Pilgrimage
“I am on a Pilgrimage. I must admit now that you press me. I have not a very clear idea of the end. But that is not the important question. These speculations don’t make one a better walker.” CS Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress
Speculations may not make one a better walker, according to Lewis’ character, Virtue, but they are worth a bit more attention than Virtue is willing to concede. If you will allow me…
Last week I came across a mini-Ted talk by psychiatrist and writer, Iain McGilchrist. He quotes Einstein, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant”. The trouble, McGilchrist reminds us, is that “we have created a world that honours the servant, but has forgotten the gift.” Perhaps it is the desiring to return to the intuitive mind that preempts pilgrimage.
Desiring is a hunger that is better than fullness, CS Lewis reminds us, “this poverty better than all other wealth.” Lewis suggests that we have such a long absence of the desiring that we have nearly lost it altogether. We long for fulfillment and when we find it in people or material acquisition or even experience we say in our hearts, “This is what I’ve been looking for all my life!” And then, it isn’t. Pilgrimage set on the hope that all my longings will be met somehow, sets me up to arrive home with souvenirs of resentment, disappointment, and even depression. McGilchrist reminds us that happiness is a by-product.
Making room for the intuitive mind is a journey, and wherever I trek, and I come to realize that there is a Landlord. My inner and outer landscapes are His. We are the “consciousness of God expressed” and here on pilgrimage we bear witness to the places where we meet God.
People’s stories have always fascinated me and so we visit places like the Peace Museum in Gernica to hear their witness. The town was handed over by Franco to be a pilot bombing project for Hitler in 1936. Pablo Picasso depicts the horror in his epic work, Gernica. The museum promotes international peace and reconciliation work.
In Bilbao artists bear witness to the inner workings of beauty on display at the Guggenheim Museum. Louise Bourgeois’ Cells, the current exhibit, is a mixed media collection expressing the trauma of her childhood. Photos were forbidden, so I can’t give you a visual report, but I can tell you that each cell – a physical representation of the psychological pain Bourgeois lived out at home – bore witness to the profound human ability to express through image what could not be adequately expressed through words. The observer enters the child’s thoughts and feelings through antique doors enclosing hanging glass balls of all colours – dreamlike and oppressive all at once. Themes of stairs, child-sized chairs, and drawers filled with resentment, anger, powerlessness hidden beneath her bed expressing her longing to escape and her inability to do so. I felt exhausted as we left and remembered how difficult it is to bear witness to another’s journey through pain.
Today was also a day of sharing in the joy of journeying through music — an impromptu African drum band, a jazz duet, a soccer victory song in the streets and children singing the Spanish version of Alouetta, Gentille Alouetta!
All in all, another good day of walking — or car-pilgriming as we would have it — in Spain!
Posted in Art, Community, Creativity, Faith, Holidays, Imagination, Music, Travel
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Out Here in the Country
“…the people who live there have to give an opinion once a week or once a day, or else Mr. Mammon would soon cut off their food. But out here in the country you can walk all day and all the next day with an unanswered question in your head: you need never speak until you have made up your mind.” CS Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress
Don’t some questions take years to settle in? On holidays, I am free to sit and think in the wide open spaces of a 9 hour flight or 6 hours of train travel. It is a luxury that travel affords and I take advantage of every silent moment – refraining from speech, even when a thing is settled in my mind.
A few years ago when we traveled to Canada’s newest province, our ship docked in Port ‘o Basque on the west coast of the Rock and now that we’ve seen the town’s origins, our appreciation for Newfoundland grows and our understanding gains clarity. All that salted cod, and the stereotypical “old salty dog” folks that are as tough as the land and seas that feed them are Basque through and through.
Here in San Sebastian we dip into the culture by seeking out specialty tapas — reflective of the selection and care of a particular family. We eat with the locals — standing at the bar, every small saucer piled high with fruit de mer and hailed in plate-by-plate chaos. Avaros shouts “Sandi” across the room and while I can barely see over the bar to take my dish, I sense the Basque pride as he hands over fried anchovies and local octopus — pleased that I have ordered according to tradition. We eat in silence under the din of new orders — alongside others engaged in the centuries-long practice and it’s a wonder to behold!
The other photos are dinner last evening with fellow travellers John and Mary Beth at Au Petit Tonneau (our second meal prepared by owners Ariette and Marcelle), exploring Paris’ Bastille neighbourhood by boat, and some book shopping at Shakespeare and Co. The 4 women dressed in blue met while playing field hockey in the Netherlands 25 years ago. Once a year they train 3 hrs to Paris for 3 days. Oh girlfriends! What do you think? Next year in Paris?
Posted in Food, Gardening, Girlfriends, Holidays, Travel
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A Particular Recurrent Experience
“Look,” said John, “here is a little inn. Is it not time we rested and ate something?” CS Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress
Last evening we ate at a family-owned French bistro in the Rue Clare neighbourhood. Named Au Petit Tonneau – and promising “une cuisine de femme,” – unique and intuitive kitchen, was just what we were after our first night in the city. Red checker-clothed tables touch along their edges to accommodate the tiny space, and heavy oak-framed coat hangers line the far-side wall. Au Petit Tonneau is still offering sustenance to hungry Parisienne’s from same spot for over 80 years. The newish owners of 6 years serve up the gentle comfort of peasant’s best to local and international clientele, a crowd of whom we are happy to be a part.
