Pilgrim or Tourist
“Is there a place for each of us,
where we no longer yearn to be elsewhere?
Where our work is to simply soften,
wait, and pay close attention?”
Christine Valter Paintner
No doubt about it, the pandemic has put the brakes on everyone’s travel plans. Terri and I had gotten used to multiple trips a year since I retired in 2014. We have had some wonderful vacations at home and abroad. But like everyone else it all came to a screeching halt with the Coronavirus pandemic!
This long “sabbath” from travel, has had an interesting effect on me. I think that is why the words I opened this blog with, from a poem called “St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection”, has had so much effect on me. Although I am looking forward to traveling again, I find I am not “yearning to be somewhere else” as result of this “travel rest period”. The pandemic, like our Camino walk, were times of rest and renewal in some sense. They both have taught me things about myself I am a a different person coming of out both experiences.
Mostly, I guess I am “just happy within my own skin”. I can sit still for long periods of time without wanting to be somewhere else. I love the experience of now, fully present and alive. Not looking too far ahead or dwelling on the past.
So, I am asking myself, when we begin to travel once more, will I be a tourist or a pilgrim? My plan is to stay a pilgrim. To savor and sip the travel experience, embracing each precious moment with heart open so that I might come home changed forever by the experience.
John
Photograph of the Month
Here is an image I created when I captured these to Cormorants on a tree at the Ballard Locks. I used my imagination and some tools in my photography darkroom to make interesting final image.
weareallpilgrims 