material? Secondly, pilgrim definitions include both objective and subjective statements, and we need to maintain both types. A primary function of a comprehensive definition, such as the one presented here, is its ability to recognize the potentials and possibilities—the depth and breadth—of pilgrim expressions, which, in turn, fuel, inspire, and enhance the engagement of lived experience, or the discernment of when one is “on pilgrimage”. In other words, a broad approach resources subjective definitions, like pilgrimage as an intentional journey.

      The Object of the Pilgrim Life

      The pilgrim’s quest is the search for God in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) yet whose thoughts and ways are not our own (Isa 55:8). God is our journey and destination, our guide and companion, our essence and agency. Pilgrimage, more generally, is about life itself. Life experience, particularly travel, teaches us about ourselves, and self-identity is shaped by moving beyond our familiarities. When we do so, we discover our passions and dependencies, our strengths and limitations, our dreams and anxieties. Pilgrimage is often perceived as an exercise in self-actualization, personal fulfillment, and the inward spiritual journey. However, God inhabits the Other, and social relations are at the heart of the pilgrim life. Pilgrimage is a comprehensive spirituality with social and ethical dimensions, and the union of God, self, and Other is the quintessential object of the pilgrim life.

      Qualifying the Sacred

      It is worth noting that the sacred is not a definitional qualifier: our experiences of God, self, and the Other are not limited to the holy. Pilgrimage traverses the profane as well as the sacred, marking the good, the bad, and the ugly. Reaching beyond the sacred does not weaken or de-spiritualize pilgrimage; rather, it expands the spiritual landscape, allowing us to explore lived experience with a more thorough regard for the human condition. The pilgrim life is more richly layered when sacred places are understood as only one way of encountering God spatially. God is found in all types of places, high and low, far and near. The same holds true for time: pilgrims perceive God through periods of perseverance, in the ordinary moments of everyday life, and in the singularity of sacred occasions. Pilgrim theology does not seek to make all things sacred but to discover God in the undulations of the earthly journey.

      The Dimensions of Pilgrimage

      Cursory reflections on the fourfold dimensions of time, place, journey, and people reveal the rich and varied contexts in which pilgrimage is pursued.

      Time

      Time is linear and circular, sacred and ordinary. Pilgrimage embraces the past, present, and future, often simultaneously. Pilgrims acknowledge God’s past actions, live faithfully in the present moment, and anticipate God’s future promises. Pilgrimage is an exercise in personal and collective memory, and virtues—like hope, patience, and perseverance—have temporal qualities. Circular time is recurring: pilgrims feast and fast; they celebrate the seasons. A sojourn is a stational pause within a journey, while pilgrimage is the bracketing of time for a particular purpose.

      Place

      Place speaks to physical, spiritual, and emotional location. One can be in place or out of place, lost or found, at home or displaced, here or elsewhere. A place may be a paradise or a wilderness, a sanctuary, refuge, or hiding place. A space may be special or commonplace; spaces change and stay the same.

      Journey

      Journeys are marked by departures and arrivals. To depart denotes the beginning of something and the end of something else. Arrivals likewise involve beginnings and endings. A process is finished; a goal is completed; an experience is over. Then something else begins. Graduation is a commencement, the start of something new. The journey itself consists of movements and transitions, opportunities and dead ends, progress and change. Pathways have straights and intersections; they diverge, turn, and merge. Journeys have detours and delays, breaks and pauses. We wander, get lost, and persevere. Things come and go. Journeys fail; we lose things along the way. There are one-way trips and return journeys. We travel forward into the unknown. We come full circle, returning to the point of departure.

      People

      Pilgrimage is a call to companionship. Disconnected from others, the individual pilgrim is a diminished figure. The pilgrim life is a shared experience, involving guides, hosts, and fellow travelers. Pilgrims are dependent upon strangers. They receive succor, encouragement, and inspiration from others. Hospitality and generosity, gratitude and thanksgiving, compassion and clemency are the currencies of exchange. Pilgrims hear the cries of those who have no choice but to be pilgrims: refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers, the homeless, the weak, and the weary. Pilgrimage is occasionally a pathway to a sacred place but is always the streets of everyday life where we attend to those in need.

      The Character of Pilgrimage

      Pilgrimage is incarnational, metaphorical, autobiographical, and corporate. It is a comprehensive expression of the Christian faith.

      Pilgrimage is Incarnational

      Christian pilgrimage is patterned upon the incarnation. God blessed creation and inhabited human flesh in time and place. God was embodied; Word became flesh; the immaterial took material form. Christ assumed human attributes and was subject to mortal suffering. Salvation played out upon a landscape of blood, sweat, and tears. Christ was made impotent upon a tree before rising from the dead.

      Pilgrimage is an embodied spirituality, engaging the senses and embracing the physicality of religious experience. It is a sensuous theology full of sights, sounds, and smells. Christ taught spiritual truths using material examples as simple as seeds and salt and set aside common, ordinary objects, such as bread and wine, for spiritual consumption. The incarnation is a divine declaration that matter matters. We experience God through the everyday events of our earthly lives, and pilgrimage is the reckoning of the facts in which we find ourselves. God is present in the actualities of life, experienced through actual events, real people, and specific locations.

Tracing the footsteps of Jesus, the Holy Land experience is an incarnational journey. According to Ernest Renan (d. 1892), the land reveals Jesus as a living figure.9 It does so as a sensuous encounter. Cyril of Jerusalem told his fourth-century catechumens that “others merely hear, we see and touch,” while Paulinus of Nola (d. 431) noted that “no other sentiment draws people to Jerusalem than the desire to see and touch the places where Christ was physically present.”10 Contemporary travelers are captured by the sensuous nature of the Holy Land—its sights, sounds, tastes, and smells—while the incarnational emphasis on embodied spirituality prepares pilgrims to encounter God through the actualities of the journey: its surprises, insights, and revelations as well as its challenges, questions, and difficulties. As physical witnesses of the gospel story, Christian pilgrims СКАЧАТЬ