Walking together through Sussex and To The Lighthouse.
pilgrimage
Every step of my sister’s pilgrimage was a prayer, and I tried to follow in the path she made.
The traveler eats whatever food is placed before her; she aims to learn as much of the language as possible. A tourist sacrifices less.
Over the last generation, the institution of pilgrimage has experienced a startling revival across what we often dismiss as secular Europe.
Why are Presbyterians fixated on Israel? I frequently speak to church groups about pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I speak as a pilgrim, but the conversation often turns to politics. Inevitably someone will ask about our denomination’s position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. There’s no simple answer.
Shared holy places might puzzle American or European Christians. In the rest of the world, religions have rarely enjoyed such a monopoly.
What is it about Western culture that makes it so difficult to taste God? Why would we rather prove propositions than experience the holy?
Public ritual might be construed as a benign relic, as imperialism, or as marketing. Or it might be seen as a form of pilgrimage.
During spring break I made a pilgrimage. With my husband and my daughter, I traced the path Virginia Woolf took through Italy in 1908.
When I walked into a screening of The Way, which opens today, I knew very little about the film; only that it stars Martin Sheen and is directed by his son, Emilio Estevez, and that it involves pilgrims hiking El Camino de Santiago, a 450-mile historical pilgrimage route across northern Spain.
Surely there are ten or 12 people a day who would sign up for a Jerusalem tour designed to deepen their questions instead of answering them.
Walk along with Century contributor Sarah Hinlicky Wilson and her husband Andrew Lars Wilson as they retrace the journey Martin Luther made from Erfut, Germany, to Rome in 1510—500 years ago this year.
