Literary Mileage
A Pilgrim’s Hidden Mystery

Webster’s first definition for the word “pilgrim” is a person who travels about; wanderer. Then, a person who travels to a shrine or holy place as a religious act. There are several other words to describe the experience of putting one foot in front of the other on a path that has existed for eons and over which countless thousands have walked…wanderer, saunterer, walker, hiker, stroller, meanderer, maybe even drifter.
Although I’ve been going on hiking trips to ‘travel about’ for seven years, I’ve walked twice to holy places as a spiritual act–one to Santiago de Campostela in 2009 and my most recent one to Assisi in October.

An intriguing door in San Gimignano

Frankly, the ancient churches at the end of these journeys have not been the point of my hikes. The ‘religious’ component for me has been the exuberance of starting each day, not knowing what I will encounter…the reverence I feel walking in the countryside, between gardens, vineyards, olive groves that have been tended for hundreds of years, often by the same families…. deep gratitude for being able to do these hikes…. fresh perspective gained by being somewhere other than America…. peace that settles in on a shady trail in the woods….the joy of laughing as I walk with my travel companions.

Woodsy trail on the way to Siena

Martin Sheen sums it up in his article, “Road to Santiago” in the AARP magazine, when he describes walking the Camino de Compostela and his recent movie, The Way: “Strange as it seemed, we each came to treasure the time walking alone, and to grasp the importance of the pilgrim’s inner journey of transcendence, which is a hidden mystery and the only lasting reward of any pilgrimage…the destination is the same, but the interior journey makes every experience different.”

Good friends on a beautiful day

As we hurtle toward the holidays and the end of the year, I continue to mull over my interior meandering and am deeply thankful for the opportunity.
Have you taken any interesting journeys lately?