The Flowing Soul of the Pilgrim
“Stagnant, lifeless water becomes brackish and muddy, while flowing, singing water remains pure and limpid.” Michel Tournier, The Four Wise Men
The practice of pilgrimage has been present in the Biblical tradition since the Torah was authored. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, we read of the Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. These three pilgrimages honored and gave thanks to God for all He had done for the Jewish people, beginning with the escape from Egypt. The universal aspect of pilgrimage was acknowledged in the Torah. Attached to the Feast of Pentecost was the counsel to include slaves, orphans, aliens, and widows. The gospels are very much about pilgrimage and movement, from the Epiphany to Mary and Joseph taking Jesus to Jerusalem for Passover, to Jesus’ three year walk to the cross. In the Christian tradition, pilgrimage has been a public practice since at least the early 4th century C.E., when Christianity was given legal status in the Roman Empire. Saint Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, travelled to Jerusalem in 326 C.E. in order to visit the sites of Jesus’ life, and in so doing, found the purported wood of the true cross. In the late fourth century, Saint Jerome opened a hospice in Bethlehem for pilgrims so that if Mary and Joseph should ever return, they would have a place to stay. There was every sort of pilgrim in Bethlehem, Saint Jerome writes; Gauls, Britons, Armenians, Persians, people of India, Ethiopia and Egypt, Pontus, Cappadocia, Syria and Mesopotamia. Among all these people, life in Bethlehem was fruitful and harmonious. The pilgrims, Saint Jerome observed, “come in throngs and set us examples of every virtue. The language differs but the religion is the same; as many different choirs chant the Psalms as there are nations.” Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales suggests that in the Middle Ages pilgrimage was a practice carried out by all sorts of people from every social class, with all sorts of inspirations and varying levels of devoutness. Chaucer’s work is also a reminder that there was a time in the West when everyone lived within a Christian atmosphere. People could feel secure about their place in the cosmos, to the point that they could treat the human person and their failings with a healthy dose of irony, no matter their social status. One did not need to feel self-conscious about being a pilgrim in Chaucer’s world.
The idea of pilgrimage is understood as more than a physical journey to a specific shrine or sanctuary. In Christian parlance, our lives are referred to as pilgrimages. Our journey through life from birth to earthly death is a pilgrimage that draws us nearer to God. Likewise, the time of Lent is also referred to as a journey or pilgrimage toward the empty tomb of Easter. In Catholic schools, the image of travelling through the desert for 40 days is often used to illustrate the time of Lent, the end of the pilgrimage being the life-giving waters of Easter. The notion of inner and outer movement is intriguing, and Western culture has celebrated these themes of movement in art and literature over and over again. When I was a young man, Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums inspired me to travel for three months through Latin America with a backpack and twenty dollars a day.
Two hundred years ago, French writer Francois Rene de Chateaubriand observed that “there was never a pilgrim who did not come back to his village with one less prejudice and one more idea.” The intentional movement that is a pilgrimage obviously brings about liminal experiences for the traveler that influences their understanding of the mysterious divine, the world, and the self. Something happens when we walk oriented by spirit and mystery. And because it can be difficult to justify a pilgrimage for its pragmatic value, we can appreciate that the pilgrim is someone who sets out in response to a call, however vague that call may be intuited by some. We do not always understand our unquenchable desire to reach the top of the mountain.
In our day and age, fewer people practice the Christian faith in community. Of course, this turning from religion does not mean people stop being spiritual, so it is a good thing when we are able to recognize people’s spiritual experiences as expressed in stories and art, even if those experiences take place outside the orbit of Christian religious practice. In the West, one way that people continue to live out a healthy form of spirituality is through the experience of pilgrimage. Three movies that bring out this evocative form of prayer are Wild, Into the Wild, and The Way. The movies remind us that outside the walls of traditional Christian practice, people are still engaging with Divine Presence in a way that is personal and intimate.
Wild is a pilgrimage movie that is rooted in Cheryl Strayed’s autobiographical book of the same title. Strayed is a young woman who has become overcome with grief, losing her mother to cancer and losing the rest of her small family to broken relationships. Her grief has had such a disorienting effect on her that she has weaved in and out of danger with heroin addiction and reckless sexual encounters with strangers. Strayed is a person in pain who wants to find her bearings and, hopefully, a sense of healing. Of course, hope for healing is a reason many people have traditionally gone on pilgrimage. And like many pilgrims before her, a moment of grace opens Strayed’s heart to the possibility of pilgrimage; in her case, coming across a guide book for the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) through blind circumstance. The call continues to evoke a response from her heart until she understands that finding the PCT guide book was a sign. The power a sign and a call possess cannot be underestimated. If not for this evocation, why would anyone walk out of their life into an endeavor framed by unknowns?
