Category Archives: GENERAL INTEREST

3000 Miles to Jesus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life for Spiritual Seekers by Lisa Deam (Broadleaf Books, 2021)

TODAY Lisa Deam is launching 3000 Miles to Jesus. Soli Deo gloria. This book starts where it should by giving glory to God. I read this book in little chunks at a time. Sort of like reading about Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, I needed time to absorb what I was reading to get its quality. Lisa Deam unpacks for us the pilgrimages of a handful of medieval travelers on their way to the Holy Land, to the very places where Jesus walked, ministered, and was crucified. Like with any real life adventure, I learned how rigorous, risky, lonely, and costly it was for these pilgrims intent on seeing it through to the end. “Our medieval travelers were slow-movement philosophers way before the modern era. For pilgrimage, true pilgrimage, is always slow. It takes the time it needs,” writes Deam. Pilgrimages commence in stages as do our own spiritual pilgrimages. Preparation and trust in God are necessary for putting both feet in the same direction to move forward toward our pilgrimage’s fulfillment. Sometimes you pause for awhile, to wait and pray, like the pilgrims waiting for a boat to take passage across the sea to the shore of the Holy Land. Then to wait a couple weeks more until authorities let them debark. Even then, not with freedom to go where they wish, to pursue at will, but within the confines of the authorities’ directives and guides. Oh the joy, though, when their quest brings them to the path of our Lord, where they are moved to worship. We are welcomed to make our own spiritual pilgrimage as we follow the path of those who have gone on before us. I enjoyed the topic and the presentation. Illustrations and quotations enhance this book.

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New Year, Fresh Start

Reflections on 2020

As I write this, the date is December 31, 2020. People are asking what we’ve learned during this strangely odd year of 2020. More than learning, I would say we have grown in our insights on how to endure.

We have gained understanding for what the refugee may feel, how the incarcerated may feel, the “in-need-but-doing-without” may feel, and with a greater respect for the way depression alters outlook when it slows the ability to “be” present. Strong people have admitted to being depressed this year.

We have gained understanding about our human need for inclusion, interaction, activity, sharing, touching, being together, giving, and helping. Simply put, we humans need each other.  We are also more aware of our own mortality, our fragility, and our sense of being one isolated person of many socially distanced isolated people. We’ve empathized to a greater degree than we have in the past.

We have known people that are suffering, serving in the medical front lines, people who’ve died of the Covid or complications, famous people, ordinary folk, friends and family. Everything is upside down: schools, businesses, vacations, travel, employment, entertainment and so forth. Four hundred businesses lost in Butte County alone this year. That’s a lot of people hurt and people sadness. We’ve sympathized with others to a broader degree in many respects than we’re used to.

It’s been quite a year. Besides the racial tension, BLM and the defund the police movements, the Covid-19 traumatizing virus—which has changed life as we knew it, there is the other grand 2020 player, the political trauma and biases, which has isolated whole blocks of people who now feel disenfranchised, disregarded, and hated for their beliefs or who they voted for, by the other half of the populace.

This undercuts who we are as a free people in a free land.

Aspirations for 2021

What is the solution? Do we just carry on? I believe we must do more than just “carry on.” We must reach higher. All of us could help, love, and care more. We could look beyond our own wants, to provide safety, inclusion, grace, kindness, and life in our own communities and beyond.

We can dig deeper. We can aspire to more.

This is the 2021 challenge: Aspire to >more, >better, and >best. No excuses.

But how can we do this? I have five suggestions:

    • One, we start being the leader, and we stop being the judge.
    • Two, we do what we can to put a bright spin on things, and we stop being a sour voice about the things that we can’t change, anyway.
    • Three, we trust the future to God–He knows what He is doing–and we don’t give up doing what we are called to do.
    • Four, we do the next best thing, whatever that is. You keep reaching forward, instead of remaining on pause.
    • Five, we make it a habit to praise God for what is happening personally, inter-personally and intro-personally, socially, nationally, and internationally. That should about cover it.

“Do for,” even if they don’t do for you back. Pay it forward, and pray it forward.

I’m aspiring to having a better 2021. I don’t want another year like 2020, it was especially hard on my emotions. I’m going to reach forward. In fact, I’m already thinking of ways to make it better so I’m doing more than just enduring. I’m going to be thriving. How? I’m going to be engaged in moving forward, and to not being overwhelmed and stagnated by the difficulties. It’s a mind game, as it always is. It’s also a trust in God game, as it always is. . . .

I’ll keep you posted.

. . .

Photo by Chris Barbalis, Unsplash