Journeys…

I love a “journey” story. When I was 5, maybe even younger, my dad first read The Lord of the Rings to me which, I think, is one of the ultimate “journey” stories. As a teenager, I was captured by The Pilgrim’s Progress—I realise this is a weird choice for a teen reader. Then when I got to university it was Kerouac that got me hooked. On the Road was the perfect “journey” story for my young adult, and ongoing, nihilism. There’s something about the Kerouac’s characters’ traverses that feels like an honest depiction of that feeling of freedom you get on the road. While the people themselves are far from aspirational, the searching they embark on has resonated deeply with me. I’ve struggled against not having a car, even reverting back from having an EV, because of the difficulty of getting “on the road.” As Kerouac’s characters confess, for me, in some ways “the road is life.”

My love of and desire for “the road” doesn’t seem to be personal. There’s something about “going” that feels bound up with the human experience. One of my favourite theological texts, which I can never recommend enough, is James K. A. Smith’s On the Road with St. Augustine. It’s safe to say that Smith has been foundational in my philosophising about the beauty of the road. In his discussion of the phenomenon of the journey story, Smith says that “we hit the road in the hope of finding what we’re looking for—or at least sufficiently distracting ourselves from the hungers and haunting absences that propelled our departure in the first place.” The road in popular culture seems to be emblematic of a sort of freedom that calls us into ourselves. It’s an escape from the ordinary mundanity of our everyday, into the unknown of the journey, and somehow into the unknown of ourselves. The road can be the unending possibility of never having to reach a destination.

This version of the journey narrative in popular culture has roots in ancient practices of pilgrimage. They are connected by a belief in the value of the road. One of the biblical journeys that I find myself drawn to is the walk on the road to Emmaus. As this couple meets a stranger on their walk along the road, something happens in their conversation. After the stranger has revealed himself as Jesus, they turn to one another and say “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road.” There is a beautiful sense here of the power of what can happen on the road, that the journey has significance, not just the destination.

At the same time, what has been lost in aimless, meandering journeys like that in Kerouac’s novel, is that the destination can also be significant. In ancient practice, although good things might happen on the road as well, spiritually significant journeys were all about the destination. Karen has just shared with us about the temple, and this was a key site of pilgrimage for ancient Jews. Before the destruction of the second temple, it was expected that Jews would make a pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem for the three major feasts—Passover, Weeks or Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Psalms 120-134 are often called the Psalms of Ascent and would have been used to mark these times of pilgrimage. These are journeys that Jesus makes as well. In the New Testament, his visits to Jerusalem are often timestamped with a particular festival that he has gone up to the temple for.

The spiritual function of these journeys is significant, and is continued on through Christian pilgrimage traditions. More than just an obligatory journey for the faithful, the Jewish pilgrimages to the temple were a way of marking time, of stepping out of the ordinary, and of intentionally turning to the divine. The pilgrimage tradition became part of the new Christian faith from early on, but started booming in Europe around the 11th century. The various Camino routes, one of which Stu is walking, were part of this blossoming industry. For everyday European Christians, pilgrimages were a significant part of Christian living. This is a time when firstly, people would have few opportunities to travel; and secondly, faith was mediated institutionally in ways very different to modern Christianity. Pilgrimages were an opportunity for ordinary people to have access to holiness in a way that was not possible in their usual life.

There’s certainly an element of pilgrimage in this time, as now, as an occasion for sightseeing and companionship. These aren’t lesser spiritual goals, but part of the whole experience of the journey: the experience of faith through spiritually significant locations that you can’t access at home, and the meeting of others who are on the shared spiritual journey. I can imagine that for many Medieval pilgrims, the opportunity to get away from home was relished.

But the spiritual value of the pilgrimage is what has given this practice its longevity. For one, the journey of the pilgrimage started to be seen as emblematic as the journey of faith throughout life. The Pilgrim’s Progress is a great example of this. Each location that John Bunyan’s Pilgrim passes through is symbolic of a different stage of faith or challenge on the Christian life journey. We might have some theological differences with Bunyan’s symbolic choices, but the metaphor seems apt. Not only is a real life pilgrim’s journey mediated through different faith experiences, there are also challenges of temptation and turning from the path. There is suffering and challenges that must be overcome in the walking, just like in a life of walking in faith.

Most significantly, pilgrimage is marked by the centrality of a destination. For ancient Jews, this was a journey to the temple to participate in a religious rite. For medieval pilgrims, destinations were often chosen based on the pilgrim’s connection to a saint or their desire for healing for themselves or others. While the journey still has its value, a pilgrimage isn’t an aimless “going” for the sake of “going.” There is a place to be reached and a purpose to be achieved on the way, and this spiritual focus is what gives the pilgrimage its religious significance.

I don’t know how many of you feel the call to the road as strongly as I do. I’m challenged by both my desire for a freedom that I feel the road gives me, in tension with the spiritual call to direction. I find myself sitting with this from James K. A. Smith: “it turns out that being free isn’t about leaving; it’s about being found.” The call to pilgrimage, different to the call to the road, is a call to foundness. It’s a call to walk with purpose, to experience the road and all that can happen on it, but also to seek a destination.