To Be a Pilgrim

To be a pilgrim.....what would that be like?   If a pilgrim is someone who goes on a sacred journey to a sacred place for a sacred purpose,  what is it that constitutes "sacredness?"   Is the journey of life sacred?   I believe it is, when it is lived consciously in the Presence of God, in the awareness that God is every where and every when.   Are some places more sacred than others?   Yes and no.

One can experience God in any place.   Yet in my experience there are places where I feel the Presence of God more keenly and easily;   places of great beauty;  places where many others have communed with the Presence;  places out in nature where there is no sign of human presence; and places created by human beings who have felt the Divine Presence, and honored it by building a medicine wheel,  a pyramid,  a temple,  a pillar of stones, a shrine, a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a monastery.     To be in such a place with an open heart is to become more deeply rooted in the Divine Presence.    I am a pilgrim because I long for and love to be in such places.   Everywhere I travel, these are the places I first seek out.

And when I find others who do the same, I recognize them as pilgrims too, whether or not they would use the word.   We share a sacred intention;  to experience more fully the Divine Mystery which is our Source,  and then live more fully into that Mystery, and express its beauty, its truth, its goodness in our lives.

      This morning the Divine Presence shines on the surface of ice-filmed waves slowly rolling in towards the shore;  it soars as the seagulls appearing and disappearing out of the piles of clouds that pattern a cool blue sky.   Waves splash up through holes in ice-bergs looking like miniature Old Faithful geysers.   The only sounds are of wind and water.  

      I pause in this sacred place, this sacred moment,  and savor what it means to be a pilgrim.