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COMMENT by Andrew Dunn

Pilgrimage has been central to the life and experience of God’s people from the beginning.

Indeed the notion of pilgrimage plays a central role in many religious traditions. There too, as in Christian faith it has a very specific meaning for many. That is, the well prepared journey to a particular sacred place where something special has happened in the past or present, a historical site (e.g. Jerusalem) or where a saint, leader or mystic lives. It may be alone or in company with others, each adding some significance to the journey. The faithful solitary journey has many blessings while the pilgrimage in company offers community, companionship, safety and encouragement along the way. This is illustrated beautifully in Jacques Perrin’s wonderful film Travelling Birds.

Yet, our theme offers much more than the planned journey to a special place. Abraham and Sarah went out answering the call of God not knowing where their response would lead. In some psalms and in the New Testament people of faith are identified as sojourners (Psalm 39:12), strangers (Psalm 119:19) and pilgrims (1 Peter 2:11). In Acts we are described as having “our tents pitched here”. And as disciples of Jesus we are invited to take up our crosses and follow him. Yet many contemplative people and those who have an awareness of God’s presence everywhere, feel distinctly uncomfortable with the suggestion that they are pilgrims through this barren land, as the hymn puts it.  For them, for us, sojourner means living in an exploratory way in the present place the journey has brought us to. Strangers, but only in the sense we have not been here before and would like to make it home and explore it more deeply. Pilgrims in the sense that our journey doesn’t stop here. There is always so much more of God’s love and grace to discover, so much more truth to break open from God’s Word, as the Pilgrim Fathers put it so expectantly; so much more of this planet we call home to discover, understand, enjoy.

So, in this issue of Refresh we explore various ways our theme can be used, from the planned pilgrimage, to the challenges of life, personal growth, care of the earth, even the life of our nation. We are asking questions not only of what pilgrimage offers us a people of faith but also of us in Aotearoa at this critical point in our national life. Is there a time when migrants from all corners of the globe finally become pilgrims on a common journey?

There are guidebooks aplenty for every great site, organised tours, discount fares and knowledgeable guides for the planned journey. Yet the most significant aspects of the faith pilgrimage involve the journey itself with all the risk and trust in God that this demands of us. Even the goal itself may be unclear as we “put one foot in front of the other in love and trust” (from David Griebner’s parable). Yet, as Richard Gillard reminds us in his Servant Song, “we are pilgrims on a journey, we are fellow travellers on the road here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load”. In that too there is encouragement and confidence building. The best guide of course is the Lord himself and yet he seems to have an uncanny knack of allowing us to find our own way with him at our shoulders!

Indeed in the Celtic strand of the faith the peregrinatio, the pilgrims who followed the winds of the Holy Spirit, went simply and obediently without any road map or goal in mind apart from obedience. The “green martyrs” as they were known, never expected to return home. They went and went and wherever they found a welcome there they put down their roots for a while, established a community of faith and then went on again. It was as if their goal was carried with them, their obedience to Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the eternal life they hoped for.

John Bunyan’s view was more specific – for him pilgrimage describes the Christian’s personal journey from the present City of Destruction to the Celestial City, and we use his dream to invite some reflection on appropriate images for today’s pilgrims.

In the last few decades we have come to see this globe on which we live as our only home. We are its stewards, protectors of the most fragile and delicate systems of life anywhere in the universe (as far as we know) that can only be adequately nurtured and conserved by residents rather than passers by. Perhaps one of the greatest discoveries for modern day pilgrims is a fresh sense of home and how to preserve it and make it more so for our children, grandchildren and those yet to come.

I hope that in your reading and reflection there will be many encouraging things for you and your own journey on The Way.

BIBLICAL IMAGES OF PILGRIMAGE by John Franklin

Last year, my niece made pilgrimage.  She walked the ancient way to Santiago de Compostela in western Spain. 

Amanda is never short of words, but she seemed to be scraping the barrel to adequately explain what had happened to her.  She does not subscribe to any recognised orthodoxy, but on the way, life had purpose and significance; on the way, ordinariness was vibrant with new meaning; on the way, strangers were close companions. God was there.  She walked, she made pilgrimage, and her life was changed.

The most fundamental image of the spiritual life is pilgrimage.  Its images are the images of journeying, of exile and homecoming, of breakdown and reconciliation.  And these are the themes of scripture.  With one eye, scripture may look like a wilderness of words, but with both eyes, its images are translucent, speaking of a movement from wilderness to paradise.

Genesis tells of our expulsion from the paradise of Eden, and Revelation reveals a New Jerusalem as our eternal home.  In between, Abraham and Sarah, with nothing more than a perceived promise, step way beyond their comfort zones.  Joseph’s journey to Egypt is more of a hijacking than a pilgrimage, but the pilgrimage he makes in his interior life is transforming.  Moses leads a migration-sized pilgrimage complaining at one point that God was not delivering these people at all, but in spite of this, the Promised Land is reached and home is found.  Much later, captives are marched to Babylon where singing the Lord’s song became a lament, but the journey into God was radically transforming.

Pilgrimage is the fundamental image of the Hebrew Bible as it is of the New Testament.  Joseph, and a pregnant Mary, journey away from home to Bethlehem.  They are not made welcome, but the birth welcomes humanity. Wise men follow a star and make pilgrimage in search of a child. They activate political hornets.  The family goes up to Jerusalem when Jesus is twelve.  The parents are out of their minds with anxiety while Jesus has a profound insight as to his identity.  In adult years, Jesus walks along the beach and gathers some followers.  He goes up a mountain and his disciples are gobsmacked by glory.  Later, Paul rides off to Damascus and falls off his horse, an event that changes the world forever.  

Scripture is rich with journeys, physical and spiritual, the outer physical journey often being the vehicle or the metaphor for the inner spiritual journey. People are moving from somewhere to somewhere else, and God, travelling with them is transforming them as they go.  The Bible shows images of God on the move.  And in a challenging and profoundly important sense, scripture speaks of pilgrimage as the very life of God, the Holy Trinity.  The Father goes out in creating energy making cosmos, making life.  Jesus the Christ, the only begotten, journeys among us full of grace and truth.  And like wind, the Holy Spirit comes among us revealing Christ, creating community; “Inside and outside the fences, you blow where you wish to blow.”¹

The biblical image of God, it would seem, is not that of the One Eternal Fixedness. Rather, we have an image of The One On The Move, The Dynamic One, The Journeyer.

