Discovering Pilgrimage

As big as the sky and as wide as the ocean. That's how big a ministry of social and ecological justice can feel. And as soon as I learn anything, for example, the more I know about climate justice, the more I see the racial injustice, the social injustice, and the loss of biodiversity… Sheesh. How can one person make any impact at all? Let alone as something on top of my responsibilities to my family and my work. Some days I can hardly see the mountain of problems from the fog of my despair. So I do nothing. I pace my discontent back and forth across the floor of my usual rooms in my usual patters.

Only this season, I feel different. This year I am joining a flood of interest in pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is a quest to find God, a journey into the unknown, or at least a temporary separation from everything I think I already know. I long for more God. I pray for less worry; more God and pilgrimage is path in that direction

Christ Church Cathedral is planning a pilgrimage to the Holy Land this October. Cathedral Dean, the Very Reverend Chris Pappas, will be chaplain for the Reverend Richard LeSueur's tour. The organizers invite us on a trip to transform faith. Details can be found here on the Christ Church Cathedral website. The Anglican Church of Canada is subsidizing a youth pilgrimage to Jerusalem in May 2023. Experience shows faith is nourished by being in a place of spiritual significance.

International pilgrimage is only one option. We can quest for God here too. I believe all land is holy.

This Season of Creation, the Social EcoJustice Working Group of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon (hereafter known as SEJ because – yipes- what a name) is walking local pilgrimages. We are introducing walks across BC, including routes in the diocese of New Westminster. Here is a link to the schedule which begins in earnest August 28. We will walk not to fix anything but to enter a deeper relationship with all Creation. Walk to listen for God and wonder what our neighborhoods reveal. We will step our prayers into the earth and receive the hospitality of Creation as we find it.

If you are also interested in and want to explore this practice, join us this season of Creation in walking in your place. In addition to SEJ's local pilgrimages Salal and Cedar host contemplative walks and outdoor worship. Details can be found here on the Salal and Cedar website

And just in case you would preferer to prepare with a book or two, here are my favorites. The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seekers Guide to Making Travel Sacred by Phil Cousineau (1998). This book is an invitation to the spiritual practice of pilgrimage through poetry, art, and personal stories. Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2001) by Rebecca Solnit. Not a specifically spiritual book, there are chapters on pilgrimage and protest walks. This book acknowledges that women and people of color may experience walking in public through the lens of past and present harms.

But I hope you put the books down and exit the fog of fear to step into the world—a pilgrimage to interrupt our worries and disrupt our lives. God’s grace is everywhere.

Images in this layout are from photos I have taken as I practice walking routes here in the lower mainland.