Pilgrimage, The Grit and the Joy
Why Would Someone Do That???
“You’re going away again?”
June is here and it seems just about every day a fabulous new summer festivity is added to our calendar.
First, a weekend away at my husband's annual company meeting, then seeing our daughter-in-law off for her deployment, Father’s Day, a week-long fishing trip, all the kids coming home in July, meeting our new in-laws and having a big party to celebrate our fourth son’s wedding with the Michigan family and friends, before the nuptials in Oregon this October.
Hardly any of this was on the calendar, in early spring when I sent in my registration for the Writer’s Workshop; an incredible opportunity for aspiring authors to be trained by the faculty of three colleges and writing professionals flown in from across the US.
It wasn’t until about 7:30 pm on Father’s Day with the family still celebrating in the living room that I had my first opportunity, to pull out my suitcase for the week-long event.
Blurry-eyed with exhaustion, I made the sign of the cross and prayed for a miracle that I would remember everything I was supposed to pack. I needed to leave the house the next morning by 6:30 am. Not to worry, with so much running through my head, I only slept about four hours.
Gulping down ibuprofen on my way out the door, everything in me was telling me what a bad idea this was.
Voices, chattered in my ear, “Conferences, classes, three days away last summer working on your book proposal, countless hours hidden away from every other living thing in the cabin, up in the wee hours of the morning, and now adding this to the summer schedule? This is insane. When is this going to stop?”
I never knew following God's call to become a writer would require so much work or blood, sweat, tears, cash, equipment, and persistence. Imagining it, I pictured sneaking away to a little corner of the house with a hot cup of coffee for a couple of blissful hours every week for something akin to journaling.
Some might say that if writing was something God had called me to do, I shouldn’t have to go to such extreme measures. It should fit neatly into my day-to-day life and flow out like water from a faucet.
But isn’t that the way it works with everything in life? Nothing that matters ever just falls into our lap.
When you want to become a nurse, it takes four grueling years and thousands of dollars to get your degree. If you want to be healthy you must study nutrition, shop carefully, and exercise regularly. If you want a strong marriage, you have to make constant choices to limit your commitments on evenings and weekends, hash out your differences, and get away with just the two of you a few times a year.
Here in our second week talking about the spiritual practice of going on a pilgrimage, I wonder if we think about having a strong relationship with God the same way.
Do we think that knowing God, and having a life of deepest intimacy with Him shouldn’t require much effort? That because God is all around us, it should just happen.
On one hand, it’s as easy as breathing and on the other, it requires everything we’ve got.
Thinking about people who make the commitment to go to Israel to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, or fly to Spain, and spend weeks walking to Santiago, or to Scotland, to travel the road to Iona, it requires excruciating effort. It’s expensive. There’s special gear you need, airline tickets, immunizations, and tons of research.
Why do they do it?
Because something burns inside that they can’t fully explain. Something that says, “You mean everything to me, God. I feel like you have something for me, and I don’t want to miss it. Let everything else fall away that I might see, feel, hear, and know You.”
As they walk through every grueling step to get there and then go, God is faithful; uncovering treasure they never would have found without going.
It reminds me of Mat 13:45-46, “And the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls who when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
Turns out that painful and seemingly insane commitment to attend the Writer’s Workshop taught me writing practices that have changed my writing forever, given me connections with other writers and professionals that I wouldn’t doubt will empower me for years to come and may even have connected me to the editor who will become my partner in publishing.
Maybe for you, it’s not traveling to another country to go on a pilgrimage or attending a writing workshop, but may we all be “pilgrims at heart” willing to do whatever we sense God burning within, to receive the treasure that will never come without extreme, and maybe at times, a little insane, effort.
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Spending a minute in prayer, ask the Lord, how He is calling you to be a “pilgrim at heart”?
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P.s. If you want to learn more about pilgrimage, tune into Lectio 365 App as they travel the Iona Pilgrimage across Scotland this week!