So what does this say of our vocation? What is our identity as human beings? God is Love, and those who live in love are on a pilgrimage if they are in God.²  What is our vocation then but to follow a call into the eternal pilgrimage, to be caught up into the constant dynamic of Love, and to enter the depth and richness and life that is God?  “Our God is marching on!”³ 

Let’s look at one little piece of scripture to get a glimpse of some of the things that pilgrim imagery can tell us. We will go to Luke for whom the journey motif is important.

Luke 9:51  “…he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  Whether it is physical or spiritual, pilgrimage asks decision of us. Jesus had a clear sense of purpose, obedience to God.  He had no guaranteed outcomes but he had total commitment to the integrity of his knowing that he had to go to Jerusalem.  He knew it would be costly, but his face was not set toward the cost and its implication.  His face was physically set toward a destination, but inwardly, without flinching, his face was set towards God.  “Look to him and be radiant.”⁴ Can we walk that steadfastly into what God has made us for?  With his help, we can.

Luke 13:33   “…today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way…”  Jesus was told that Herod was out to kill him.  So…?  He was not to be diverted.  And I think of David Griebner’s story of the Carpenter and the Unbuilder.⁵  The Carpenter was on a journey to have dinner with the King, and along the way, he would stop and build houses for himself till the power of the call would resurface and move him on again. And the question arises, How single-minded am I?  God may be infinitely patient, but the amount of time I have to get on with the journey is measurable.  What does God ask of me that I may have looked away from and even almost forgotten?  Jesus, empower me to say with you, “Today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way.”

Luke 14:25  “Now large crowds were travelling with him…” On the way, Jesus was not alone.  Nor are we.   We may see ourselves in Sarah and laugh at the preposterous moves of God.  We may with David, lament the death of a child.  We may with Jeremiah find that we either have to say something and get into trouble, or not say anything and have our guts burn out.  With St Augustine we may be prompted to “take up and read” and be radically transformed.⁶  With John Wesley, we may find our heart “strangely warmed”.  We have friends and family with whom we talk and eat and share whose journeys inspire us, and whose observations of our journey, challenges or encourages us.  We are not alone. How can we be open to let other pilgrims bless us on our way?

Luke 17:11  “On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.”  Keeping their distance, ten lepers approached him. Nine are healed.  One is made well.  This is a significant encounter for the one, an outcast, a Samaritan.  And is it not the case, that on pilgrimage, along the way, we encounter all sorts of people.  Some we may be threatened by; others too much of a challenge.  But, along the way, am I not the hospitality of Christ?  Am I not an agent of healing and reconciling grace, “ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven”⁷ as I am?  How can I keep passing on that grace as I continue on the way?

Luke 19:28  “…he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.”  And he finds a colt on which to make an entry.  Yes, we get there!  We may have arrived in the place prepared for us⁸ but the journey may yet have more to ask of us.  And we trust.  So we may well ask how robust is our trust?

Luke 24:28  “As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on.”  The adventure continues.  Are we going with him?

The bible tells our story.  It tells God’s story. It is one of pilgrimage, of moving on with God. As we follow Jesus on the way, it is surely our experience of pilgrimage that life finds purpose and significance; that ordinariness is vibrant with new meaning; that on the way, strangers are close companions. Our call is this, to make pilgrimage, living joyfully and responsively before God who journeys with us.

1  James K. Baxter, Song  to the Holy Spirit, Collected Poems, Oxford University Press, Wellington, 1979.

2  John 4:7

3  Julia Ward Howe; Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, 1861.

4  Psalm 34.5

5  David Griebner; The Carpenter and the Unbuilder, Upper Room Books, Nashville, 1996.

6  Augustine, The Confessions, 401.

7  Henry Francis Lyte, Praise, my soul, the King of heaven, 1834.

8  John 14:3

A PILGRIMAGE FROM “HERMITAGE” TO “hermitage” AND BEYOND by Sue Pickering

Many of us have heard of Rembrandt’s painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son” and know of the impact it had on famous Christians such as Henri Nouwen.  When I knew that John and I were going to St Petersburg as part of an overseas trip earlier this year, going to THE HERMITAGE to see that painting was, naturally, high on my ‘agenda’.

With the help of a well-informed guide, we explored the collections of Catherine the Great of Russia which are housed in the gilded group of palaces which make up ‘THE HERMITAGE’. Like many before us, John and I were stunned by the sheer scale and quality of the collection of paintings, sculpture, porcelain, furniture, as we walked through room after room of exquisite examples of human creativity brought together through the influence of one powerful woman.

Eventually our tour party reached the room holding the cherished painting. Immediately my dream of quality minutes spent in silent contemplation evaporated. Hordes of other people crowded the space in front of the painting, intently gazing at the iconic meeting between father and son. There was little opportunity for me to stop and reflect before our tour party moved on.

But there was a surprise waiting for me in an adjacent room.

While the rest of the tour party gazed intently at Rembrandt’s ‘Danae’ on one wall, my eyes were drawn and held by the look on the face of one man in the painting opposite.  I was gripped by the extraordinary mix of raw emotion: horror, disbelief, bewilderment, anguish, panic  - they were all there in the expression of this man who was helping to do the unthinkable, lowering the body of Jesus from the cross. For several uninterrupted minutes I was absorbed in this man’s reality, connected across time with this most painful of moments as death descended on hopes and healing and miracle-working hands.

That painting was Rembrandt’s “The Descent from the Cross” - one among thousands of works of art in ‘The Hermitage’. As I sit and type this article now five months later, it is the one that remains with me because, through that painting, I was faced with my own response to disbelief, my own moments of panic, my own ability to be knocked off track by the unexpected, and my own need of God to sustain me in the midst of my anguish.