Strayed is a pilgrim of our times. Her inner life has not been formed by a religious tradition, so she searches for ways to articulate her spiritual experiences on the PCT. An interesting thing about her book is that this lack of formation does not stop her from finding language to express her experiences, and of allowing her to touch on the themes inherent to religious pilgrimage. Her walk on the PCT is largely a solo affair, so she is isolated from people and any creature comforts we normally assume to be near, like warm food, comfortable shoes, and endless amusements that can fill our moments of solitude. On the trail, these amusements are no longer available because her day is comprised of feeding herself and moving her feet. Strayed had begun the PCT with the idea that she would be able to reflect on her life for endless hours a day and through this exercise “make herself whole again,” but this self-centered belly gazing does not happen. Instead, the walk, the aches of her body, the weather, and the landscape she passes through consume her attention.
Yet something begins to happen for Strayed. Her inner life has indeed begun to shift and unlock, guided by some type of new orientation. She is no longer crying from the memories of her painful past. Instead, new spiritual and emotional realizations are emerging. Strayed notes that after days of walking in solitude she begins to recognize beauty around her, like the colors of a desert flower, beauty that in the past would have escaped her notice.
The spiritual experience Strayed has on the PCT is intimate and richly textured. Searching as she was, she “didn’t know where to put my faith, or if there was such a place, or even precisely what the word faith meant, in all its complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake.” Adopting the language of the contemplatives, Strayed settles for calling herself a seeker. Through the pristine wonders of nature, Strayed recognizes the sacred, the holy, the summum bonum, and as her walk continues, she realizes new strength of being and a new sense of peace in the cosmos. She felt “humble and gathered up inside, like I was safe in this world too.” After weeks of walking she meets a lover, but after the carnal conjugation she ends up “feeling empty,” as though “there was something I didn’t even know I wanted until I didn’t get it.” Strayed becomes a penitent as she remembers her former life of confusion and debauchery and an abortion she had, and “begs the universe for another chance at motherhood.” She “feels a spark of light” and realizes that in her old life, heroin had been an attempt to find a way out, whereas now she realized she wanted a way in. She realizes “what mattered was utterly timeless,” and this ineffable presence was what drove her forward everyday. Strayed’s pilgrimage ends fittingly at The Bridge of the Gods over the Columbia River at the Washington-Oregon border, suggesting her life had become rooted in that place between time and timelessness.
Like Wild, the movie Into the Wild is a story based on actual events, a movie born from a biographical book of the same title written by John Krakauer. Into the Wild is the story of Christopher McCandless, nicknamed “Supertramp,” a young man whose story has intrigued many seekers over the past three decades. McCandless carries the aura of a disciple of Jesus, or perhaps a wandering hermit in search of truth. Following his graduation from Emory University, McCandless sheds aside everything that tied him to his old life, including family, friends, money, and identity cards. He ventured into the American Southwest in search of a new life of freedom and a new clarity of vision, hoping ultimately to reach Alaska.
McCandless comes to understand that he is seeking to “call each thing by its right name.” It brings to mind Adam in the Garden of Eden, differentiating himself from the world in which he is immersed by naming the plants and animals. McCandless is seeking an authentic existence in a world where the poorest people don’t have enough food to eat and the wealthy live out shallow lives with hypocritical values, yearning for love yet possessed by material possessions and a desire for power. Like all of us, McCandless lives amidst faceless social systems and media-driven coercions in our contemporary world. And like Strayed, he begins his pilgrimage free of any religious tradition.
Some people have expressed resentment over McCandless’ ultimately destructive pilgrimage which ended at an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness, but this resentment seems misplaced. It is true that McCandless’ youth led to moments of foolish idealizing in his rejection of the world he knew, but it is also true that he was a moral character who walked with faith and a genuine sense of freedom. Not many of us know the vision or courage required to travel into the unknown with only our wits to survive. Not many of us know the vision and courage required to camp in the wilderness on our own. We must also remember that McCandless was not alone in his passion for truth. Saint Paul, possessed by a vision that the world he walked in was passing away, risked his life in sharing the Jesus story, and Mother Teresa sacrificed her life for the sick and dying of Calcutta. Respected people like Dorothy Day and Leonardo Boff have been inspired by the ideals in the gospel message, dedicating their lives to challenging Western materialism. McCandless is quite at home in this company.
Like Strayed, McCandless demonstrates a truth of pilgrimage, or discipleship in the Christian sense, that we tend to overlook; searching for meaning and truth, and realizing the essence of spiritual freedom, carries inherent risks and demands self-sacrifice that at times can appear foolish in the eyes of the world. True discipleship is neither safe nor glamorous. To be a searcher or a disciple is to expose one’s life to the nebulous power of grace alone, and to be a disciple is to live on the peripheries of culture and society with nothing but faith to offer solace. In the case of Strayed and McCandless, the fact that popular books and movies have been made about their pilgrimages is also a reminder that it is the person who turns from the transient world, guided by the spirit of something enduring, who informs us about the wonders of who we are. The seeker brings a depth of experience that we are inspired and guided by, or that we react to with hostility when our self-satisfying sensibilities are challenged.
