The Grand Discipline

“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve… but a reality to experience. A process that cannot be understood by stopping it. We must move with the flow of the process. We must join it. We must flow with it.”  - Jamis, from the movie, "Dune", 2021. 

In viewing the above quote through a lens of pilgrimage, it becomes:

A pilgrimage isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. A process that cannot be understood by stopping it. We must move with the flow of the process. We must join it. We must flow with it. 

It’s not the getting there that is the point…it is the “along the way” that is the point. The going. The experiencing. The feeling. The flow. The process. 

As pilgrimage becomes a metaphor for life with Christ, this quote again can be transformed:

Being a follower of Jesus isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. A process that cannot be understood by stopping it. We must move with the flow of the process. We must join it. We must flow with it. 

Pilgrimage is ultimately a spiritual discipline that revolves around hearing God’s voice and following Jesus. Pilgrimage is about life with God. It’s about embracing a process…with an expectation and intent to encounter HIm. It is about spiritual change. The before pilgrimage you and the after pilgrimage you. 

7 ATTRIBUTES THAT DEFINE A PILGRIMAGE

Each of these 7 attributes combine to define how a pilgrimage is unique from walking, hiking or vacationing.

1. Traveling a long distance (usually walking on a historical route)  
2. In response to a calling 
3. Over multiple days 
4. To a sacred place (a destination of some spiritual significance (or a place that becomes sacred))  
5. Usually, a far distance from your home 
6. Embracing some levels of simplicity, difficulty, discomfort, and growth 
7. With the intent to encounter God in everything that happens along the way

FOUR UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS OF PILGRIMAGE

1. Pilgrimage is: a KINETIC PRAYER

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?: a physical prayer, where our mind, body and  spirit can be involved together in devotion to God engaging in an activity  that He designed us for. (which is walking)

Victor and Edith Turner, in their book "Image and Pilgrimage in Christian  Culture" 4 explain it like this, "pilgrimage, as a religious act, is a kinetic  ritual”. For the pilgrim, walking becomes a "kinetic prayer", a physical  prayer, where our mind, body, and spirit can be involved together in  devotion to God engaging in an activity that He designed us for.

2. Pilgrimage is: an INWARD JOURNEY

QUOTE: “What most distinguishes the sacred art of pilgrimage from a  tourist trip or hiking expedition, as beneficial as these are, is the  characteristic inward journey, a turning of one’s heart to the Divine, with  the expectation of  transformation on every level of being along the way.” –  Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook 1 

3. Pilgrimage is: a SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE

1. Prayer, at its most basic, is your spirit and God’s spirit coming together. 
2. Spiritual disciplines are all different forms of prayer. They are activities which as you practice them bring you into an encounter with God. 
3. Spiritual disciplines are often generic activities that are ascribed spirituality by attaching spiritual intent to them. 
4. For instance: silence, solitude, and fasting can all be engaged in without any spiritual intent at all. You can be silent, alone, and not eat with absolutely zero intention of connecting with God. 
5. What transforms each of these into spiritual disciplines, or prayers, is our intention. If we are silent, alone, and giving up eating for a time with the intent to encounter, connect with, or be in the presence of God, then each of those practices becomes a spiritual discipline. 
6. And so it is with pilgrimage: a common activity (traveling/walking) is transformed into a spiritual discipline by our intent to encounter God. (or sometimes God’s intent to encounter us!)

4. Pilgrimage is: a HISTORIC PRAYER (To walk or Not to walk?)

You don’t have to walk on your pilgrimage. But if you want to dial up your  pilgrimage, and follow in the tradition, then walk. 

• Walking is both the modern and historical framework for the discipline. It was historically the primary (or only) mode of transportation for most people. (Including Jesus!)
• The Camino de Santiago carries on that walking pilgrimage tradition. 
• Our Rhythm of Grace pilgrimage along St. Cuthbert’s Way is also centered around walking.  
• The traditional, historic pilgrimage disciplines center on walking, but walking is not a non-negotiable. 
• Your pilgrimage is not just the walking. Your pilgrimage is the whole trip: The planning, the transportation, the food, and the people. The walking, if you walk. The biking if you bike. Or the bus or train or whatever. 
• Pilgrimage starts when you leave your house. So for me, it was: drive to the airport. Fly to Madrid. Subway to train station. Train to Leon. Taxi to Santibanez de Valdeglesias. Walk for two weeks to Santiago de Compostela. Train to Madrid. Taxi to airport. Plane to home. The walking parts could have been undertaken by bus, train, horse, or bicycle. 
• The going is what’s important. The process of going. The experience of going and getting there and returning. It’s a process. A pilgrim's process. 
• We want to be careful that pilgrimage is not exclusive to walkers and able-bodied people only. 
• The “going” is the important part. 
• So let's just say, "Walking is recommended, but not required."

SUMMARY: 

Pilgrimage is: traveling, and usually walking, a long distance, to a  sacred place, with the intent to encounter God in everything that happens along the way.

*Kiser, Karen. After The Camino. Camino Chronicles Press, 2019.