I had gone to ‘THE HERMITAGE’ with my own agenda, but God chose to meet me in an unexpected encounter with the reality of Jesus’ death and the effect it had on those who had followed and believed in him. It was an uncomfortable awareness which I carry still.

Several weeks later John and I travelled to the south-west of England and there encountered another hermitage. According to the date carved in the stone mantelpiece, this fisherman’s cottage had stood in this little cove since the 1760’s. Now it was a place of retreat and reflection at the tip of the southern Cornish coast, miles from motorways and supermarkets. Windswept and wild, this tiny village was home to a handful of fishermen and their families and a couple of opportunist black cats who welcomed each small boat home and competently sneaked a mackerel each as the baskets were carried ashore.

Our host had casually commented that there was ‘a hermitage’ up on the cliff. So, early one morning I picked my way through the damp grass, watching for the little sunny faces she had put as signs on the track. Gradually I climbed up above the cottages until I came to an area which formed a snug, natural sitting space - rock behind, rock beneath, rock before, sea swirling below. 

Thousands of miles away from the other HERMITAGE full of riches and the pinnacles of artistic expression, I sat out of the wind, looking down on the simplest of dwellings and a lifestyle which was basically unchanged for generations.  These fisherfolk lived a life attuned to the tides and rhythms of the sea, to the natural forces of wind and rain; they lived an apparently uncomplicated life, one which driven city-dwellers might idealise in moments of tension and overwork. 

I sat for a while and wondered about the solace available in silence and solitude. What a temptation it would be to somehow stay apparently-

out of reach of the world’s troubles,

out of sight of the demands of others,

out of touch with the realities of daily struggle.

But in talking to the retreat house owner a little later, I learned of the realities of the local people: the family with a disabled child; the burly fisherman adjusting to the ‘coming out’ of his gay son; the couple who were struggling to meet medical costs of elderly parents …. No matter how remote or idyllic the location, human challenges remain part of everyone’s life.

I knew that the gift of this ‘hermitage’ was the invitation to stay connected with people, wherever and whoever they might be. The very solace I sought in the heart of God would, in reality, lead me closer to the world’s problems and the needs of others, rather than farther away. For contemplative prayer does not disconnect us from our environment but reconnects us more strongly with all that God holds dear.

my hermitage

A thousand thoughts and a million heartbeats from Russia and Cornwall, my interior hermitage waits quietly, patiently, for the touch of the hand of God. This hermitage of the heart - in God’s eyes a place of beauty and riches still undiscovered - is gradually being explored as I learn about myself, about my God and about my calling in Christ.

Dag Hammarskjold wrote ‘The longest journey is the journey inwards’. Not a pilgrimage to be undertaken lightly, but with the sure and steady hand of our fellow pilgrim, Jesus the Christ, to hold and steady each step.

THE ART OF TRAVEL: Some insights from de Botton by Warren Deason

Alain de Botton’s recent television series “Status Anxiety” sparked in me a desire  to explore some of the other writings of this young philosopher and social commentator. I found one of his earlier books had the intriguing title The Art of Travel (published in 2002).

I felt his observations about why it is we travel, what we seek by doing so and whether our lives change in some way because of it, linked in a significant way to the image of faith as  journey.  I think most of us find the image of faith as journey a helpful and engaging one.  We identify with ideas of movement, exploration, landscapes encountered and struggles, as well as delights, on the way.

So I wanted to ask whether de Botton’s book offered any useful commentary on the faith and life journey - the art of  travel. Indeed it did.

In each of the book’s chapters he talks about his experiences of visiting a particular location in the world and he offers for each of these a particular guide or travelling companion (an artist, writer, poet or philosopher) and through their work and experience reflects on his own.

Every journey requires a beginning and in the first chapter  De Botton introduces a rather eccentric character from a 19th C French novel. The Duc des Esseintes lives alone in a vast chateau on the outskirts of Paris. His desire for isolation is so strong and his dislike of other human beings  so great, that he hardly ever leaves his home.   On the one occasion he does decide to travel he eventually persuades himself that one can have the experience simply by reading about it and so remains for the rest of his life within his chateau.

Yet by contrast we are invited to experience the faith journey itself. Somewhere, somehow we actually need to set off. To place our feet on the road. To take this risk of beginning.  Faith is entrusting ourselves to the God of the journey. The experiences of others may help us, guidebooks and maps may be useful, but somewhere the journey must be begun in our shoes.

In the section Landscape, De Botton recalls a trip to the Sinai desert.  One of his guides for this journey is the writer of the book of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures. “I set out for the desert, “de Botton writes, “in order that I may feel small.” I thought that those words were quite tantalising. Why would one want to embark on a journey in order to feel in some way diminished?  For the religious person shouldn’t the faith journey build our sense of self and our sense of being just “a little lower than the angels?” (Ps 8).

But de Botton suggests that the awe-inspiring landscape of the Sinai with its vast deserts and raw rugged mountains  offers us a perspective of ourselves that can be helpful in our life journey.

They are symbolic of realities in our lives that are greater than us, of forces over which we have no control, that we are small in the reality of the universe, that we are frail and temporary and limited.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that he finds the speech of God in the book of Job a salutary companion for our journey. God addresses none of Job’s complaints and offers no justification.  There are things that he will never understand. Along side the forces and power of nature he is puny. That Job sees no logic doesn’t mean that there isn’t any.  Life does not have to fit our logic or expectations.  There will be things that we cannot achieve or overcome, that we cannot make any sense of. There are difficult and painful events in our lives and aspects of our journey that will baffle and bewilder us. Bad things do happen to good people.

Understanding this will give us perspective, will perhaps make us a little more accepting and less anxious.

Yet in spite of our ignorance and our lack of understanding God still holds us.

In the section entitled Art, De Botton talks about his experiences in the Lake District, Madrid, Amsterdam, Barbados and the London dock lands. His travelling companion this time is the 19th century art and social critic John Ruskin. This fascinating chapter reminded me of the importance of the contemplative nature of the journey. How do we make discoveries and  hold on to them?  We begin to do this by really learning to observe. Ruskin was not just a remote art critic, he had a passionate desire that every person be taught how to capture the world around them  by learning to draw. He never believed that everyone would be an acclaimed artist, but he did believe that everyone could learn the art of noticing.  “Now remember gentlemen,” he wrote, “I have not been trying to teach you to draw, only to see!”

