I’m sitting looking out at a churning ocean, calmer than yesterday, but far from the “lake Atlantic” we have had for most of our time here in N.C. I’m thinking of all our friends in N.E. with two feet of snow. We are happy that we don’t have the necessity of driving in it. Somehow it seems like a metaphor for our life right now… we are escaping the storm, but mindful that we are on the journey and journeys inevitably have storms sooner or later.
Back in November I was (foolishly) eager to get on with the treatment and the hospital. It was not that I was looking forward to the transplant itself, nor even to a “cure” and the vista of life that a “cure” would open for me. Rather, it was that I was looking forward to being on the pilgrimage.
The whole process of recovering [my name for it] seems very much like a pilgrimage. I think that is why I was so eager to take the online course “Life as Pilgrimage.” My readings in the course have confirmed for me that this is beyond a metaphor. The difficulty, the special clothing, the community, and especially the notion of “set-aside-ness” all make the journey of cancer treatment indeed a pilgrimage.
Over the past three months I’ve also come to understand that I’m already on the journey; I didn’t need the hospital with the difficulty, clothing, community and separateness that it would bring. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to start the journey with the mountains not high, the weather not severe, and my body strong for the trip. I’m wondering if any pilgrim ever had it so good as to take the journey with wonderful days of writing and leisure like this Sunday.
Days of quiet turn my attention to the inward journey that is my true pilgrimage. I’ve quoted at the end of this posting some passages from James Harpur’s Sacred Tracks, the first text of the Pilgrimage course. When I first told my spiritual advisor about the return of my illness, he wisely reminded me that I don’t need to be sick to be close to God. I confess that I needed to hear that. What I do need is to remember that I’m on an inward journey, a pilgrimage. In Harpur’s words, I need to remember that these “vicissitudes,” both arduous and joyful, are the necessary way to truth.
For whatever reason, and probably for no reason whatsoever, this
recovery journey is my “concrete representation” of the journey of my
soul. Others may find their pilgrimage because
of the loss of someone dear, though the fortunate can make any special
trip into a journey of the soul. What is
important is what Brad Berglund might call “setting a sacred goal or
intention” and then continuing with being mindful of experiences along
the way, and purposefully integrating experience and intention.
From Sacred Tracks:
Inner pilgrimage, like its external counterpart, still implies movement—towards a new spiritual state of being…. The idea of journeying remains central it to: the pilgrim must make a journey because he or she needs time –time to reflect upon personal dilemmas or wrongdoings, or upon the great mysteries of life, such as fate suffering and the nature of God. For the pilgrim the journey, with all its vicissitudes, is not the wearisome preamble to truth—it is the necessary way to truth, the living, arduous and joyful process by which truth can be attained. (p. 10)
... To make a journey to a sacred centre is to enact a concrete ritual representing the journey of the soul through the travails of mortal life to heaven. … The pilgrim’s final arrival at the shrine, the source of holiness, signifies the soul’s entering a state of blessedness, a rehearsal on earth for what heaven has in store. (p.11)
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