Sara McNelis
Grace Church, Kingston
(Part III of III, continued from previous post)
Over the last few weeks and months, I have allowed the words of the Pilgrimage Collect to wash over me. I have talked to parishioners and clergy. I have gone to the Pilgrimage meetings and pre-Convention Hearing to learn more about our Diocese and this Pilgrimage. I have allowed new ideas and thoughts to enter into my familiarity and into my meditation. I have allowed my mind to explore what this Pilgrimage may mean to me and to my church friends and family whom are on a similar journey. Over the last few weeks and months, I have allowed the Pilgrimage Collect to be part of my Sunday morning quiet meditation.
I wish that, in my meditation, I had come to some wonderful words of wisdom. I wish I had arrived at some great epiphany that will assure myself and others that our Pilgrimage journey will lead us through and to exotic places of beauty that will carry echoes of tradition and familiarity that we have all grown so comfortable with having as part of our being. I wish I could make an itemized list of things to take and things we may consider leaving behind for this journey. But, I must admit, I have absolutely no idea where we are in this journey OR where it is leading. Just as, at the end of this frustrating Saturday, I have no idea where in cyberspace my emails and resume are lost. BUT, in my quiet meditation, I have become very content and comfortable with knowing that we are on this journey together.
A couple of weeks ago on a Women’s Choir Sunday, Patty (our choir director), thoughtfully and appropriately chose a hymn that has been echoing in my thoughts while I write. I will leave this reflection with the words from that hymn:
We are pilgrims on a journey,
fellow trav’lers on the road;
we are here to help each other
walk the mile and bear the load.
Hymn #124, Voices Found
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