Pilgrim’s Progress chapter four
“The hero’s journey is not just to keep going to new places, making the trip a vacation or travelogue. We have to return to where we started and know it in a new way and do life in a new way.” -Richard Rohr
I expected to go through the motions of shepherding everyone everywhere, supporting the pilgrimage that folks were on, like the hosts in Spanish donavito's, which are places to rest and sleep, often monasteries, along the Camino de Santiago, whose purpose is to serve and care for the pilgrims that pass through. My role as servant. My primary focus: operational and on others in our group. Because I have been discerning since I was a young child in the deep South, confused by the incongruencies around me, very little shocks me when peeling the onion of America’s original sin. I am able to maintain my focus on providing the structure for the Holy Spirit to work. Like many, I have witnessed, read, studied, and known intimately racism in America. And through these pilgrimages God and I “go deeper” in our on-going conversations. He speaks clearly.
What has struck me to my knees on this Pilgrimage to Charleston, is the generosity, the warmth and patience extended to us. The day before the snowstorm, Mr Lee Bennett from “Mother” Emanuel graciously rescheduled our visit from Thursday to Friday, a day visits are not offered and thus worked us in between other commitments. Once there, we hung on his every word and asked so many questions. Our time at Mother Emanuel went over by 45 minutes! And yet, Mr Bennett actually seemed to INCREASE our welcome. Franklin Williams, the proprietor of Frankly Charleston Tours, asked us outright before we began, why we wanted to take his tour of Black Charleston. That opened a trust between us, allowing questions and stories to flow. And again, he extended his time with us by an additional ½ hour. On Sunday morning, in the middle of the street in front of Calvary Episcopal, Father Ricardo Bailey, elegant robes flowing with his waving arms, directed our oversized van to a parking spot before the service then during requested an introduction of our group along with offering a heartfelt welcome. We passed the peace through hugs and handshakes up and down the aisle and formed a massive circle holding hands and singing together “We Shall Overcome.” Then we all ate Miss Andrea’s homemade fried chicken, collards, and mac-n-cheese. Again and again, more generosity on top of generosity. Calvary embraced us all. I asked Ramelle+, our new friend from the Diocese of South Carolina, and the senior warden of Calvary Episcopal, Jeanette Spencer, WHY and so quickly he responded, “why NOT? We are reflecting the Holy Spirit.” Jeanette just looked at me with surprise, as if obviously I should know, and nodded in agreement.
There are so many reasons why not. Time is precious, especially with busy schedules, it’s hard to get people to volunteer, a meal is way more expensive in both money and time than simple hors d’oeuvres from Costco or my usual grab and go from Weaver Street, it’s uncomfortable, and, if I’m honest, it’s a hassle to disrupt routine. I imagine myself as generous. I am quick to pick up a check with friends, to plan my mother’s birthday celebration with details that matter, I am a long time committed donor to a long list of worthy non profits, I say yes when a neighbor asks for a ride to the airport, and we open our house freely. I usually remember to bring hostess gifts when I am invited into other people's homes. And yet, might my image of me being generous be, well, just an image? Could it actually be part of a performance to build an image that I want to present, a way of centering myself upon the stage of life? What does it mean to BE generous? Hospitable? Open? Is profound grace and generosity causing a spiritual crisis?
Why do I hold back? Why is my hospitality not unbridled? My generosity is not unleashed to offer more than the minimum? Why do I protect and guard my resources? Control? Power? Fear? Habit? Mirroring those around me, relational and cultural? Why do I, along with my loved ones, honor boundaries around our “stuff,” or, worse, give with caveats and expectations? Because I don’t actually want to put my neighbor first, loving them the way I love myself, centering them on life’s stage? And for that matter, who is actually my neighbor?
Our Pilgrimage to Charleston shook me out of my operational focus -though we still ate ridiculously well and got where we needed to be. It unexpectedly pushed me right into the darkness of Lent. Our encounters with grace at every turn, grace that built as we encountered more people through whom God spoke, pulled away the scales to reveal that I have a blight upon my soul. God’s conversation with me just got a lot deeper.
This Lent I travel on, into the dark recesses of my heart and psyche, wrestling with how I might actually reflect the Holy Spirit and Christ himself. This period of repentance is colliding with my experience in Charleston. Hard looks inward, examining places I normally justify or gloss over. I am thinking about theologian and priest Marcus Borg’s definitions of repentance. The Old Testament meaning is “to turn or to return.” Most years I use Lent as an opportunity to refocus my Christian practice, to turn back to God like a small child with tears on my face and arms outstretched, praying that somehow God will find me worthy enough. But this year it is the New Testament definition that defines my practice: “to go beyond the mind that we have.” I am fitful and I am struggling but I pray to heed this call, to become more like the generosity we experienced, more like Jesus himself.
