PILGRIMAGE

Pilgrimage: what is it? Here’s the definition I use. A pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place, in the expectation (note: something more than hope) of transformation. I also use a parallel definition of anti-pilgrimage, which is a journal to a place of horror (Auschwitz or Hiroshima, for example, or Ground Zero in New York), yet also with an expectation of transformation.

Here’s another paradigm that I have found helpful, from Philip Cousineau’s book, The Art of Pilgrimage. He speaks of seven steps: the awakening, the call, the departure, companions on the way, the labyrinth (I call it “the crunch”), the arrival, and the bringing back of the boon. Of course this is not a pattern which may be found only in formal pilgrimages. It could in fact apply to each single day of one’s life.

Since the program began in 1994, through Simon Fraser University, we have taken groups of pilgrims to Canterbury, to Iona and Lindisfarne, to Thomas Merton’s birthplace--Prades, in the south of France, and to New York. New York sacred? Again it’s the Merton connection. He lived there from 1934 to 1940, mainly as a student at Columbia. We also researched a trip to Santiago de Compostela, but were unable on the first try to find takers—but stay tuned. Two of my students, Beth Nyboer and Rena Hood, did the Santiago pilgrimage in the summer of 2004, for credit both academic and personal! Both of them produced exquisite photographic essays on their time on the Camino.

When the pilgrimages/study tours were offered through the University, they could not be “religious” pilgrimages; but inevitably they possessed a spiritual character for those taking part. Later pilgrimages have been offered in co-operation with the Thomas Merton Society of Canada (). These have included pilgrimages, as mentioned, to Prades and New York, as well as to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, Merton’s longtime residence, Alaska, Cuba, and, most recently (summer 2008), Rome. Of course these journeys are not as physically demanding or dangerous as the pilgrimages of old. Even so, they can be occasions of just as much spiritual depth and encounter, as well as the hilarious companionship immortalized by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales.

My big walk

In 2006 I went on a pilgrimage in the UK, to draw a line between my second and third adulthoods. One of the advantages of this long time away was that I resigned in good conscience from all the committees I was on! Originally, I intended to walk, as many British folk do, from Land’s End to John O’Groats. But I had a very moving experience in Newcastle Cathedral as a result of which I recognized that my pilgrimage was complete, that I didn’t have to stick to my original plan to complete it. Instead, I met various friends and went to such magnificent places as Iona, Orkney and St Andrew’s. I wrote a little article about my pilgrimage (you’ll have to wait for the book!) for our local Anglican paper, called “Pilgrimage – it takes time.” You can read it at
Evidence of the one and only time I have driven a quad, on a farm near Bellingham, Northumberland.
The 5000-year-old village of Skara Brae, on the main island of Orkney; revealed in the 20th century after having been buried in sand for 4000 years.
My friend Doug Burton-Christie creating some found art in Haltwhistle, Northumberland, to the mystification of the people in the car behind him.

In spring 2007, I also taught a credit course on pilgrimage and anti-pilgrimage for the Seniors Program at SFU Harbour Centre. Once again the response of the students, and their very moving presentations, testified to the resonance of pilgrimage at this unsettled time in human history.

Coming up: a Thomas Merton Pilgrimage to Cuba, January 15-30, 2010. More info at or . Wonderful as this will certainly be, many of us are troubled by the recognition that air travel contributes substantially to global warming. One suggestion: that we build the cost of carbon offsets into the cost of every trip. I’d be interested in your responses to this suggestion. Meanwhile, enjoy with me this 17th-century word from Sir Walter Raleigh, lines which I read most mornings on my UK pilgrimage before setting out on the path.

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope's true gage,
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.

 

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