So how does this relate to the art of travel? It suggests to me that we learn to travel rather more slowly and deliberately than we often do. We can learn a more slowly paced engagement with our life and faith journey and learn to notice the detail and find beauty there.

“Drawing brutally shows up our previous blindness to the true beauty of things,” de Botton writes.

Ruskin also encouraged people to “word-paint”. To use language to engage with our experience of something. Again he wasn’t interested in our becoming an established and widely read poet, but that we develop the art of noticing when we are invited to describe something in words.  Those of us who keep journals will know the value of this.

The art of description and reflection can enhance our life and faith journey.

The book’s final section Return brings us around full circle. The location is Hammersmith, London and the guide Xavier de Maistre.

De Botton returns home from his journey to Barbados and finds a grim, wet,  grey and depressing London landscape.

“I felt despair at being home, I felt there could be few worse places on earth than the one I had been fated to spend my existence in.”

The book’s finale helped me reflect on the gift of the ordinary in our journey.  A reminder that in fact most of our lives are spent in the presence of the familiar, a familiar that can easily become tedious and boring.

De Botton quotes from Pascal, “The sole cause of a man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”

How do we deal with the gift of the ordinary and the familiar in the journey?

De Botton’s travel guide is the lesser known 18th C French writer Xavier de Maistre, a who wrote a book with the captivating title of “Journey around my Bedroom.” It was the idea that the attitude we travel with is as important as the destination.  That we could approach a journey anywhere, even to the most familiar, with an attitude that would help us derive pleasure from it.

De Botton tries this out in his own neighbourhood  (as he feels his own bedroom is a bit limited), he  tries to look at things in a new way, to see the familiar as unfamiliar, as though seeing it for the first time, to see everything as an object of interest and fascination. To try and engage more actively with what was around him.

Overall he concludes,

“Dressed in pink and blue pyjamas, satisfied within the confines of his own bedroom Xavier de Maistre was gently nudging us to try, before taking off for distant hemispheres, to notice what we have already seen.”

We tend to both admire and feel intimidated by heroic faith travellers. Those whose journeys seem of great significance, who have embraced exotic and exciting experiences of God.  Yet  the ordinary faith journeys of each of us  matter just as much. We are invited to reflect on God’s presence in the ordinary and familiar as much as the spectacular. We may discover that there is as much wonder there and that awe is born in us for what we had always seen but never noticed.

PILGRIMAGE -  Obedience to the Nudgings of God by Christine Renner

As the plane taxied out from the Auckland City Airport, I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. No, not due to a fear of flying, but because I had a one-way ticket and I did not want to leave. How did this come about? How could I say that I chose to be there, yet regret it so deeply?

Several years before I had made a deliberate and specific commitment to do only what I thought God wanted, and to go only where God seemed to be leading. What I hadn’t counted on was that God might nudge me along a path so distasteful to me; that God’s choice and mine could be so far apart. My first retreat experiences of being so in love with the God who is so in love with me, gave me a deep assurance that I could trust God with my life - literally. It was a natural and easy response to feel that I could willingly follow Jesus wherever he might lead. Yet when I got the first inkling that God was calling me to leave New Zealand and go back to Australia I was startled. Where was the love in asking me to do something for which I had no desire?

When I visited Nowra to check out the town I felt God was indicating, it was just another coastal city, with nothing to particularly delight me and tempt me to move there. In fact, my initial response was, ‘who would ever want to live in Nowra?’ I wrestled with God while driving through some of my favourite New Zealand countryside, and suggested several alternatives. I would move. I would do what God wanted. But couldn’t it be within New Zealand? I knew the answer before I asked the question. Arriving at my physical destination, I also arrived at my ‘spiritual’ one. Deep within me, I found a minute spot, just the tiniest of places, where I wanted what God chose in preference to my own way. I was rather ashamed of how small this place was, but relieved that it did exist.

So my spiritual journey took on a physical aspect. Sorting, sifting, culling and packing possessions meant being ruthless and parting with treasures, family heirlooms and sentimental favourites. Our three sons and their wives are also our friends and leaving them was, in the words of one of them, ‘like a death’. After years of being identified primarily by my roles as Peter’s wife and mother of our three sons, I had reached the situation of having networks of relationships and ministry where I was known for myself. That too would be left behind.

And there we were in Auckland ready to go. We had no job to go to, no home waiting, nobody to greet us on arrival. What lay ahead? Was this pilgrimage? Nowra isn’t in the pilgrims’ guidebook, nor was it in my computer spell-checker, with the suggested alternative being ‘nowhere’! It seems just an ordinary town with its mix of great qualities and drawbacks. It does not seem a holy place ‘where the membrane between this world and a reality beyond is especially thin, where a transcendent reality impinges on the immanent.’¹ I didn’t go there to find meaning for my life. I went because I had given myself no other choice. The process of yielding to God’s nudgings on this outward route was revealing inward routes I needed to clear and travel. This was my pilgrimage.

During a time of meditation some years earlier, I had sensed Jesus indicating very clearly that to walk with him would mean I would need to take up my cross, although what that meant specifically was not clear. I could stay where I was, but if I chose to follow Jesus, his road led to Calvary. Sharing that with someone her response was, ‘You seem to have a hard Jesus!’ No way! I knew without a doubt that this was not true. Jesus had proved over time to be the most loving and generous friend I had ever known. In following his wisdom I had been liberated from unhealthy ways of living and come to a place of contentment and well-being I had never imagined possible. Yet, while I wanted to be where Jesus was, I was wary of the cost involved. Although Jesus said ‘Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self,’²  I struggled with the process.

In order to live well and happily in Nowra I was forced to resolve this issue. To move beyond my grief at what I thought I had lost, I had a further choice to make. Had God stopped loving and caring for me? Not at all! Could I believe that this request of God’s was consistent with previous ones; that this too was lovingly conceived for my good, even though I could not see how? I wrote in my journal, ‘I need Nowra more than it needs me.’ It was not about Nowra, but about me being taken away from my wants and my self-centredness.

