The Journey: The Spirit Finds a Way, but the Body Walks It

It seems fitting to be reflecting on the "journey" aspect of pilgrimage while in transit to Israel. I've been flying since 10 a.m. yesterday; it's now the next morning and I've just boarded my final leg from Paris to Tel Aviv.  My sleeping and eating schedule are completely scrambled. The iPad tells me it is 5 a.m. Back home, and it's 11 o'clock here.

Of course, I have relatively few complaints compared to pilgrims in past centuries.  A couple of days wisks me to the Holy Land, rather than months on ships, horses and afoot. Stewardesses attend to my every need (almost), rather than being at the mercy of sea captains, caravan wranglers, bandits and innkeepers.  Even the predictable interview with El Al security was eased by the well-timed production of a business card.  (You try to explain what is "Plymouth Congregational" to someone from another culture!)  

Modern air travel removes much of what made for the communitas of past pilgrims.  While everyone has their TSA, lost luggage, or weather delay story, pilgrims often are not actually experiencing those things together.  Shared hardships provide some of the bonding of communitas.  Perhaps that is why artificial sufferings are often built into pilgrimages:  walking barefoot up a sacred mountain, fasting, sunrise vigils.

But the journey did not begin at 10 yesterday morning.  Like every pilgrimage, this journey really began months, even years, ago.  It began with a hunger to see the places Jesus walked.  It was nourished by Bible courses that sought to make clear the history and archaeology of place.  It started to crystallize about four years ago, when I first decided that I was not getting any younger and started seriously investigating pilgrimage options.   That led directly to the Turkey pilgrimage with Marcus Borg and Dom Crossan just three years ago.  But the Holy Land still called, so I started researching more options there, and discovered (among others, most notably St. George Anglican's programs) Tantur.  I'll write more specifically about Tantur later.  

The preparation period opens up an imaginative space.  What am I trying to accomplish?  Why does this draw me so?  Wonder how I'll feel when I see the Church of the Holy Sepulcher?  How will I come to grips with understanding the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians? What is being gay like in Israel?  How do Jews here (or Muslims here) relate their spiritualities and sexualities?  And just what will these stones I look at mean?

So started weeks of research.  I plowed though a few books on biblical archaeology and history.  I read Lonely Planet guides,  Chacour's "Blood Brothers, Sennett's "The Body and the Blood," revisited Michener's "The Source."  Wandered around websites Zionist, LGBT, and Palestinian. Indeed, the more I studied the less I knew:  and so know it is only in being there I may come to any sort of full accounting.

I am penning this last paragraph after being in Tel Aviv two days and finishing the first full day of programs at Tantur.  Which leaves me one last observation about "journey."

Tantur is right next to Hebron Road, the main road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.  The ways the hills go it is pretty much the only route.  So whatever one might say about the "authenticity" of this or that place -- was Jesus really born in this grotto? Did Abraham offer Isaac up on this rock?  Was this the sycamore tree Zachary's climbed to see Jesus? -- it is quite certain that this road, a mere 100 yards from where I am typing, was the very road Jacob walked before losing Rachel, King David took back and forth from his capitol to his hometown, Mary and Joseph took the baby Jesus up to the temple upon, and a million pilgrims since have trod in honor to them all.  The journey might be as close to the place as we get.  We'll see.