You Are Here

I need a moment to consider my direction as I am arriving in the middle of the conversation. I hate when that happens. Recently, I was having tea with a dear friend and we were sharing moments from our jouneys. We covered seven years in the space of five minutes and the steam was still rising from our cups when we finshed. In the hour that followed, I became aware again how time is a deceptive thing, conceptually.

I'm thinking back to that conversation now, two weeks and several cups of caffine later. For the last seven years I have been on pilgrimage, trying to understand the past and from it take strength to thrive in the present. I'm not sure how the conversation will carry forth from here. Even so, it has begun.

I think of pilgrimage as a life-long, nomadic journey with God rather than a jaunt between the point of origin and several fixed, geographic destinations. Even so, it need not be aimless wandering. I'm no advocate of losing one's self in the pursuit of oblivion. I do not entertain the hope that I shall find myself somehow accidentally, magically transformed into something rare and wonderful by merely stumbling into the right place at the right time, though at times this is precisely what occurs. For the most part, the transformation is intentional. I set forth on pilgrimage with the intention of being changed and my mind, my body, my spirit, and my will are involved in the process.