This is a Pilgrimage for Peace.  That’s what we’re calling it.  That’s the intent.  The design.  As winter thawed away and Chris offered up the suggestion, and named it so, I didn’t give it any thought; it just felt perfectly right.  “Absolutely let’s do it!”  I’m still absolute and yes – never wavered – but the questions of what this really is, and the possible intricacies inherent in the adventure, these have now all awoken with impending force.  Just what is this thing we’re doing, and how are we, two penniless dreamers, to accomplish it?

I don’t have a lot of experience with pilgrimage.  My first thought when thinking of the word is of the Canterbury Tales, that Medieval romp-fest of motley characters for which the  collective act of pilgrimage is simply a story device for Chaucer’s meditation on human nature.  There’s hardly a whiff of spiritual motivation, and still, this is my first thought, and I have to say that this is perfectly appropriate: the bawdy, messy, bewildering pageantry of being human is how I started this life, and it remains – inescapably – the principle point for so so so much of the beauty, fun and spirit in my days.  So, yes, bring the mud, the music, the beer, the crooks and cocks, the women and the fools!  Ahhhh, but as this is already so much of my daily life, I could simply stay put, as I do, for this experience.  Or I could bounce about, as I already so commonly do, and again, the same.  This pilgrimage is certainly all that, but also so much more.

My next thought of pilgrimage takes my mind to Mecca, to the Hajj of Islam with its tens-of-thousands of white-wearing devotees spiraling round the black cube of the Kaaba in an act of extraordinary surrender and reverence.  This is devotion to faith.  This is reverence for God.  This is self-sacrifice. This is joy in surrender, joy in devotion, joy in collective action and adulation.  This is a pilgrimage I would love to make, but this is also religion, Islam, and I while I can gladly affirm the Shahada, that there is no God but God, and Mohamed is the messenger of God, still, I don’t exactly recognize myself as a Muslim, and few Muslims would see me in this light either.  How funny that my dad, if you know him, is by rights a Sufi, and more fit for the Haj than me!  As for me, I must say that Mohamed is truly a great messenger, but not the only, nor the last.  And while religious devices hold many great and wonderful powers, not the least of which is helping to safeguard and activate the universal truths of love, unity, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness, still, though I’ve often tried, I cannot not tie myself to any one religious tradition.  Someday these truths will be self-evident among all humankind, and our divine nature will be fully on display, and when that day comes, religion as we know it shall immediately evaporate and be remembered as an instrumental, colorful relic of the past.  All this said, while I may never be welcome as a Muslim in the Hajj, I would dearly love to visit Mecca and Medina, the sacred places of the Prophet Mohamed, and might, just might, have the opportunity to do so on this journey.

Then there’s my friend, George.  George is Catholic, Polish Catholic, and George, with great gusto and reverence, occasionally tells me the story of a pilgrimage he made as a young teenager in Poland.  I don’t remember the place he and his fellow pilgrims journeyed to, I just know that my friend holds this as one of the few, truly monumental and life-changing experiences of his life.  And I remember how he loves the Carmelite monk who was so helpful to George during the long days of walking, the monk who mostly walked barefoot, always smiling.  And I remember how this story helped bring me to the Carmelite hermitage of Nada in Crestone, when my mom was dying, when I truly felt the spirit of Christ moving in me so clearly for the first time.  I’m reminded of Father Eric’s words too, that, “We are all prophets, all priests and priestesses, all kings and queens, all of us, each in our own right.”  Is pilgrimage perchance an opportunity to truly realize this, for one’s self, yes, and perhaps even more importantly, to see this in everyone?  As I flirt with the Catholic tradition, here then is knowing that I would really like to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, and that this just might happen a year hence, before this pilgrimage is through.

I’m also reminded of the last three books I read just prior to my Baker City Thunderbolts, my own remembering in the summer of 2007.  These three books were Siddhartha, Baudolino, and Narcissus and Goldmund.  All three follow the lives of the principle characters from birth to death, or something at least like death.  While there is a period of overt pilgrimage in each story, I undoubtedly recognize each life, in its entirety, as a living pilgrimage.  In this I look to my own story, the memoir I’m still struggling to write, Eve of the Flower.  I know that my own life has always been, and always will be, a pilgrimage, a journey of discovery – inside and out – and a journey home, to God.  Of course, God is the journey too, and God is very much within and and very much without.  Here, within these stories, rises the question of authorship, and of authority.  I mean, I’m writing the story of my life, but who is writing me?  Jesus is the Living Book.  So are we all.  But to what extent do I have the power, the authority, to control the events that shape my life, to control the nature and progress of the story that is me?  Who is The Author whom I must beseech to gain greater authority in my life?  Or even better, and likely much more appropriate, who is The Author to whom I turn to thank for this life, just as it is, and to thank for all life, and for this grand story?                  

For some crazy reason I’m also thinking of one of my favorite movies, Stand By Me, a movie about four kids… a movie I haven’t seen since I was a kid.  I still roughly remember the opening line, but I looked it up to be certain, because it sets the stage for the pilgrimage that follows: “I was twelve going on thirteen first time I ever saw a dead human being.” This movie is so funny, and so sad, and so powerful, and more than anything, it’s the story of a willful rite of passage, and a it’s a story of a journey of transformation, from boyhood into manhood.  And yes, it’s a story of pilgrimage, because in it are devotion, honor, adulation, and sacrifice, and also joy, laughter, tears and terror.  I must be thinking of this film because I’m going on this pilgrimage with one of my closest friends, and I’ll need this friend, and he’ll need me, to get to where ever it is we’re going.  And I need this pilgrimage to change me.  Maybe not so much from boy to man, though I’m sure this could easily be argued, even at thirty-seven.  More like from caterpillar to butterfly, or from bewildered man… to man of peace.

A man of peace.  This is a Pilgrimage for Peace.  By this I don’t necessarily mean white doves and olive branches; I don’t necessarily mean the lion lying down with the lamb, and the end of all wars and the end of terror and suffering.  Before this world of ours winks away, I do know that such a Golden Era will come to us all, and we can each of us work towards this in our own time, each in our own small but vital ways.  By peace I do mean coming to personal peace, and I do know that it is individuals coming to personal peace that will allow us all to realize a collective peace.  For me, personal peace, more than any thing else, means acceptance.  Acceptance with a smile!  This does mean that I would love for the lion and the lamb within me to cease their warring and work together in a place of mutually abiding harmony.  Which also means accepting that I am human, that I am made of opposing forces, forces that are conflicting within me until the resolving third is eventually realized.  It means accepting that the resolution of any conflict requires a process of effort, time, clarity, experience, acceptance… and change.  I mean, the caterpillar doesn’t become the butterfly in the blink of an eye, and whatever it is that’s taking place inside that chrysalis is likely very messy.  In alchemical terms, the chrysalis is synonymous with the crucible, the Philosopher’s Stone, and it is the transmutation of human lead into human gold that is the ultimate desire!

Which brings me to another of my favorite stories, Tolkien’s, The Hobbit.  Now, I don’t believe this rousing bit comes from the book itself, but this is certainly a line from the film.  As he’s trying to make up his mind as to whether or not he should join-in a long and dangerous adventure over the Misty Mountains and into the wild unknown beyond, the diminutive, Bilbo Baggins, meekly asks Gandalf the wizard, “Can you promise that I will come back?”  To which the wizened wizard replies, “No.  And if you do, you will not be the same.”

Well, well.

As to how, when and where this pilgrimage shall be accomplished, read the next piece titled, Onward!

And to view my friend and pilgrimage companion’s thoughts on this, feel free to visit Chris Drury’s site here:  csdrury.com