By choosing my attitude, and trusting the love of God, I was able to appreciate Nowra and what it offered, especially the special friends who enriched our lives.

By travelling this road I have been able to observe a number of things:- 

•  My wants and desires can easily loom large, but in satisfying those I can ignore my true inner hunger. When all my props were taken away I was able to prove that my relationship with God is my greatest treasure, and it is this that satisfies the core of my being.

•  Worship of God is both the means and the end. Following God ‘is not about implementing a plan, but by being so intimate with God that we can hear the whispers of the moment’.³ This can be done any moment of any day in any place. 

•  When events do not turn out how I hope and expect them to, it does not mean God has not lead me there, nor is it the end of the story. 

About a year ago, I received an abrupt and surprising direction to leave Nowra and come back to New Zealand. In many ways we have come back with nothing, to nothing. After seven months, with our future here no clearer, and with our household effects still in storage, I am trying to apply the lessons I have learnt over the past five years. The Russian Pilgrim whose story is told in ‘The Way Of the Pilgrim’ discovered the treasure of The Jesus Prayer. For me it is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, the one we know as The Lord’s Prayer. Since reading the version in The Message Bible, it has become more and more the prayer to which I return. It sums up what is important to me, and I am especially captivated by the words ‘You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.’⁴

The God who nudged me from my comfort and security is not a hard God. He is the One who has walked the journey with me, keeping me safely on the path. I wish there was space to tell the stories about it all - like the day that I recall as the darkest and loneliest of my time in Nowra. Someone I had met only once came to the door. She had me on her mind, but didn’t know why. In the course of our conversation she made a comment that, unknown to her, was for me an answer to my heart-cry prayer to God that morning. This was one of many incidents that assured me of God’s attentive love and care, despite the anguish I felt at times.

In the preface of my copy of The Way of the Pilgrim, Helen Bacovcin writes:  (Pilgrim) knows as few of us do that a wholehearted response to the message of the Gospel is the only one that makes sense and satisfies the very core of our being. . . . He knows the secret of interior freedom. . . . He knows that the cost of discipleship will never begin to measure up to the rewards that await the faithful disciple who does the will of the Father, both here and hereafter. . . He knows how ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL God is in His love and mercy to all his children but especially to those who unconditionally open their hearts to Him.

YES!!  YES!!  YES!!

1    Robinson, M. Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths, p2

2    Luke 9:24, The Message Bible

3    From a tape by Gordon Cosby,  Church of the Saviour, Washington  DC

4     Matthew 6, The Message Bible

JOURNEY TO THE CORAL CASTLE by Jenny Harrison

It is always more interesting, and perhaps more accurate, to explore life events through the retro-spectroscope! The stories of crises and celebrations are often clouded by emotions that blur chronology, muddle participants, confuse memories and select responses. This was certainly my experience at the beginning of last year!

I’d noticed this slight discoloration on my left breast while changing for swimming one morning in November. “I’ll watch that” I thought, and I did, watch the slight discoloration become a marked dent over the next eight weeks. “I’ll wait until after Christmas” I thought, “that way, I won’t spoil the holidays.  I’ll go to the doctor then or, maybe I’ll have a mammogram. It’s probably nothing… … I hope it’s nothing.”

By late January, there was a palpable lump so the procrastination about the trip to the doctor came to an end. I hadn’t told anyone what was going on or how scared I was feeling. I made the appointment and went for a mammogram. I could see by the look on the radiographer’s face that she had found something.  Maybe if I hadn’t been a nurse for as long, I’d have missed the cues: “I’ll just check this with the Doctor. We may have to do another film” and “Do we have all your contact details in case we need to contact you?”

I’d only been at work about an hour the next day when the call came: “Mrs Harrison, we’d like you to come for another film. Is there someone you would like to bring with you to the appointment? Could you come today or would tomorrow morning suit you better?”  It was amazing how calm I felt. It was as if, now that the ‘not-knowing’ was out of the way, I could begin a new journey of knowing.

Integrating information and feelings was difficult and I could not imagine telling my husband and my son. John and I have only been married four years and in that time, we seem to have faced more life crises than most couples ever need! I knew he’d be supportive but I did not want to need support. I did not want to face yet another potential crisis! All my anxieties about rejection, body image, abandonment, loss of independence and financial security came to the fore. I realised, however, that most of these feelings were comfortable old friends masking a deep fear of illness and loss of control.  Buried even deeper was a sense of resentment that the time John and I have together might be curtailed. I practised in my head what I would say to John, how I would tell my son. I tried to imagine how I would hold onto my two jobs, the parish work I was involved in, and my studies.

Somehow, in the midst of all of this, I barely thought about God or Spirit or prayer. I went for a swim on the morning of the appointment at the Breast Clinic. En route, I found myself in deep conversation with God asking all the ‘why me?’ type questions. I swam my usual lengths and drove home. The storm of planning that had been happening in my head stilled and I felt calm and prepared and found myself saying out loud: “I suppose I know that I’m not in this alone. God, help me to remember this.”

The radio was on in the car – the concert programme, in the midst of Mozart – when suddenly, the music was interrupted by birdsong. The announcer apologised: “sorry about that folks, but this morning’s bird is the very persistent kingfisher.” I stopped the car, feeling an overwhelming sense of the presence of God. For years, I’ve carried around a tatty photocopy of the following prayer given to me by my spiritual director during a time of great change in my life.

Prayer is like watching for the kingfisher.

All you can do is be where he is likely to appear and wait.

Often, nothing much happens.

There is space, silence and expectancy – no visible sign.

Only the knowledge that
He’s been there

And may come again.

Seeing or not seeing cease to matter – you have been prepared.

But sometimes

When you’ve almost stopped expecting it

A flash of brightness gives you encouragement¹.

For a brief moment, I felt held, and loved, and blessed – still scared, still angry, still fiercely independent, but not alone. I resolved to find a kingfisher to serve as a talisman on the days when I could not access a connection with God. (I could hear the words ‘transitional object’ in my head as I considered this!)  

