There is a Latin saying….solvitur ambulando….which translated means ‘solved by walking’. Our pilgrim band might have had this tattooed on our feet today. It was a free day of sorts. We started our morning with prayer accompanied by the Native American flute. Funny how it sounded almost Scottish! The sound grounded us in the music of those who have always lived near and honored Creation much as the Celts did. It was a good way to start our day of walking.

Some of us boarded our motor coach for a short ride to Rosslyn Chapel, the 600 year old chapel made famous to us in Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. This tiny, unusual feat of architecture is nestled in the green hills outside Edinburgh. This was somewhat of a surprise to those of us who read the book because it seems as if the characters twist and turn through steep terrain to arrive at this holy place. Once at the chapel,we learned many ways in which fiction and reality did not quite come together. But there was no doubting that we were in a very sacred place that had held, and still holds, great power. We have already been confronted over and over with how short our American view of history really is. Rosslyn Chapel reinforced this experience. How do you even get your head around the events that have taken place in a building, and not even a large building, over such a long time? The over turning of Roman Catholicism, the Reformation, Cromwell using the building as a stable, years of water dripping on sandstone walls & columns, misplaced wisdom of trying to preserve the intricately carved stone by painting it with cement. Only to have its life renewed by the fanciful tale told by an author who had never really been there. Fascinating.

While some were traipsing out of the city, others took a walking tour with our now beloved guide, Bill Rennie. Not only is Bill an excellent herder of cats, he is kind, incredibly knowledgable and a true gentleman. Here in Edinburgh, his hometown, we have also seen the passion with which he loves his home. What a joy it has been to see his eyes light up and his face become animated as he shows us about all the places he must have known since he was a boy. The group that spent time on a walking tour with Bill saw the many gardens still in full bloom here in the city. They also walked from one end of the Royal Mile to the other taking in the Writer’s Museum, honoring Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Burns, down Prince’s Street to the Scottish Parliament , being able to watch the action complete with those amazing wigs. They walked through the many Closes(little alleyways that connect streets and residences), Holyrood Palace, its Abbey, and the many and varied places the country honors its war dead. Walking……

Some climbed, at least in part, the large nonactive volcano toward the place known as Arthur’s Seat. A trek not for the faint of heart.And one pilgrim even made her way to the beginning of Scotland’s favorite sport by traveling to St. Andrews, the home of golf.

Our question this morning as we began prayer together came from a Mary Oliver poem: ‘Tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ Our steps may have led us on varied paths but we carried the same question no matter the route. It is a question we awake with every day, whether in Scotland, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Wisconsin or wherever. It is the question humans grapple with daily and have chosen to grapple with as pilgrims. It is the question that will ground us as we board the ferry early tomorrow morning, headed for Iona.