WALKING THROUGH LENT - AGAIN

 

After these many years, I know that there will be lots of friends, acquaintances, relatives -- and strangers too -- who will be reading the assigned chapter of my book "Pilgrim Road" each day during Lent. The book is a series of reflections, each set in a different locale in Europe or South America, that offer thoughts appropriate to the Lenten Journey. 

The metaphor of life as a journey seems to be part of most cultures, even very ancient ones. The Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures refer to important journeys that change peoples' lives. So, the framework of a forty-day journey to Easter appeals naturally to many religious people. The stories in "Pilgrim Road" are accounts of my experiences during a sabbatical year when I traveled as a solo pilgrim through Europe and South America. But This book held a big surprise for me.

After "Pilgrim Road" was published in 2006, it began to morph into something I hadn't intended when I wrote it: it has become a literary vehicle that creates a bond among its readers, uniting them into a pilgrimage group, like those in the Middle Ages that made perilous journeys to Compostela, Jerusalem and other pilgrimage sites. There are evidently a lot of people who, like me, get the book off the shelf every Ash Wednesday and journey with it to Easter Sunday. 

So when someone tells me "I'm reading your book each day," I always tell the person "You have a lot of company! You're part of a big pilgrimage group that's been growing over the years. Welcome!" There's something about being part of a group of like-minded souls, especially if they are from all over the place. In a pilgrimage group, people would help one another along the road in lots of different ways, but I imagine that one of the most important ways must have been by simply encouraging one another by their presence.

Lately I've heard about book study groups and even simply friends who get together regularly to discuss what they've been getting from "journeying" with the book. Those who can share their experiences with others certainly have the advantage over the rest of us who are reading it alone, with nobody to talk with about what we're reading. The difficulty of our particular pilgrim company is, obviously, that most of us never see one another, we don't even know who else may be on the road with us, or how many we are. But I draw encouragement every day from the thought that there are all these people that I know, as well as many, many more whom I'll never meet, who are traveling with me and praying for me as I do for them.

I should say that I consider this book a gift from the Lord for which I can take only a tiny bit of credit. Each time I read a chapter I find something new in it, and I thank God for using me to put it into print.