The next few days are a bit blurred as I processed the information about ductal carcinoma in situ in my left breast. This is not, in and of itself, a problem. The concern was an invasive cancer, smallish and clearly margined, that needed removal. I was advised to have a partial mastectomy and removal of lymph nodes as soon as possible and warned that I would require radio-therapy and possibly chemo-therapy.

Waiting for surgery was an interesting time. Everyone I knew, knew someone who’d had a mastectomy. It seemed as though I heard everyone’s breast cancer story – the stories of healing and all the others. My close women friends were amazing. Many of them live in Christchurch and, for the next two months, one or another rang each day. Flowers and cards arrived and my sense of being held and loved continued. I resigned from one job and had some spare time for the first time in years. I swam often, walked the dog and felt my soul still. The storm of planning and worrying in my head had clear calm moments and I could no longer use ‘storm’ as a means of avoiding my fears of mutilation, of becoming dependent, of dying.  I knew with great clarity that it was not so much death that I feared but dying. My years of palliative care nursing and hospice chaplaincy meant that I knew intimately the in-between period between life and death. I can say with great conviction that: “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there on the day”!²

I began to feel as though I was travelling to a new and unexpected destination and  that I needed to learn a new language. The language was deeply interior as I began to name feelings, sit alongside fears, explore anxieties. It was as though my exterior world both slowed down and became smaller while my interior world expanded in both depth and capacity. Some of my questions had no answers and I could sit still in the midst of them. Some fears could not be named and I could sit in the discomfort of that. My capacity to ‘control’ even some of the basics of my life diminished as I became reliant on hospital waiting lists, nursing care and recuperation time. What I could control was language and my attitude. I resolved to use language of integration rather than adversity – living with breast cancer rather than ‘battling’ with or ‘fighting’ it. I resolved not to ‘survive’ cancer but to heal and grow from it. I visualised wholeness and light and energy and made time each day to focus on healing. Most days, I could see a future as I lived fully in every moment.

The surgery and radiotherapy now feel like the least invasive of all the processes. While there were discomforts and things I’d rather NOT have experienced, a few months down the track, the memories of physical events have faded.  I feel well most days and go about my daily life in pretty much the way I did before. I catch myself in the stillness, sometimes, feeling afraid. Can I analyse the fear? No, not really. It is very complex. I’m both afraid of being sick and afraid of feeling well. “I felt well before”, I rationalise “and look what happened then. I should be prepared”.  That argument is soon countered by “think positive – you’ll make yourself sick worrying: stress doesn’t help.”

I see kingfishers, often. They sit near traffic lights while I’m driving home. They appear on magazine covers in the hospital waiting rooms, they appear in my dreams.  They help me to remember my new language. The new language feels as yet unspoken – I’m currently learning a grammar upon which to hang the words.  As I struggle to give voice to what is within me, I am greatly comforted and challenged by these words:

I built my house by the sea

Not on the sands, mind you,

Not on the shifting sand.

And I built it of rock.

A strong house by a strong sea.

And we got well acquainted,

The sea and I.

Good neighbours.

Not that we spoke much.

We met in silences,

Respectful, keeping our distance

But looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.

Always the fence of sand our barrier,

Always the sand between.

And then one day

(And I still don’t know how it happened)

the sea came.

Without warning.

Without welcome, even.

Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine.

Less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.

Slow, but flowing like an open wound.

And I thought of flight, and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.

But while I thought the sea crept higher until it reached my door.

And I knew there was neither flight, nor death nor drowning.

That when the sea comes calling you stop being good neighbours

Well acquainted, friendly from a distance neighbours.

And you give your house for a coral castle

And you learn to breathe underwater.³ 

Carol Bialock Chile, 1975.

And, every now and then, I find a coral castle and actually breathe underwater.

1  I have tried to find a reference for this prayer without success.

2  This saying is attributed to Woody Allen, actor and director of melancholy movies. I am unable to accurately source the quote.

3   Cassidy, S. (1991) Good Friday people. London: Darton, Longman Todd. 108-109.

HIKOI TAPU by Karel Lorier

In 2001 I had the opportunity to travel as photographer with a pilgrimage of thirty seven pilgrims to Rome, Lyon and Paris and then journey throughout New Zealand with other groups of pilgrims, bringing the remains of Bishop Pompallier, the first Roman Catholic Bishop back to New Zealand. Bishop Pompallier had arrived in New Zealand in 1838 and left for the last time in 1869. He died in 1871 and was buried at Puteaux, Paris. Maori have never forgotten him and remembered him annually on the 13th of January, the anniversary of his first mass in New Zealand at Totara Point.

When it was recognised that he was buried away from his family and at a place where people did not know him, the desire to bring Pompallier’s remains back to New Zealand grew over many years. The pilgrimage, Hikoi Tapu, was organised over some years to bring his remain back.

There were many moving places and events on this journey which took nearly four months. For the participants there were many layers of meaning and challenges as they visited the sacred places which had shaped the life of Pompallier and now in turn shaped their lives. Travelling from marae to marae and visiting church and schools the story of Pompallier was told and retold, as was the story of the pilgrimage up to that point. Pompallier had made an impression on Maori that won many of them to the gospel. Despite his weaknesses and failings, his charisma drew people to the sacred- to God.  In death, brought back for a much delayed Tangi, his story and example was inspiring. Among many layers of meaning one, which was often repeated by people met along the journey “He choose to come here leaving his family because he loved us, now we choose to bring him back.”

For me personally there were many moving moments on this pilgrimage.  I recount only one. My background is in the protestant tradition austere in its use of visual art as a means of creating a worshipful attitude or drawing one to God.

In Lyons at Notre Dame de Fouviere I encountered a magnificently decorated church which just moved me to call out “Glory to God.” But this was only the beginning. Our guide led us to the highly decorated altar. It was almost too much. My gaze moved up into the apex of the canopy high over the altar. There at the very top were the Hebrew characters YHWH the Hebrew unpronounceable name of God, perhaps best translated as “I will be who I will be.” I was stunned to awe and then excitement. I pointed it out to my fellow pilgrims and guide who was not aware of its meaning. This is what pilgrimage is about. Silenced, I sat down and wandered in my thoughts over history. There were Christians in Lyons seventeen years after the Crucifixion. Bishop Irenaeus was the second Bishop. The first Bishop had been martyred. I meandered in my thoughts over the history of the church and then to New Zealand. I stayed quietly with my thoughts for some time. It was an hour before I could take a photograph. I wanted to share it with others.