The fare is “simply” French: a few slices of charcuterie and pickles to start, petit radishes just washed from the garden, pea mousse with mint, escargot, duck comfit, roasted rosemary potatoes (or au gratin as my man chose), and chocolate mousse to finish. While the rain fell hard against the wood-framed windows, the red awning flapped with the gusty winds, the candles lit and wine poured, by early evening the place had swelled by twos and threes and we lingered over espresso feeling quite at home.
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The Foolish Traveler
“It is fools, they say, who learn by experience. But since they do at last learn, let a fool bring his experience into the common stock that wiser men may profit by it.” CS Lewis, Pilgrim’s Regress
And so it is that we invest in experience and the aftertaste of it in memories – foolishness perhaps – while venturing once again onto the landscape of the European Continent. This time we begin in the City of Lights, Paris.
Since last time, it has become common for armed soldiers to guard popular sites — evidence of increasing threats of terror and a sober reminder of recent events. The London Times reports the very real possibility of a crumbling EU and we read about the discussion to rebuild barriers between nations, to reinstate check-points and monitor border crossings. Refugees from Syria and Iraq make the hopeful trek in search of relief and aid in their desperate flight from violence and inhumanity. Countries like Austria, Slovakia and Switzerland shut tight their doors and windows while the churches from east to west are waking up. Something seminal calls the faithful, and sentiments are warm as they fill glasses with cold water and great kettles with the good of the land to ladle their abundance into the very mouths of God.
We hear much in North America about Europe’s long and illustrious history, its art, music, theatre and most of us visit the “Old Country” for its diversity in customs, language, food and for its geographical beauty. I like that Europe is also a place of the present. Rural France is still bringing to table world-class wines, and now the process is mostly automated. Shepherds gather flocks by motorcycle. The French still take 2-hour lunches, but MacDonald’s in Paris is gaining popularity and Starbucks competes with the city’s 1,200 street-side cafes. Further afield, late summer’s green tomatoes are left to ripen on the hot side of the farmhouse, while the owner sits on the stoop and checks email. The place is complex and like any interesting person, takes a lifetime of interaction to know and appreciate its subtleties.
I pay the high flight prices, the high Euro exchange, the high cost of sleeping and eating locally to gain the experience of Europe. Maybe there is little wisdom in it, but there is a great deal of learning.
We are in Paris for 3 nights before traveling by train to Spain’s Basque country on Friday. For now temperatures are similar to home and so is the drizzle. We plan to wander the neighbourhoods, recover from jet lag and ease slowly into vacation mode. Photos will come. Thanks for joining us.
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Waiting
With the likelihood of a cartilage fracture to my rib cage, all those gardening, painting, knitting, sewing, fitness plans come to a halt and I sit or stand, and wait. Gingerly, I might add since the pain of jostling reaches child-bearing levels.
In all honestly, I’m uncertain as to what to do with myself. I know from reading, especially in my current course, Spiritual Pilgrimage, that great things are accomplished through times of convalescence. Take Ignatius for example. A cannon ball through the leg put him in bed for a good long while. And Christian history is richer for it!
I cannot imagine that any great contribution to Christendom will come through my injury, however, it may just change my conversion landscape a little. It’s the perfect injury for an academic because rest is the treatment, for 3-4 months says the medical community. That’s enough time for transformation that sticks.
I raise my glass to costochondritis and the good that will come! Cheers!
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Fragrance
I stopped in at Klein Nursery on my way home last week to pick up 4 more blueberry plants and a purple lilac. The owners sound German or Dutch and love what they do.
As she hefted a shrub from one spot to another, she brought it to my nose so I could appreciate its fragrance. White blossomed like the Mock Orange but sweeter, effecting a mood of calm serenity. There is nothing quite like a fragrance to elicit memory and for me, the fragrance is a reminder of garden walks through central Italy with the melodic cadence of language and song amidst scent.
Catherine of Siena in her 14th century treatise on prayer entitled, The Dialogue, writes, “Oh, how lovely, how lovely beyond all loveliness, is the dwelling place of the soul’s perfect union with me! She gives forth a fragrance to the whole wide world, the fruit of constant humble prayers.”
I wondered about those prayers. What happens in the union with God that evokes such joy for Catherine?
She goes on, “In everything they find joy and the fragrance of the rose. This is true not only of good things; even when they see something that is clearly sinful they do not pass judgment, but rather feel a holy and genuine compassion, praying for the sinner and saying with perfect humility, ‘Today it is your turn; tomorrow it will be mine unless divine grace holds me up.'” Here is a sign of love well-ordered. And a gift of grace that exudes the fragrant burial spices of Christ crucified and resurrected.
On Annunciation Monday, we receive a fragrant reminder of Easter and the gift of sheer grace that grows from the fruit of constant humble prayers. It is the fragrant fruit of holy compassion.
