Vanessa Hammond, Victoria

  Winter came. Winter with its damp air, long dark nights, and cold. It was a time to take stock, reflect on the year past, recharge for the future. And we celebrated the coming of the Christ Child, the Light of the World. We relived and celebrated the journey of the Magi, the seekers. 
   We saw their wisdom in not accepting the voice of worldly power and authority, the self-interest and fear of the ruler. We followed them to join instead the humble animals in the stable.
   And we moved into the longer days, earlier sunrise, warmer sunshine, later sunset. In most ways we are back to daily life and work, but spring time is also time to think about how we will travel our pilgrimage of life throughout this year and into the future. Whether our journey is internal, into our souls, or around our neighbourhood, the questions are really the same.

  Winter came. Winter with its damp air, long dark nights, and cold. It was a time to take stock, reflect on the year past, recharge for the future. And we celebrated the coming of the Christ Child, the Light of the World. We relived and celebrated the journey of the Magi, the seekers. 
   We saw their wisdom in not accepting the voice of worldly power and authority, the self-interest and fear of the ruler. We followed them to join instead the humble animals in the stable.
   And we moved into the longer days, earlier sunrise, warmer sunshine, later sunset. In most ways we are back to daily life and work, but spring time is also time to think about how we will travel our pilgrimage of life throughout this year and into the future. Whether our journey is internal, into our souls, or around our neighbourhood, the questions are really the same.
   For what is the soul yearning? What will be most important to us this year? Do we want to visit the home area of our families, or research the values and motivations of our parents, grandparents and, even more important, our children and their families? Do we want to see and try to understand the traces, the heritage of spirituality of the land we live on, of the land from which we or our families came?
                                                                Island Pilgrims 
   For those of us going to Ireland in this informal group we call Island Pilgrims, do we want to see how the population and culture evolved from Old Stone Age with its huge monuments, elaborate and apparently egalitarian field systems, through to the New Stone Age with the probable emergency of hierarchical society, then the coming of Celtic culture leaving us legends and proto-history that is still reflected in place names and language?
   Then Christianity arrived. Ireland was probably the only place where it arrived mainly with slaves, merchants, retired soldiers. It was also the only place where it spread in its early development through countryside rather than in cities. And it was probably brought by people firm in their faith, but not arriving to extract slaves, gold, furs, forest products.
   Was Christianity in Ireland perfect? Has it ever been perfect? What can we learn about the beliefs and practices of early Irish Christianity? What feels familiar and comfortable? What startles us? What is there in our beliefs or behaviour that would have startled our predecessors or will shock our descendants? Who is right? Do we yearn to know if there is a “right”? What might have happened if Christianity had come to Canada in the same way?
 How about enjoying the landscape, the people, the music, the food, the occasional “soft” day, and the warm sunshine? Maybe a pub visit, so different from pubs in other countries, blending the “hang out” of coffee shop with living room with folk music club with good food. Is this part of spirituality, of faith?
   Long ago, listening to the comments of those who had made the pilgrimage across India to bathe in the waters of the Ganges, or made the Hajj to Mecca, a journey to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, to Rome or Lourdes, or across our fields to St Brigit’s Well, I thought there were answers. I thought we went on pilgrimage and came back wiser, full of certainty.
   As I organize a pilgrim journey every year for a small but changing group from Canada or the United States, the answers fade in importance. Of course there are some “facts” from archaeology, literature, architecture. But the real interest and satisfaction comes from the soul yearning, seeking truth, seeking the shadows of what our predecessors may have thought.
   It comes from recognizing how their assumptions were formed by the context, the land and culture in which they lived. And it comes from thinking about how our assumptions are formed by what we see as the history that has gone before us, and by our current culture. It comes strongly when we see that the “it’s always been this way” of our behaviour and beliefs is just the current view, just our moment in a long tradition. It comes even more strongly when we can see that it is the questions, the seeking that bind us together in a community of faith and when we see the boundaries of that community stretch back in time, stretch far in geography and even stretch to include many with whom we disagree on much, but share this life of pilgrimage and questions.
   Every year I organize, with the other pilgrims, a pilgrim journey through Ireland, focusing on places of great physical beauty and spiritual meaning. Some years the group continues to Iona, Wales, the Isle of Man or the SW Celtic area of England. We ask ourselves, in planning, what will link us with the Magi, travelling to understand, to go where we haven’t been before. What will renew, strengthen, inspire?
                                                     Discussion
   I love to discuss, to ask questions, to listen to the questions of others.  One opportunity will be at St Anne and St Edmund’s, Parksville, March 17th. Then in May at First+Metropolitan United Church, 932 Balmoral St., Victoria when, with Rev Dr Martin Brokenleg, we will think about the Indigenous Spiritualities of First Nations, of the Celts, and in Mongolia.  Another at St Columba Church, Tofino, July 6th.  Check
 http://islandpilgrim.wix.com/journey-to-ireland and http://firstmetvictoria.com/ for details. And I can be reached at islandpilgrim@gmail.com even when on the road, seeking.
http://firstmetvictoria.com/ for details. And I can be reached at islandpilgrim@gmail.com even when on the road, seeking.