What is a pilgrimage? I think of it as being about going to a special religious place, a thin place, and there encountering God in a sort of burning bush or still small voice moment. And if you have read the earlier pages of the blog, especially about Jerusalem, you can see my point.
Although even there, as I look back on it, I can see how I encountered God more in the people I met than in the stones I photographed.
I’ve come up to the Scottish island of Iona. It is a Thin Place. I’ll explain that another blog. But along the way I’ve been disturbed by a train announcer. He was trying to explain how this train, of six carriages, splits into three at different parts and it’s important you’re in the right pairing to go to your destiny. But the carriage banter is too loud and no one is paying attention. He says “Don’t worry, I will come through the carriages and explain this”. I note that the carriage goes suddenly quiet at the words Don’t be afraid.
So I begin to wonder if actually the pilgrimage started when I got on the first train. And that got me thinking about maybe you could think of yourself on a pilgrimage as you go to church tomorrow. Not waiting for the first hymn but even as you brush your teeth to be thinking, praying for who you might see (take a note of who you did not see and check on them later in the week). For those of you who are off to work to say This is a pilgrimage for me, I can choose to grow today in whether I am grumpy, bitter, or whether I serve and bless. It’s all a pilgrimage.
I’m listening to Tolkien’s Silmarillion. I read Fellowship and the Lord of the Rings I suppose every other year. But this book is as dull and impenetrable as I’d been warned. The two upsides are the occasional mention of a character I’ve heard of (eg Ungoliant, a great great grandmother of Shelob) and Andy Serkis reading it with a deeply profound voice. It’s a good book to listen to especially if you’re travelling to a place that has enjoyed many Celtic myths.
Lucy meets Trudi outside the train loo. She and Russ, from Kansas, are on the same programme that we are on. They’re both Methodist ministers. She offers us her salmon sandwich which is kind as we forgot to get any lunch.
We walk from the ferry with a woman called Urzula. She tells me that the Lutheran church in Lithuania reversed its decision on ordaining women. I wish people didn’t do that. Not least because of the theological progress, blessing and understanding that’s happened since ordaining women and because it means I will have to do some research when I get home and make some adjustments to one of my church history courses.
I have finished reading Lamentations and am reminded that shouting at God is an acceptable form of prayer. I note phrases in it about ‘my people’ and remember that God refuses to give up on us. As last week’s preacher said There are worse things than death, a phrase I still have mixed feelings about, not least when I saw their average age.
And I begin to read Ephesians and I’m reminded of the ineffably sublime blessings we have in Jesus.
Perhaps we are never far from a thin place.
(Photo is of me and bottle of carbonated bubblegum known locally as Irn bru)
Where was the double decker?