Book Pilgrimages

There is something about Stieg Larrson and his books about Elisabeth Salander and Mikal Bloomkvist in the series of "The Girl..." set in Sweden. I've heard on blogsites and cable channels that there is a wonderful "pilgrimage" around the places and sights and sounds where the book took place around Stockholm and beyond.

In the NYT.com, there is another idea of a pilgrimage where books are set. Context matters, according to Joe Queenan who wrote this interesting essay on a staycation, in which he visits places in which authors lived or set their books in:

Most staycations combine edification with retail: you visit a battlefield or a museum and then hit the amusement park and the outlet stores. This sounded too downscale for me. Instead, I planned a literary staycation in Pennsylvania. My destinations were Reading, where John Updike’s “Rabbit, Run” is set; Pottsville, where John O’Hara set dozens of his New Yorker stories; and Scranton, where Jason Miller, who won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1973 for “That Championship Season,” grew up. All are within two hours’ drive of my home outside New York City. The idea was to combine local color and cuisine with a visit to the old stomping grounds of these three very different American writers. Throughout the trip, I would reread the works that made these men famous. I thought it sounded like great fun. But in the end, I had to go on my own because my wife and kids declined to accompany me. They preferred to just stay.

Pace!

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Buddhapath

Interesting website...

Buddhapath.com

A way to discover the footsteps of Buddha.

Peace,

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God, guide our feet into the way of peace...even in troubled lands

I am at a conference on people with disabilities in Wilmington, NC. I gave a talk yesterday on the place and presence of people with disabilities in faith communities. What I have heard since I've been here has been numbing but not shocking:
* Parents of children with disabilities told not to come to a faith community by a pastor, priest, or other religious leaders;
* Death threats by members of faith communities if a group home of people with disabilities were to open up because it would decrease the value of homes nearby;
* Sequestering people with disabilities into parts of worship in which "they wouldn't disturb others," as if the Holy Spirit isn't the great disturber of life.

So: in the Canticle of Zechariah (NT, Luke), we pray "Guide out feet into the way of peace." This is poignant in lands and people's lives that are torn asunder by such violence.

Pace!
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Hebrews 11, from the Good as New Version of the Bible!

Powerful reading today at Church from the Good as New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures of Hebrews 11, which refers to the sojourners of yore:

Abraham trusted God too. He took God's advice and set out to find a permanent home for his family. He had no idea where he was going. He had to keep on trusting because, although he spent a long time in the land God had in mind for him, it didn't seem like home. He only had tents to live in. The same was true for Isaac his son, and Jacob his grandson. they shared Abraham's dream. He had a vision of a city built on firm foundations. God would be the architect and the builder.

Sarah, Abraham's wife, was able to have a baby, even though she was past the normal age of having children. That was because she trusted God to keep a promise. Although Sarah and Abraham were coming to the end of their lives, they had as many descendants as there were stars in the sky or pebbles on the beach.

Nice translation.

Very nice.

Pace! and Buen Camino!

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