My Pilgrimage

It is no secret that I day dream a lot (SLMs, this should be no surprise to you especially). It is also no secret about what… as the one picture on facebook suggests, I am day dreaming about walking to Santiago de Compestella! I dream of walking up to the resting place of St. James and saying, ‘wow, this man knew Jesus Christ Himself!!’ I guess you could say, I dream of being a pilgrim.

The never failing Wikipedia defines a pilgrimage as “a journey of moral or spiritual significance.” The definition of a pilgrim, again, relying on Wikipedia is, “a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying…”  Yes, typically we always think of a pilgrimage as a physical journey to a religious, physical, worldly place. If we are blessed enough to afford the time and funds, many will take a pilgrimage to Rome or Jerusalem or Santiago or a Marian site.

… but what if we think about our entire life as a pilgrimage to Heaven!? Usually when I think about things like this, I have to bend the definition a little or tweak the meaning of something. But for this one no definitions have to change… just our perception on how we think about it! Life is indeed a journey and we do indeed hope to be journeying to THE holy place! We are all pilgrims in life. When we sin it is as if we are taking a detour (*detour* Jesus’ life and death made sin just a detour, never a dead end)… Reconciliation, the Eucharist and the other sacraments are guidance and direction to the ‘Holy Site’ (Heaven!); they lead us to where we want to go… they lead us to our Father.

So, although I day dream about walking in Spain or visiting Rome and Assisi, I should be dreaming about my ultimate destination (God willing!) of His Heavenly Kingdom and striving to model my life and put my feet on the path that leads there! If a Camino in Spain is part of that… THANK YOU GOD!

Dreaming of the day I will say, “Wow, I know Jesus Christ Himself!” …Working so that I can one day say that. …Shaping my life so that I can one day say that. That is what I mean by making your life a pilgrimage. Making a pilgrimage takes some dreaming. But it also takes work! If I dream of Santiago all day long, but never make the steps to get there… they are just dreams, and if it is just a dream, it stink because it never become reality. So yes, dream! For thinking of life as a pilgrimage, don’t dream about making the pilgrimage, dream about the end goal, because you are already on the pilgrimage!

Don’t let the dreaming hold you back from the ‘walking’… Don’t stop focusing on today because you are caught up in the dream (this, I think, is one of my biggest problems!). Today is the only way to get to tomorrow, and tomorrow is the only way to get to eternity in Heaven… so focusing on Today is how we have to get to THE Holy Place.

Just something that came to mind today as I was thinking and talking about El Camino de Santiago!

Peace!

~Dan

I realize I go between saying ‘you’ and ‘I’ and ‘we,’ probably making my posts torture for English majors, and I am sorry! I get confused because everything I write about are personal stories or things that are very relevant in my life, or things that I need to work on… But I am talking to everyone, so it all gets mixed up. It is just an engineer’s English (there is American English, British English, Australian English… then Engineers English)! haha

And, here are some pictures of a fabulous sun rise here in Wau on my way to mass in the morning... I like to take the longer way around so I can see the sun rise. Some days it is not so great... Some days I am so blessed to see such wonders! 

Enjoy! :)