Labyrinth Walking in Pittsboro, NC!

In the Raleigh, NC, News and Observer, there was this powerful photo by Pailin Wedel, showing a group of gentlemen walking a square labyrinth in Pittsboro United Methodist Church in Pittsboro, NC. Carl McGhee is in the forefront of the image. My hunch, from the photo, is that it is in a fellowship hall, probably a basement. It is a photo taken during Holy Week a few weeks ago.

What is powerful in this image is the ordinary people who are engaged in the power of walking this circuitous path, no matter what age, gender, ability, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, or nationality. On the path of the labyrinth, people find a divine practice of prayer-in-motion. Knowing that pilgrimage and labyrinth use the same kind of spiritual energy, it appears that we are a world on the edge of all of us taking a pilgrimage.

Bien camino!

Pilgrim peace,

Brett

The Path of Life

In this coming week's reading from Ps. 16, I am caught by the last verse: "You show me the path of life." The rest of the Psalm is heart-
warming, given that this the first Sunday after Easter, and our lives should be comforted by the knowledge that we live our lives and are part of the resurrected body of Christ.

But it is that line that sticks out: "you show me the path of life."

As I struggle to watch and participate in the coming-into-existence of the School of the Pilgrim, wondering "what do I do next?" and "where do I turn, right or left?" in raising awareness that life is an ongoing pilgrimage (and part of the mission of the School of the Pilgrim), this Psalm and verse strangely comforts me in an afternoon of anxiety: "You show me the path of life."

Bien camino!

Pilgrim Peace,

Brett
p.s., image is from the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, Spain

When the Pilgrimage of Eastertide Sinks Into Our Being

The Church where I attended yesterday morning for Easter was packed...as are most churches on this day. We clergy call the phenomenon, "Chreaster," a blend of Christmas and Easter, the day that many members and non-members suddenly come out of the wood-work and are present! We clergy try not to preach too long, but heck: we only see some of these people twice a year, and clergy are wont to going too long on this day, as they do on Christmas Eve worship.

What I like about this photo is that it shows where the real work of the Church has now gone: out onto the roadways, the byways, the highways, the pilgrimage path of life. Soon, we will come to the iconic pilgrimage story of the disciples running away to Emmaus, in which they meet the Stranger on the road: not in the synagogue nor temple, but the roadway! To this day, this is still where we are apt to meet the Christ: in the unexpected moments among the strangers in this world, who reveal the heart of the Stranger as we break bread together in acts of hospitality.

It is all about the journey, the pilgrimage, is it not, Pilgrim?

Bien camino!

Pilgrim peace,

Brett

Eastertide

As much as Lent is a period of days (forty) of journeying toward Easter, we now are caught in the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost. Unfortunately, we don't often focus on the season of Easter, much like we don't focus on the season of Christmas (12 days).

So what will our pilgrimage-of-life look like and be like in the next 50 days as we make our way to the birth-day of the Church?

Bien camino,

Pilgrim peace,

Brett

Christ Lives!

He is risen!
He is risen!
He is risen, indeed!

Happy Easter!

Behold, the Christ, who accompanies us this day on our pilgrimage, and everyday of our lives!

Bien camino!

Pilgrim Peace, Brett

A Pilgrimage of Holy Saturday

It is Holy Saturday.

In growing up in a Methodist, and later Presbyterian, Church, we read the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds faithfully, in which there is mention, "he descended into hell," or "he descended to the dead" (Apostle's' Creed). No mention was ever made as to what day he did this, though given that he died on Friday, it only makes sense that this is what happened on Saturday. It has been my Catholic and Orthodox friends who have taught me much about Holy Saturday.

The pilgrimage of Passion Week continues, even today on Holy Saturday.

I am left to ask: so what dies and is ready for resurrection on the pilgrimage of life?

Bien camino,

Pilgrim peace, Brett

Good Friday

I write this posting at nearly the completion of the first hour that Jesus was on the cross before he cried out "Eli, Eli, lema sabbachthani?" translated as"My God, my God, who have you forsaken me?"

The pilgrimage that Jesus took this week is for all of creation. It was by going over the threshold of death, through the portal, that Jesus confronted death, and death lost its sting. It is no wonder that at the time of his death the curtain of the magnificent temple of Jerusalem was torn in two, from top to bottom, that the earth shook, and that rocks were split open, with the tombs opened and bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, just like Lazarus before them, entering the holy city of Jerusalem and appearing before many.

The Isenheim altar-piece is an iconic work of art. By viewing the art, the pilgrim is to look deeply into the art as the art looks deeply into the life of the pilgrim, in which our wounds are healed through the mysterious presence of the one who alone fulfills and makes us whole. It is by us lifting up our hurt, our wounds, our suffering, unto the One who is forever the Creator of the universe that miracles abound.

On this Good Friday, "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" is our song. But we sing this hymn of faith in the deeper knowledge of what is to come on this pilgrimage path: we know what is just around the corner.

Pilgrim peace,

Brett