What Difference Did it Make to Travel to Israel?

Jerusalem

The last several posts on this blog have been reflections on my recent trip to Israel. Among other things, I’ve talked about my efforts to approach the trip as a pilgrim, the context that I gained from visiting Biblical sites, and the insights the trip gave me into the Israelites and their God as well as the son of God, Jesus. Where does all that leave me, though? It was a great trip, but, what difference did it make in my life?

I went on the trip hoping that it would benefit me spiritually. I wanted more than just feeling God’s presence now and then while traveling; I hoped to change something in my thinking or behavior so that I would consistently be close to God. In my first post, I talked about going on the trip as a pilgrim, that is, as one who travels to a sacred place as a devotee, someone seeking spiritual benefit from the voyage. Ideally, I would not only go as a pilgrim but return as one. Pilgrimage, after all, doesn’t have to end just because travel has ended. What’s most important is not the physical journey but the journey of the soul, as portrayed in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Traveling back home can be an extension of the pilgrim journey, as T.S. Eliot alluded to in Four Quartets:

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And to know the place for the first time.

When I returned home, I think that I stayed in the pilgrim mindset for a month and a half, possibly two months. During that period of time, many people asked me about the trip and I was writing regularly about it. Talking and writing about Israel kept me focused on the lessons I learned and helped me partly transcend time–my mind was to some extent in first-century Palestine even while my body was in 21st-century America. That level of heightened awareness couldn’t last. After a while, I had written pretty much all I planned to and didn’t have as many opportunities to talk about the trip. I started to lose the sense of being a pilgrim.

I did continue to ask the key question that I began asking during the trip, though: What was I doing that kept me from becoming more like Jesus? I realized that I was spending too much time on the internet, so I tried to cut back some on that. I thought I might need to plan another pilgrimage and started to look at places to which I could travel. After a few days, though, I decided that was a false step. Making travel plans kept me from being fully present at home. Such focus on one’s immediate surroundings seems a precondition for remaining on pilgrimage–pilgrims fully inhabit each step they take rather than mentally jumping ahead to somewhere the road may eventually lead.

While I was trying to figure out ways to stay on pilgrimage I received an issue of Christian Reflection on the topic of “Traveling Well” (all issues are available here). I found several helpful references (including the above quote from Eliot). John Gatta quoted NT Wright’s  The Way of the Lord: Christian Pilgrimage Today: “it is not we, ultimately, who are on a journey for God in the face of Jesus. It is God who is on a journey looking for us.” God on pilgrimage! Doesn’t that describe what Christ did when he lived among us? How much God must love us to set out in search of us! Knowing of his ongoing pilgrimage helps me continue my pilgrimage.

Also in that issue, Christian T. George cited Lauren Artress’s Walking a Sacred Path, a book on labyrinth walking. Artress describes three stages in walking a labyrinth: purgation, illumination, and communion. George suggests that pilgrims pass through the same three stages. During the trip I tried to shift from being a tourist to being a pilgrim, using fasts to do so. That was the stage of purgation. I did get some illumination, I think, during those days of fasting and during my months of reflection following the trip. As I prayed over these bits of illumination, I sometimes experienced communion.

I have begun examining my daily experiences according to Artress’s scheme: am I in purgation, illumination, communion, or none of the above? I am starting to see the labyrinth/pilgrim walk as taking me in a circle: purgation, illumination, communion, then going out to the world to share God’s love, only to stray from the path and have to start again with purgation. Having this scheme in mind helps me know what to do next. Most commonly, I realize that I had gone out in the world with good intentions but got distracted. I need to get back on the pilgrim path, starting with purgation.

I’m pretty new to using this scheme of self-examination to guide my pilgrim journey. I’m sure I have lots to learn! I’ll use this blog to discuss any additional insights I discover along the way.