McCandless was ready to re-emerge in society, in the end. One of his last journal entries reads, “Only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life,” and in bold lettering, “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.” He was thankful for his life and thanked God for it, and he prayed that God bless everyone. The most entrenched wisdom that guides our souls through hell and high water is the wisdom we realize through experience and reflection. In the end, he signed off with his name, Christopher McCandless, not Supertramp. This suggests that he had indeed learned to call everything by its right name, and that he had found a firmer sense of self in relationship with a great, eternal Mystery.
The world McCandless travels in is also something of interest. We are reminded that he was not the only pilgrim on America’s highways and city streets. He met many wanderers and searchers on the American road, many of whom were also highly literate. The presence of so many wanderers and searchers like Strayed and McCandless begs a question about religious culture in the contemporary West. Religion and cultural tradition have been abandoned by a vast number of people in North America. What does this mean for these cultural nomads? Their spiritual experiences are certainly authentic, and in the case of people like Strayed and McCandless who intentionally seek truth, or wholeness, or healing, it is no exaggeration to say they had the passion of Saints.
The Way is a movie that tells a tale which ties together traditional and contemporary forms of pilgrimage. The movie is about an ophthalmologist from California named Tom whose globe-trekking son Daniel has died in a storm in the Spanish Pyrenees while walking the famous pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago. Tom is a character most of us can understand easily enough: he is a widower with money and connections who loves playing golf with his buddies. He tries to manage everything about his life—including his son Daniel—with a rigidity inspired by the security and pride that comes from a life well lived, complete with wealth and social status. We understand that this rigid and self-centered approach to life is bound for failure, or at least conflict, when the ways of the world inevitably refuse to bend to Tom’s will. This is what sadly occurs when he learns of Daniel’s death.
The movement of pilgrimage can break open a soul, though the pilgrim will naturally resist this disquieting moment of grace from occurring. This is where much of the tension is found in The Way. Tom’s pilgrimage begins with the singular and mechanical focus of mourning Daniel while spreading his ashes along the pilgrimage route that his son could never complete. We love a task to occupy our day, and we love objectives to reach. The task of spreading ashes blinds Tom to the fact that while he may think he is carrying out this journey for Daniel, this walk through Spain is actually all about himself and the health of his own soul. The pace of the movie, as with Wild and Into the Wild, is beautifully done, bringing the step-by-step work of pilgrimage into the rhythm of the story.
Tom walks the Camino with a heavy heart. His newfound companions appear to walk with more brevity. On the surface they walk for weight loss, tobacco addiction, and writer’s block. What we learn from Wild and Into the Wild however, is that pilgrimages work psychic and spiritual material into the surface of our thoughts, demanding our attention. So it is that we learn from Tom’s companions that they are suffering from self-esteem and marriage problems, the desire for healing from physical abuse and an abortion, and healing from clerical abuses in the Church. There is no new-age magic on the Camino nor superficial healings. Instead, there is the experience of the soul and its continued journey through a life that never allows for a sustained nirvana in the historical here and now. Even if some pilgrims enter the walk with a pouch full of illegal drugs or ignorance of the Christian tradition, the Camino protects everyone with a sacramental presence. From the names of villages to the roadside shrines, to the image of the sea shell and ritualistic prayer at the Cruz de Ferro, there is an invitation to the Sacred that even the most dull-witted can appreciate.
Tom is a lapsed Catholic. He is used to the easy way, which is obviously his own way and no one else’s. On the golf course he scoots about for even the shortest distances on an electric cart. The Camino is not his way. Yet grief has broken him open for this experience of pilgrimage. When he steps out of his hotel on day one, he automatically heads downhill before being corrected by the walk of other pilgrims—he must head uphill. Tom is humbled on only his first step of the pilgrimage. Although use of the Rosary is referenced and the sign of the cross is made at heightened moments, Tom’s struggle with God is one that occurs in the quiet depths of his heart. As viewers of the film, we are not permitted to have the soulful struggle laid out for us. We are challenged to relate to it on our own ground instead. By the movie’s end we can appreciate that Tom has indeed been broken open and will now continue his life with a reinvigorated faith.
The steady pace of the movie reminds us of the slow work of pilgrimage, but as the friends and pilgrims bid farewell to one another at the end of the Camino on the shores of the eternal sea, we are reminded of the fleeting nature of time and life. The pilgrimage, going on day after uncomfortable day, has suddenly ended. Now what? Are the most mindful among us capable of keeping the present present amidst the repetitive rises and settings of the sun? If life is such a brief moment, and we are eventually forced to deal with it on our own terms, how can we maintain our harmony with Being? Perhaps one approach to the question lies in the dialogue we find in the film. Half way through The Way, the conversation among friends centers on who is actually a legitimate pilgrim. Tom’s angry response to this, however drunk he may be at the time, is informative—the conversation is not relevant. Everyone appears to be on a pilgrimage, whether they know it or not. As Tom’s son Daniel said to his father before his globe trekking began, “we don’t choose a life to live, we live one.”
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