Pilgrim Forward

Pilgrim Forward December 20, 2020

I am a pilgrim on a pilgrimage. My pilgrimage -a long journey to a sacred place-started around the age of 12 before I even knew what a pilgrimage was, and will conclude in Heaven, the most sacred of places. Truth is, if you have accepted Christ as Savior you are on the same pilgrimage I am on.

• This pilgrimage we may share is temporal in the sense it is carried out on earthly terms and time. Yet, if I were not to move a single mile from the place I am sitting today I would still be on this pilgrimage to Heaven. So this pilgrimage is ethereal or spiritual in nature, as well.  What happens in the spiritual realm of this pilgrimage affects the earthly realm, and, unfortunately, vice-versa.

  The most famous pilgrims in my education were those who embarked on the Mayflower and made their way to the New World. I am not sure they were headed to a sacred place but they were coming to a place they planned to make sacred. Fleeing what they felt was religious restriction and persecution they left home and came to the shores of Massachusetts. A sort of a permanent pilgrimage.

  Today we hear constantly of The Hajj, the pilgrimage by devout Muslims to Mecca. Christians, Jews and Muslims alike may make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the city, and Israel, the land that plays such a grand part of their shared history.

  A pilgrimage does not need to be Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish to be a pilgrimage, though most definitions of pilgrimage state that it is religious in nature. And so peoples of all religions, recognized or not, partake in pilgrimages to whatever places they consider sacred. And what is sacred is in the eye of the pilgrim: Many people make a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France but I think there might be some people who make a pilgrimage to Butte, Montana because for one moment in their life, Butte was sacred.

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  Most every summer growing up my family (5 boys, 1 girl, Mom and Dad) would go on a pilgrimage,of sorts. Other people would have called them “vacations” but our trips  were not to resorts or amusement parks but to the homes of our family: Distant aunts, uncles and cousins; our grandparents; sometimes a close friend or two. The places we went may not have been sacred but the people we would visit were sacred to my parents.

  My parents’ wealth and abundance was represented in the number of children they had, not in the money in the bank (very little) nor the car they drove (used, held together by Dad’s ingenuity). Vacation, or any trip of length for that matter, would tax both. It was not unusual, mid-vacation/pilgrimage, to have to stop to fix the car that groaned under the weight of the Valley family and the corresponding pounds of luggage. Brakes, water pumps, flat tires, frayed belts and a various assortment of other repairs would have to be made due to wear and old age, mostly.

  My vacations as an adult have mirrored the ones of my childhood. My wife and I have rarely taken time away that did not include family or friends. Upon moving from Maine to Minnesota we would take our own pilgrimage back to New England.  Every two years, at first, then every year thereafter, we (1 boy, 1 girl, Mom and Dad) would head back to Maine to see my parents and siblings and then work our way to Upstate New York to visit Patty’s parents. To and from Minnesota and New England would be stops in Pennsylvania and Ohio to visit Patty’s brothers and sisters along the way. Every year: same destination, same stops, sometimes same restaurants. Distant aunts, uncles and cousins, grandparents and a friend or two.

  One thing I inherited from my father was the misfortune of driving vehicles that waited until a pilgrimage to break down. My life story includes an alternator in Castleton, VT; having to change all four tires somewhere along the Michigan-Ohio border; a catalytic converter in Augusta, Maine; a transmission in Rice Lake, Wisconsin; another transmission (different vehicle) in Wheeling, West Virginia and a water pump in Fort Edward, New York. The stories that came out of these “detours” are fondly remembered in hindsight if not in the moment it happened. 

  The lesson? A pilgrimage of any length will probably involve some breakdowns or detours.

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  The posts that follow on a periodic basis (that means whenever I have something to say) are brought out from my spiritual pilgrimage. Though I will deal with everyday observations and the goings on of being a pilgrim, at times this will specifically entail the spiritual equivalent of a blown transmission, a detour, a stopping for repair along the way. I call this blog “Pilgrim Forward” because at one point of my journey I was “Pilgrim Lost” and then “Pilgrim Found.” Pilgrim Forward deals with the new attitude, the new heart, the new mind I needed to cultivate to no longer go around in circles or be dead in my tracks but to start to move forward once again towards Heaven.

  I am not only a follower of Christ but for 21 years was a vocational minister of the gospel. “Was” is a key word, which one day may be changed to “is again” or “will be”, but for now “was’  is sufficient to explain my station in life now away from my call. I have fallen from grace in the eyes of men. Yet, to God I am another who has needed to rely on His abundance of grace to be moving forward.

  Normally I would say “I hope you enjoy my musings.” There will be things to enjoy in these posts, I feel, but more than enjoying this blog I hope you find “Pilgrim Forward” useful on your pilgrimage. Maybe it will help you avoid the lostness I experienced. Maybe it will help bring you from being lost to found to moving forward again. Maybe it will help you overcome the insomnia you have struggled with for years. In any case, if you find one thing that you can carry with you to help in your walk with Christ then one of the purposes of Pilgrim Forward has been met.

  Greatest blessings and all grace to you.