A selection of the photographs I took was exhibited at Auckland War Memorial Museum and at Russell Museum. While printing these photographs I thought much about the nature of pilgrimage and did some reading on the subject.

Pilgrimages have been an important aspect of spiritual change and growth over thousands of years. The pilgrim motif is strong in the hymns we sing and the language we use in talking about our faith. The Christian faith was once “the way.” The Exodus tradition is seen as a pilgrimage. The Moslem pilgrimage to Mecca, Hindu pilgrimages to Benares, India, Japanese Buddhist pilgrimages to China, among others; indicate the importance of such pilgrimages in other faiths.

Durkheim, the sociologist wrote that we declare as sacred symbols of the highest values we aspire to at a particular time. We declare certain places sacred because the events, usage and symbols we associate with them embrace values which can bring us to an experience of God – the numinous – the sacred. Incorporated with these sacred sites there are rituals. Rituals are transition events which get us from one state of being to another. Worship incorporates various rituals. Normally we go through a sequence of rituals such as approach, the word, response and dismissal. Within that ritual we hear the sacred words and make a response in which we may join in a sacred meal which joins us with the divine – the sacred- the numinous. Our contact with our faith is renewed. In a way this is a pilgrimage - we journey through a liturgy.

The more usual use of the word pilgrimage is when we travel as a group or as individuals on a carefully planned journey which will put us in touch with sacred places to which we may not have been before. There are rituals along the way. Those who receive us at the sacred places have their ritual which they take us through. There may be new learnings which heighten our sense of the sacred. We discover new ways of doing things, which bring us into contact with the sacred in new ways. Or it may be that away from the normal humdrum we experiment, try different rituals and look at objects which we do not normally experience as sacred. As our horizons are stretched, we learn new things and experience new things. Pilgrimage is about the growing edges of our spiritual journey. We are cross fertilised with new ritual, ideas and experiences from the sacred places.

We are challenged by our fellow pilgrims’ perspectives as they share their experiences of the sacred.

We want to have access to these experiences again and again and may purchase mementos, write diary notes and take photographs to remember the place and the associated religious experiences. Part of the process of a pilgrimage is sharing the experience with others who we meet on the journey and those at home who may vicariously be touched by the sacred through our experiences. The pilgrimage enriches more people than just the pilgrims who travel.

At a pilgrimage workshop held at St James, Auckland we became aware that one does not have to travel far to go on a pilgrimage. At the conclusion of the first day of the workshop we planned a pilgrimage for the following Saturday morning. A large number of potential sacred sites were suggested by the group. Eventually a selection from these sites was made and a person volunteered to speak about how a site was sacred to them. It was agreed that a period of silence would follow their presentation. The sites chosen included, Mt Eden, the War Memorial Museum and Bastion Point/Savage Memorial. We travelled by bus from site to site. We stopped for coffee and people sent post cards as a reminder of their experience.

For me it was a discovery of the sacred – of God in the midst of Auckland. As individuals told how they experienced a site as sacred was a moving experience. We finished the morning with a communion service at Savage Memorial. For me the pilgrimage did not finish that morning.  There are now places in Auckland that speak to me of the numinous - of God. I also have pictures to share as I talk about the experience with others.

I am not the same person who set out on these pilgrimages. My horizons have been stretched. I guess that is the nature of pilgrimage.

THE WALKING WOUNDED by Alan Leadley

Now that I am a (recycled) Hospital Chaplain, this title appealed to me as a description of what life’s pilgrimage is all about.  When I walked the path of St James in France and Spain (“El Camino de Santiago”) in 2001, I journeyed over mountains, through small isolated hamlets and large cities, across the extensive tableland of the Meseta and through vineyards, wheatfields and forests.  I visited opulent cathedrals, churches Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque, passed through Roman and Moorish occupation and drank water from 2000-year old fountains.  I marvelled at the storks bearing their young in lofty church belfries and enjoyed the camaraderie of fellow pilgrims along the way, and in the refugio (refuges) and taverna where we ate our meals together.  The scallop shell and yellow arrows marked the pilgrim route, along deserted paths and busy highways.  Pilgrim stone cairns symbolized the significance of building on each other’s experience, efforts and wisdom.

A walking pace view of the world afforded ample time to reflect on my journey of life, my ministry and where God’s spirit may be leading me in the future.  Sharing with fellow pilgrims has enlarged my horizons and I was often moved by their stories and experiences.  In every way we were com-panions together, pilgrims sharing bread.  Often at the table there would be 10 or more nationalities represented, but out of the many languages, there emerged a common understanding, often larger and richer than the spoken word.

I felt along the Way that I was walking through a history book spanning two millennia:  crossing Roman bridges, witnessing sites of Moorish invasion and Catholic King re-conquest, worshipping in 11th century churches small and great, following the footsteps of Francis of Assisi and Theresa of Avila.  Most of all, however, the pilgrimage honoured the history/legend (I don’t think it matters) of St James the Apostle who evangelized Spain after Jesus’ death and the pentecostal empowerment.  James was martyred in Jerusalem, and his body was said to have been brought back to Spain and buried at a compostum (graveyard) at Iria Flavia, the capital of Roman Galicia.  In the Middle Ages the Camino de Santiago (Road of St James) was one of the most famous and popular of all pilgrimages.  Recently, it has undergone a huge renewal of interest.

When I finally walked into the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostella, I placed my hand in the handprint indented into the marble on the Jesse tree and marvelled at the number of pilgrim hands it has taken to make such an imprint.  I hugged the statue of the Apostle and viewed the silver casket, under the altar, where James’ bones were said to have been laid to rest.

