Featured Resource: Pilgrimage: Here or There?
By Shawna Lucas
Pilgrimage is a trending spiritual practice. In 2022 Spain gave out almost half a million visas to people seeking to travel the Camino de Santiago. Pilgrimage is also a fascinating field of religious study, a topic worth the deep dive to complement the hype. The next three months a small corner of SSU’s Alumni News will explore a few introductory ideas and practical suggestions around pilgrimage. Also, the summer Alumni Book Club featuring alumna, Dr. Peri Zahnd and her book entitled, Every Scene by Heart: A Camino de Santiago Memoir will be a good stopping place for anyone intrigued by the study of pilgrimage or by those planning a spiritual trek of their own.
One of the first decisions involved in embarking on a walking pilgrimage is deciding the ‘where.’ Although the Camino de Santiago in Spain is the most renowned, there are many such well-traveled routes around the world. For Christians, other popular options are: the French portion of the Camino, the Kamana Kodo in Japan, the Via Francigena in Italy, the Abraham Path in the Middle East, St Olav’s Way in Norway, the Pilgrims Way in England, as well as pilgrimages to famous holy sites such as Lourdes in France, Lindisfarne (Holy Island), and Iona in Scotland, to name a few.
Questions to consider when choosing where you will walk:
Do you want pilgrim facilities in place (a popular and well-traveled pilgrimage route) or would you like to find your own accommodation and meals (the road less travelled)?
Is being able to converse in your mother tongue important to you? (For example, the Via Francingena requires some Italian.)
Do you want to walk alongside hundreds of others, or would you like to walk on a more sparsely populated path?
What considerations do you want to take into account for weather extremes and terrain?
What length of pilgrimage are you able to physically undertake and how many days of walking does your schedule make space for?
There is also another way to look at the question of where to go on a pilgrimage. Imagine with me, a pilgrimage not to a traditional holy site, but a pilgrimage to see the familiar as holy. While considering where you want to walk do not forget to consider a pilgrimage close to home. Although there can be deep meaning in walking the paths that pilgrims have walked for centuries, there is also deep meaning to be found in walking familiar territory that is more a part of one’s day-to-day existence. If it is spiritual and personal transformation we are seeking in the practice of pilgrimage, can the mundane become the edge of glory?
I advocate local pilgrimages are an important option on your list of potential spiritual walking journeys. Not only are they more accessible regarding time and financial commitments, they can also have a smaller environmental impact.
Slowing down and walking the places we call home can still be a liminal experience in which we know strangeness without the regular comforts of a vehicle or home. Instead of a holy destination, the land itself becomes holy and we have an ability to see places anew. Local pilgrimages also have the potential to be decolonizing in ways that foreign pilgrimages are not as we are in meditative connection with the land we regularly colonize.
If your pilgrimage goals feel like a wish dream, could seeking a route in closer proximity to home make it more attainable?
What are your core reasons for seeking a pilgrimage experience? Are your goals better met locally or internationally?
Are there accessible walking routes 10-150 kms in length within a few hours of your community?
What are some local religious sites or history that you could incorporate into a pilgrimage route?
Do you have local Indigenous people you could hire to come alongside you in your local pilgrimage planning to teach you about the land and a different way of seeing place?
If you have a theology of Divine proximity and understand that God is present in the mundane, can that translate into the pilgrimage experience for you?
