But Is It A Pilgrimage?

Calling myself a postModern Pilgrim would assume that I also see what I do here on the blog as part of a pilgrimage. I guess I have had a personal understanding of what a "pilgrimage" is. But then recently when doing some reading on traveling I came across this quote from Rory MacLean on Rolf Pott's blog:

Pilgrimage seems to be a means of reinforcing certainties of faith. Independent travel can be about challenging one's ideas of living.

All of a sudden my purpose and understanding of being a pilgrim was brought up short. Perhaps I wanted to get defensive over the use of the word "reinforce." That makes a pilgrimage sound like a journey to support beliefs one already has. It doesn't sound like an attempt to find out new or different visions of one's faith. It doesn't sound like a way to awaken or deepen one's understanding of faith.

So I went to Wikipedia and found:

In religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance.

Okay, that fits. I can accept that. A journey of great moral significance. First is the journey. It is a trip from somewhere to somewhere. It is a getting up and moving from what was to what will be in a metaphorical or physical way. It is movement. Something happens. Something occurs. Somethings change.

Second is the environment of the journey- moral significance. In a pilgrimage one is traveling to find out what is important in life- and in particular what is important in one's own life. As a result a pilgrimage will from time to time shatter preconceived notions. Or at other times will reinforce and reaffirm the underpinnings of ones faith.

In other words if one goes on a "pilgrimage" to reinforce their preconceived notions, they will find it. If they go with an openness of mind and soul one never knows what will happen. If it is a religious or spiritual pilgrimage as a Christian, one would expect to find a closer understanding of Jesus or God or the Holy Spirit. But how and where one does that may be a bigger surprise and challenge to one's preconceptions than would be expected.

It depends on one's openness.

Over these past seven years of this blog pilgrimage I have attempted to be that kind of open. To live, in my opinion, is to be on a pilgrimage. The world we live in, this postModern world of uncertainty and confusion and conflicting ideologies is where my pilgrimage is being done. I hope it hasn't been simply to reinforce my beliefs, but to verbalize the challenges of the world. It is different each day. I have been open to times and places and people.

I hope to continue traveling in this same manner. There is so much to see and discover in the world. So much of it is in the mundane, day-in-and-day-out events that can be easily missed because it is so common. To travel beyond one's comfort zones, mentally and physically, is to bring back into focus what is important in one's life.

So here we go, starting the 8th year of this journey.

And as a last aside in this, the Iraq War was about to start when I started this blog journey. After the elections this past Sunday, perhaps the blog can finally outlive the war. May it be so. May it be so very soon.