A core component of pilgrimage is "communitas" the web of relations in which the pilgrim journeys.
There are one's fellow pilgrims, organized perhaps by the same leader, church or tour group. There are those pilgrims with whom one is not formally connected, but who are going to the same destination. Then there are the fellow travelers; seat mates on an airplane, commuters sharing the same bus, pedestrians along the sidewalk. Finally, there are those service personnel without whom the project would be impossible: drivers, translators, waiters, pilots, bathroom attendants, flight attendants, guides, etc.
This communal aspect to pilgrimage is something I resist. I'm basically an introvert, and jealous of my personal space and time. I arrive at a high mountain lake and consider it overrun if there is but one other party there. I wander off from the group, sometimes deluding myself that I can still hear the guide on my headset AND take in the wonders he is passing by and I am miraculously discovering on my own. I indulge in the oldest American spiritual sin, that of rugged individualism. "God helps those who help themselves."
Yet it is through other people that I have had the most profound experiences. Other people crack me out of my easy assumptions faster than anything else. I found after my Turkey trip that it was the unexpected encounters that later kept me awake at night. Sometimes it was trying to get my head around radically different understandings of life, theology and politics. Sometimes it has been praying for their safety as the political situation in Turkey has deteriorated. Sometimes it is just sheer wonder that such fascinating people and I crossed paths.
I'd be remiss to talk only in general terms about the people. There was the goatherd who, despite the failure of Google Translate, let me photograph him and his animals. There was the retired English widow with her 22 year old very pretty Turk boy-toy zooming from bar to bar on his motor scooter in the dead of night. The English tourist whose partner had long since gone to bed after a long day of longing on the beach, who, observing my nervous carefulness with my drink and my hypervigilance of strange situations told me "Get yer bloody head outta yer ass! And buy me a drink!" There was the highly educated polyglot civil servant who, while counting himself an agnostic, detailed me the story of Lut (Lot) and the Koran's anti gay take on the Sodom story, mixed with his sadness at only falling in love with unavailable married straight men.
Of quite a different impact are those one intentionally journeys with. I must confess to not having paid due attention to them. Perhaps it was knowing that it was only a temporary set of relationships that made me avoid deep connection. Probably some of it was my introversion, where holding myself apart seems like the path of emotional safety. Yet they provided structure around the journey. Some was as simple as my roommate putting up with me drying sink-laundered clothes all over the balcony. Others were as profound as Marianne Borg asking when I came out of Goreme's Dark Church,
"What did you think?" "I'm speechless, " I replied. "Struck mute." Her simple question helped me crystallize an otherwise overwhelming experience. Companions help us see, help us articulate, help us attend to what I'm experiencing. And help find the right airline gate and the nearest bathroom!
So on this trip: I commit to pay attention to the people among whom God places me. I've worked to set up opportunities to meet with gay people, Israeli and Palestinian, with a particular focus on those who are maintaining their religious identity (Jewish, Muslim, or Christian). I commit to be present to those in my class cohort, as wildly diverse as it appears we are (Catholic and Protestant, from very conservative to radically liberal). Not to pre-judge anyone by labels, but to let the relationship between us unfold naturally.
So God of Jesus, the one who welcomed all: give me an open heart to those you bring my way. Amen.
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