Pilgrimages

For some reason these recent days have been full of thoughts about the journey of faith on which I embarked so long ago and which has brought me now to a place which I can only describe as "know-not-where."  To this place I did not know I was going, but now that I have arrived in it, I recognize it as home.  The ancient Celtic Christians talked about pilgrimages which took them not to some destination such as a religious shrine, but to the place of their resurrection.  They were taken to that place not by a map or a plan, but by the wind of the Spirit.   

As I have in recent years walked deeper into the stream of Celtic spirituality, it has seemed like such a journey.  I did not plan to arrive at this place.  I believe that I am where I am because of the Spirit who moves us and in so many ways there has been a feeling of resurrection taking place.  Moving from the work of ministry to the work of the farm has the feeling of a spiritual pilgrimage, one taken without intent to move toward  "know-not-where."    

Reflection enables me to see that I have been moving in a spiritual direction without knowing where I was going.  A recent book by John Philip Newell entitled "Sacred Earth Sacred Soul" summed up this journey in the very first sentence of the book's introduction.  "We know things in the core of our being that we have not necessarily been taught, and some of this deep knowing may actually be at odds with what our society or religion has tried to teach us."   As I read those first words, I heard myself saying to myself, "Yes!"  I grabbed a pen to underline the sentence thinking that I should keep the underlining pen close at hand.