Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

Pilgrimage: Where's God in our Journey of Life? - March 8, 2009

Pilgrimage:  Where's God in our Journey of Life?

March 8, 2009

Guest Preacher:  Lezlie Pinske

This week Pastor Garwick along with members of our congregation are taking in the history and beauty of Israel. I have been there and I know theirs is an awesome pilgrimage in the footsteps of Jesus.

The experience of a pilgrimage is popular these days. Some of you may have read memoirs that are on the best-seller lists like Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia. At the age of 34 she spent a year traveling in each of these countries as she was recovering from a divorce, a volatile rebound relationship, and a bout of depression. She said, "I wanted to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two."

Greg Mortensen’s Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Timetells of his unsuccessful bid to climb K2 which unexpectedly led to a newfound mission. By replacing guns with pencils, political rhetoric with reading, Mortenson has combined his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to promote peace with books in order to bring education and hope to remote communities in central Asia.

Wickipedia defines a pilgrimage as “a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a sacred place or shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith.” Want to take your own pilgrimage - - GOOGLE offers hundreds of options - - Rome, Spain, Mecca and The Holy Land - - even “virtual” pilgrimages.

American writer; Joseph Campbell who coined the idea of “following your bliss”, defines pilgrimage as: “a journey to a Holy Place in order to return transformed and bring wisdom and healing to those back home.” Again… the word “Journey”.

While we may have opportunities to make individual pilgrimages to specific locations like Pastor Garwick in the Holy Land we also might think of our life as a pilgrimage. In our MOPS group we talk about the journey through the “season” of Motherhood & Babydom. Each of the stages of our lives offer their unique adventures, challenges, and opportunities for growth.

Ironically, a journey begins with leaving -- an ending. Oftentimes the transition is physical – a move to a new community, the changing of jobs, the loss of a relationship, having a baby. At other times the leaving is internal: the formation of a new vision or a decision to leave behind a sour attitude in exchange for a fresh one. Sometimes the leaving is not even recognized until we are further along the journey and we look back to see how we have changed and moved on from the past. On occasion we set out into newness for reasons that are not always clear and we move toward a goal that is equally vague.

But this, I know is NOT vague… As people of faith we’re on a pilgrimage toward God. In Psalm 127, David seeks to dwell in the House of the Lord. “Teach me your way, O Lord; lead me in a straight path.” This is a lifelong journey. The evolving circumstances of life give all of us ongoing opportunities to learn and grow. It is often true that the more we learn, the deeper we desire to grow. At Caribou coffee they say, “Life is short. Stay awake for it!” And, It IS important that we stay awake during the pilgrimage. The meaning might not be found in arriving at a destination, but in the traveling itself - - on the search for God within the craziness and chaos of life.

There have been significant changes in my personal life in the past five years. I left a career that I was very passionate about to become a constant for my growing and active family. I experienced the heartbreak of the death of my wonderful father. And the concern regarding my own diagnosis of Thyroid Cancer. My mother lives close by and as she approaches the celebration of her 80th birthday, depends more upon Ned & myself for day-to-day assistance. And with this economy… it seems as if we live month-to-month. All of these events have impacted my own pilgrimage. Dreams have been set aside. Much more about my future suddenly seems uncertain. The road has taken some different & unexpected turns. But, I remind myself that the journey will continue to hold great value and rich experiences. Psalm 84 tells us, “Blessed are those whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.”

Author, Carlos Castaneda suggests that an important question to ask of any journey is: “Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.”

So, thinking on the question: “Does this path have a heart?”… Are we doing what is meaningful to ourselves and important to others? Are we doing more than surviving… more than breathing in and breathing out? More importantly, are we doing what God has designed us to do?  Throughout trial after trail, the long-suffering Job said; “My feet have closely followed His steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside.”

No single path is perfect. There are only some paths that are more important, more meaningful, more fulfilling, more right than others.  What happens to us is not as important as what we allow it to do to us. “One path makes for a joyful journey…the other will make you curse your life.”

Let’s go back to the definition of pilgrimage that I shared earlier: “A pilgrimage is a journey to a Holy Place in order to return transformed and bring wisdom and healing to those back home.” When we consider the very experiences of our lives to be holy ground, they become occasions for our transformation and renewal. Experiences enhance us so that we have even richer gifts to offer to others. We are not in Jerusalem but, we can find holy places all around us - - Holy places where we meet God and are transformed by Him.

Our lives are pilgrimages - - Our journey through life provides so many opportunities to be transformed.

Our experiences allow us to cultivate the gifts of healing, compassion and wisdom in order to share them with others back home. With the same inspiration that visiting the Holy Places of Israel is giving Pastor Garwick, may we cherish the pilgrimages that we have been given… May we be attentive to the holy presence of God all around us, and grow deeper through our changing seasons of life.

Amen.