The pilgrimage of St James is also a metaphor for an inward journey.  For me the pilgrimage was primarily a spiritual experience, a journey in which I made deep connections with other people and special places. I will always recall the Prayer of Blessing over the pilgrims at the Roncesvalles Monastery:

“O God, be for us

a companion in walking,

a guide at the crossroads,

a relief in our weariness,

a defence against danger,

Shelter on the road,

Shade in the heat,

Light in the darkness,

Courage in our dismay,

Firmness in our uncertainty;

So that following you,

We may arrive safely at our journey’s end.”

Originally Christians were referred to as people of the Way of Jesus.  For me the joy and fullness, simplicity and fascination of Jesus’ Way has been confirmed on the Camino.  The journey was both pure magic and deeply human.  The scallop shell, universally used and recognized along the Camino will always be an important pilgrim symbol to me.  Wesley’s Coat of Arms features the scallop.  So do many parishes, such as St Albans Chartwell, when we use a scallop shell to baptize new members of the Church and when we place a candle in a scallop to signify the light of the World.

The pilgrimage was a people-centred event, simple in its concept, deep in its outcomes.  In many ways the pilgrimage seemed separate and distant from the highly-charged political ritualistic role of the wealthy church in Spain.

What often appeared to me to be a pompous and powerful organised religion was far away from the unconventional, humble origins of Christianity and the One who trudged the paths of Palestine.  This was clear by the way in which the Church infused with nationalistic fervour was able to reinvent the image of James from that of a gentle preaching pilgrim to that of a Moor-slaying patriot.  But then institutionalised religion has always contained the capacity to abuse power.  True pilgrimage acts as a counterpoint to this religious control.

My observations are those of a brief visitor but it seems to me that in Catholic Spain, the real fellowship is in the taverna not the Church; emotional release happens at bullfights and soccer matches not at worship, and TV aerials/Satellite stations have replaced sacred shrines on hilltops.  Despite my frustrations with organized religion however, the pleasure and personal growth of the pilgrimage will abide.

It’s no wonder therefore that the Camino is sometimes referred to as “la ruta de la terapia”, the therapy route.  Most of us as pilgrims who “connected” along the way were dealing with issues of transition, loss, grief, spiritual enquiry.  I was in that transition zone between midlife reflection and retirement, a “critical life-gap”.  I knew what I had left behind, but didn’t know what I was seeking, other than an opportunity to explore my inner world.  I’m glad I kept a diary.  The journey is the truth, not the destination.  The goal is in a real sense the road itself, not the refuge (refugio) at the end of the day’s walk.  Everyone along the road had a story to tell – a Belgian man who had just lost his wife, a Dutch chap whose wife had leukaemia, a Finnish therapist who was contemplating religious orders, a young English mother whose son had died a year before.

The 800km walk was physically challenging – I suffered somewhat from shin splint and blisters, cold and thirst … and yet in a strange way, this (minor) suffering brought me greater insight into my own coping mechanisms and mental stamina.  Walking wounded … and the satisfaction of feeling fully alive, pain and all, is an integral element of “Walking the Way”.

The author of one Guide Book on the Camino has described the walk in four parts, symbolic of life:

•  “the juice of mashed grapes” (Navarre & La Rioja) crushing our life with many things until we learn to drink the wine of reconciliation with God

•  the austerity and humility learned by crossing the Castillian Meseta (parallels the life of Christ)

•  the hills and passes between Leon and El Bierzo reminding the pilgrim of the Passion of Christ, with its solitude and wayside crosses, and finally

•  the fourth part, Galicia, marking the Joy in Christ, where the ups and downs of the journey are understood in terms of the Resurrection.

The pilgrim prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, yourself the Way, the Truth, the Life, grant to us who tread in your earthly footsteps, a sense of awe, wonder and holiness.  May our hearts burn within us as we come to know you more clearly, love you more dearly and follow you more nearly.

BUNYAN AND IMAGES OF PILGRIMAGE by Andrew Dunn

I grew up on a strong diet of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress! We had a pictorial version of it as young children and later I was given E. Palgrave Davies’ simplified version as a Sunday School prize. The images, stories and pictures made a deep impression. Then at the age of eight I went to a Scripture Union after school programme in our Church hall where the presenter (Salisbury by name) showed us magic lantern slides of Christian’s journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City (the week was too short to include Christiana’s journey with her children).

The snippet that stands most strongly in my memory was the part where Christian with his burden of sin and pain securely tied to his back walks up “the hill somewhat ascending” to the foot of the cross where he kneeled and the burden fell off and rolled down the hill into the bottomless pit. That afternoon our leader taught us the chorus
At the Cross, at the Cross where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away, it was there by faith I received, my sight and now I am happy all the day.
Something like that happened to me that day and I rose, went forth and have followed Jesus to this day. Quite profound really.

Bunyan wrote his work at the end of 12 years imprisonment for his religious independency – the first edition published in 1678, the tenth in 1685. Since then many versions have appeared (for families and children as well) in over 100 languages. It’s couched in the form of a dream (albeit about 300 pages long!) in which he uses “similitudes” (likenesses, images), a term borrowed from Hosea (12:10 A.V.), to tell the story of the Christian pilgrim’s progress from one crisis of faith to another, one temptation and allurement, attachment and challenge to the next. In a sense it sounds quaint to our ears today but it remains both a spiritual classic and a literary gem of the English language, on a par with Milton’s works.

Many of his terms and names for places and people met along the way have entered our language and our spiritual understanding as richly descriptive of the challenges and people Christian met and we meet. More of that later.

What are the specific insights of the journey that Bunyan saw? They are many. Here are a few of them.

For one thing Bunyan has a panoramic view of the Gospel and the faith journey and its difficulties and delights. In the midst of our current journeys that’s encouraging. For another, the notion of Christian setting out on a journey to the promised land is invaluable. For too long we had lost the sense of faith as a journey of discovery and growth, of intrinsic value in itself quite apart from the destination. The book keeps us earthed in reality and saves us from ignoring the present dilemmas for the heavenly vision. Yet it holds out the promise that at journey’s end rich meetings of eternity await. Those who venture forth he names pilgrims.

His accurate knowledge of human nature and the ways people tick gained from his years in the army, working as