Sometimes it simply takes longer to make your way back into your regular life. Sometimes, after a walk to the mountain top, setting the alarm or doing the laundry seems odd, unnecessary. This is what my experience has been after ten days in Italy with an amazing group of spiritual pilgrims. Traveling as we did with an eye to the Holy, the beauty of each day staggered us. The privilege of another week’s travel through the beautiful landscape of France had me arriving home full to overflowing. Team that with jet lag and you can get a little loopy! Which is why I have not visited this space for awhile.
The truth of the matter is that the experience of this pilgrimage has left me somewhat wanting for words. Which is probably as it should be. The sheer magnitude of art, sacred space, beauty, language, food, and the hospitality that was showered upon me should be something that leaves one speechless. In might be enough to walk around the world stunned for awhile waiting for my body to catch up to my spirit, rather than the usual other way around. I find myself staring off in the middle distance remembering the way the fog rose off a Tuscan hillside. I can hear the sounds of Gregorian Chant from mass at St. Altimo Monastery ringing in the far reaches of my heart. The sight of bread….any bread….reminds me of the snap of crusty baguettes or flaky croissants. The gentle pace of a daily life that doesn’t include rush hour tugs at my sleeve.
I know. These are the delusions of the privileged and pampered. I know it and yet can’t make an apology because I learned things in all these experiences, things that in some way connect me in a deeper way to the One who breathed all that beauty into being, or was at the very least the object of its creation. This is what has me so baffled and unable to come fully again into the dailiness of my life.
Perhaps one of the greatest gifts of travel is that it offers the opportunity to see the world with another lens, to realize that all the nitty-gritty details of my life, those that can nag or worry me, have no bearing on the lives of others. It is a humbling, yet important thing, to realize that whole cultures are living full, beautiful, rich lives without much of the minutiae that can set my nerves on edge. What a gift! My world, my culture, my way of seeing the world is only one, tiny glimpse of what life can be like. Immersing one’s self in another place is the only way to really know this.
Another gift might be the ability to take a small dose of this and that and incorporate a new value into our own lives. Perhaps taking an evening stroll around the block as a family, as they do in Italy, is something that might draw people closer together, calm them down for the evening ahead. Maybe sitting facing the street, watching the ‘show’ of people and traffic, as they do in Paris, might be a good way to understand our neighborhoods and neighbors better, helping us to feel more connected to those around us. Or maybe the act of lighting a candle, remembering the saints in our lives, has a way of connecting us with those who have gone before who have shared their wisdom. Simple things, simple values that have traveled the miles with me and planted a seed.
Eventually, I will return to my regular life. My sleeping patterns will once again be on Minnesota time and my stomach will growl at the appropriate times of the day. No 3:00 a.m. granola! But for now I am content to still be in the weeds of travel. I will spend the next weeks or months reflecting on all that has passed before my eyes, all the rare sounds of languages not understood but beautiful still, the variety of life’s rhythms I have experienced,the tastes and smells of food not known in my common daily round.
My prayer is that I can come to some new understanding of what I value and what no longer serves me. The result of a true pilgrimage is that one walks the path in a new way having left behind what needed to be shed while carrying forward a new heart. No one need leave home to come to this. It is the gift of the pilgrim of the every day.
Blessings on all our paths…….
This is so extraordinary it has left me almost as wordless as what you have named.
Sally, thank you. This is magnificent. Rich in meaning…bursting in fullness…powerful in what it points to that is beyond what words can reach.
As Senior Co-Editor of the devotional (in this instance…only for this decision) I am ‘ordering’ you to submit this for our advent devotional. Yes, it is too long. But I’ll corral Jolene and Daniel and shut down their editorial impulses. This is a magnificent exploration of ‘encounter’ with the Sacred–of being “face to face”–both during the ‘high time’ of adventure and travel and the ordinary time of returning.
I’m confident that I won’t read finer writing in 2014–or perhaps any other year. Congratulations. And thank you.
I agree with Kent.
It’s “Traveling with Pomegranates” good! Thank you especially for the phrase “in the weeds of travel.” I’ve had trips like that and not been able to express it.
Sally, your ‘wordless words’ have moved me to tears…
… and connect deeply to the ways in which the beauty of this pilgrimage holds onto me as well.
Gratitude is not a full enough word to express how welcome are these shifts in value.
I always go to Sephora or BBW, becuase they have websites, exhanges, numerous locations, and often more selection ans better sales. The fact that they are all over is also helpful, and I then become loyal to the brand.