spiritual practices

Stepping Into the Unknown

It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door. You step into the road, and if you do not keep your feet there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. – Bilbo Baggins, Lord of the Rings

It’s clear all the way through history that practices are primary and beliefs are secondary. – Robert N. Bellah

In less than a month I’ll embark on my first Camino de Santiago. I’m leading a group of novices who will each step foot on this ancient path toward Santiago de Compostela for the first time. This means the way is completely new and unknown to each of us. Though I am organizing the trip, none of us are experts. Which I am guessing will be a unique feature.

The concept of pilgrimage is not new to me. I’ve read memoirs, studied the history, and written often about it, making it central to my doctoral thesis. But I’ve been surprised at the difficulty I’ve encountered describing to others why I believe a pilgrimage is a necessary component of a growing life of faith. Further, why should someone entrust me with their hard-earned money and time off in order to hoist a backpack on their back and walk an average of 12 miles a day along the dusty trails of northern Spain? Honestly, it’s been a frustrating experience, given my “expertise.”

But just this week it occurred to me why it’s so hard to convince the masses to walk toward an old Cathedral in Spain that supposedly houses the remains of Saint James: I’ve been appealing to their head instead of their heart. So much of education and faith formation over the last 400 years has focused almost exclusively on knowledge. Thanks to René Descartes, humans have placed more and more value on what we can know and control, rather than what we intuit, feel, and experience. For the religious, this means we’ve placed primacy on what we believe, rather than our experiences. 

And so western Christianity has placed increasing emphasis on explaining and then defending a faith that beforehand had been largely understood in terms of relationship and mystery. I can’t convince you that Jesus is God incarnate any more that I can convince you that walking for eight days, ten days, or two weeks will bring about transformation. Nor can I sway you to see this as a good thing – especially if you believe your life is already pretty good. 

But an overlooked fact remains – we are relational creatures who make meaning through experiences. And an encounter with the risen Christ and the hospitality of a stranger along a well worn trail can change you. It’s also why a concert shared with thousands in a stadium can be so exhilarating, a week at a youth camp can be so moving, or sharing a unique culinary experience can be so memorable. Shared experiences touch the heart and the head through our five senses. Which is why experiencing the warmth of the sun, the deep greens of the rolling hills, the chatter of a babbling brook, the ache of sore feet at the end of the day, and the salutation of “Buen Camino” by a fellow pilgrim can widen our appreciation for God’s gifts in a way that beliefs alone simply cannot.    

If we are lucky, we have at least one pivotal experience when we are young. It might be learning to live on our own, when we only have pennies to our name but time to embrace new ideas and new friends. It might also be a trip that takes us away from the familiar, briefly giving us time to examine our life and the world from a different angle. As we age, these experiences might come in the form of a surprise – we lose a job, a loved one suddenly dies, or a relationship ends. 

I can name many of these experiences over my life. And so far, each of them has taught me as much about myself and God as any doctrine or dogma. Put positively, scripture and tradition help us recognize the goodness of God in our experiences and guide our journey toward more encounters of the gratuitousness of God in all of creation. 

These moments shouldn’t be relegated to early life or special missionary callings. Instead, everyone can find ways to practice pilgrimage. We all can benefit from routinely removing ourselves from the day-to-day so that we become attune to God’s presence. In so doing, we may be surprised just how often we encounter God’s Spirit shimmering in a placid lake, or in the cool of a morning breeze, or in the hospitality of a stranger. 

Pilgrimage is a practice that intentionally places us in the unknown in order that we might experience God in ways that a set of beliefs alone cannot provide. We certainly carry scripture and tradition with us into this practice, but doctrine by itself is flat whereas a pilgrim crackles and pops with energy, giving life to the beliefs we profess. 

Life Together During a Pandemic

In 2020 we have experienced more disruption, change, suffering and loss than imaginable.  Much of what we have come to depend on has either been put on pause or stopped altogether.  Such large-scale change and disruption can tear at the fabric of social institutions.  The church, however, when at its healthiest, expects these storms to come and is nimble enough to weather them because its hope isn’t found in traditions, status or familiar routine.  Rather, according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian community reflects its assurance in God through its life together based on:

  • Spiritual love for one another rather than emotional love
  • Spiritual practices that keep God in the forefront, not the background
  • Solitude before God rather than noise of self-righteousness  
  • Service to another through listening, active helpfulness and forbearance
  • Confession of sins from one Christian sinner to another 

Bonhoeffer devotes a chapter to each of these in his classic book, Life Together.*  Bonhoeffer knew something about Christian life lived together before God; as a professor at Finkenwalde Seminary he was molding the lives of seminarians in the face of the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich.  Everything that Christians had taken for granted about their lives in enlightened Germany were being challenged.  A devout nation, Germany was also on the cutting edge of art, philosophy and innovation.  But out of such success came collapse after the great war, the worldwide depression and devastating inflation that left Germany weak and uncertain. 

Church leaders in Germany traded influence in Hitler’s Third Reich in exchange for a prophetic witness.

The Covid-19 pandemic, a renewed racial reckoning, partisan political rancor, job loss, school closings and no sports (!!!)  have left our heads spinning and grasping for something certain to hold on to.  How should Christians respond in the face of so much change, so quickly?  Bonhoeffer’s Life Together has helped me address this question.  He was clear that an individual Christian’s faith was tied up in the participation and purpose of the larger Christian community.  He believed a Christian community’s life together can withstand these disruptions because its purpose is founded on honoring God’s work in sinful people despite their brokenness.  Their shared daily practices, selfless love, Bible reading, meditative prayer, service to one another and confession didn’t change when the world around them changed.  Rather, these practices prepared them to face difficulties.  They defined the community.  

The world around the faith communities have been altered for the foreseeable future.  Consequently, we have had to change some of the familiar ways we gather for worship and discipleship.  But, has such changes impacted who we are and why we exist as a faith community?  Where we feel it has, we must look at the practices and expectations that make us feel this way.  Are they from God or from our own emotional reaction?  Where we have held firm in devotion to God, we should celebrate and continue in that path.  

Bonhoeffer is teaching me that while changes will come to society and to our churches that are scary, not only can we find blessed assurance in the core practices of our faith, they can pave the way to new life and vitality for our tomorrow.  Pray for the church and its leaders as we navigate this path.  May we do so with humility, forbearance and grace toward one another, because otherwise, change is so hard.  

*Check out Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.  There are editions available from Harper Collins and Fortress Press.  It is a brief but “meaty” volume that will have you chewing on God’s wisdom for days and weeks to come.