Longing
Doesn’t spring just make your feet itch? Not literally, of course, but almost. I revisit photos of my European adventures, I dream of tropical islands with beaches that stretch on forever and azure landscapes with gentle waves and warm winds. I can feel the thrill of past road trips – bombing down the highway, stopping for a picnic lunch on the edge of California table lands that drop dramatically into the Pacific. From the Grand Souk in Tangiers to the Glacier Express of Switzerland, and from Bonavista to Vancouver Island, my how those memories beckon! Call it whatever you will – wanderlust or seinsucht – once it’s in the blood, the condition is incurable.
Someone asked me recently if the experience of longing is present in every soul. That’s a hard one. Who can answer for every soul?
But doesn’t it seem that there is something about pilgrimage, quest, journey that is inherently human? What are we looking for? Is it as Indo-Canadian writer, Rohinton Mistry says, “the journey – chanced, unplanned, solitary, [is] the thing to relish”. I suppose that will depend on our tendency toward modern or post-modern worldview. Whatever your perspective, there is something to sit up and take notice about our need to go.
The great journey writers – Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress, CS Lewis in Pilgrim’s Regress, Tolkien and TS Eliot – highlight the importance of telos, that is, movement toward a goal. For Bunyan, it’s the Celestial City, for Lewis it’s John’s Island, for Tolkien and Eliot, it’s the return home. What happens along the way impacts the pilgrim in ways from which she is unlikely to recover. It’s not something your travel agent will guarantee, and life insurance doesn’t cover this act of God, but transformation seems to be a common outcome of the undertaking.
On this Palm Sunday, Christians celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Earlier on, the physician Luke writes, “And Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem.” (Luke 9) His journey culminates in the City of Peace (jeru-shalom), where on this Sunday, the crowds throw down palm branches and chant, “Hosanna in the highest!” in recognition of the King of Kings. In a week, the same crowds will hang him for the very same reason.
Life is a highway, sings Tom Cochrane. Jesus could have said the same.
Life’s like a road that you travel on
When there’s one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind
There’s a world outside every darkened door
Where blues won’t haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore
We won’t hesitate break down the garden gate
There’s not much time left today
Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long
Through all these cities and all these towns
It’s in my blood and it’s all around
I love you now like I loved you then
This is the road and these are the hands
From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
The Khyber pass to Vancouver’s lights
Knock me down get back up again
You’re in my blood I’m not a lonely man
There’s no load I can’t hold
Road so rough this I know
I’ll be there when the light comes in
Just tell ’em we’re survivors
Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long
Born to You!
The angel said to them, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people; for there is born to you this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”
There will be no gifts under the tree tomorrow morning. No stockings to unstock. No surprises, no orange peels, no paper.
Every once in awhile we change up Christmas. This year, is our “off” year, meaning our family will gather over New Years for Christmas morning. I say that so you won’t feel sorry for me. It does mean some adjusting when it comes to holiday expectations. A willingness to adapt benefits me with heightened sensitivity, not unlike fasting where the senses pique with receptivity. The rewards can be deeply satisfying.
Two years ago, Gord worked through the holidays and our family was away so I invited two young women, Chinese PhD students I met at Regent College, to spend Christmas with me. To date, it was the quietest Christmas I have known and even though it rained, all the world felt as if it had snowed — quiet and bright — my focus shifted from ensuring everyone had everything they needed or could want, to a deep quietude; I felt a settledness, a visceral awareness of the understated reality of the Gospel — earth’s visitation by its Creator, who came to us, to me personally, as an infant. I went to church twice that year — Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. A small band of faithful folk gathered to receive a foretaste of our inheritance and to give thanks.
To you he came, scripture says. Martin Luther writes, “O, this is the great joy of which the angels speaks. This is the comfort and exceeding goodness of God that, if anyone believes this, he can boast of the treasure that Mary is his rightful mother, Christ his brother, and God his father. For these things actually occurred and are true, but we must believe. This is the principal thing and the principal treasure in every Gospel. Christ must above all things become our own and we become his. This is what is meant by Isaiah 9:6: ‘Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.’ To you is born and given this child.” (Watch for the Light, 222)
My gift to you this Christmas is a prayer. I pray that we may open our hearts and minds to Christ, and let our roots grow deep into his marvelous love, so that He may be more and more at home in us (Ephesians 3:17). Every gift under the tree represents the principal treasure of Christ Himself! He is the reward of faith — the Gift of Life and Love! May we fling wide the door, invite Him to make Himself at home, receive Him with great joy and give thanks.
“Glory to God in the Highest, peace on earth with those whom He is pleased!” (Luke 2:14)
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Under the Canopy
Oh, it’s fall! The rains have come and the branches hang low while I take my daily walks under their canopy.
Classes have begun and I am neck-deep in exegesis, shaking the mist off my Greek and Hebrew — strolling under my theological umbrella, feeling full-up and deep in scripture.
With my favourite holiday nearly upon us — turkey and all — thanksgiving draws me upward in wonder.
Under that canopy, tucked in the shadow of His wings I go.
Happy fall, friends!
Posted in Faith, Holidays, Outdoors
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