Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Jim Forest, Peak District, pilgrimage, walking
Just back from a couple of days in the Peak District with Mark. Good walking, including Shutingsloe – ‘the Cheshire Matterhorn’ – above. Plenty of good conversation, particularly around pilgrimage and the inner attitudes it invites: trust, gratitude, simplicity.
Over the next days I will post some more quotes from Jim Forest’s The Road to Emmaus.
You can walk to some great shrine on a journey that takes weeks and months and fail to become a pilgrim. Pilgrimage is more an attitude than an act. Pilgrimage is a conscious act of seeking a more vital awareness of God’s living presence. As was said in medieval times, “If you do not travel with the King whom you seek, you will not find him at the end of your journey.
You can be a traveller on your own, but not, I think, a pilgrim. Pilgrimage connects you to something bigger than yourself. Pilgrimage connects you to longings that come from deep places and that cannot easily be explained. Even the solitary pilgrim is on a shared quest, overhearing some whispers of a conversation that has been going on for years. Pilgrims don’t always have a clear idea of what they’re doing or why they’re doing it, but they keep going, exchanging nods on the way.
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
Andy, I have ‘pinched’ some of this quote for a post on my new blog. http://kiwinomadsphotos.blogspot.com/2010/06/whispers-of-conversation.html
Comment by Kiwinomad June 21, 2010 @ 8:16 pm