A Positively Poetic Priest

It was an intensely sunny, windy, and warm day on Wednesday June 28th in Monterey County, California. I was driving a Nissan Murano up Highway 101, otherwise known as El Camino Real, the royal road, what began as the path taken by the Spanish friars and military between the Missions through Alta California in the late 1700s and early 1800s. I had three sleeping teens listening to Billy Joel and I was going along well... until I realized I missed my exit. As I pulled off the next exit, I found myself stopped behind a white painted school bus towing porta-potties. I was somewhat surprised, and quickly realized I wasn't the only one since my exiting had woken up my passengers and there was quickly conversation about what the bus and porta potty combination was doing. Luckily I was only three miles past the exit I needed, so it was a quick detour through the small town we were in to make it back to the road we needed. Along the way we saw more school buses towing porta potties and comi...

Pilgrimage is a sacred tradition in religion. Christianity does not hold the reins of the pilgrimage, since people were walking to visit holy sites long before Jesus ever walked around Galilee. The Jewish tradition of visiting the Temple (today, the Wailing Wall) predates Christian pilgrimages. Muslims also have a tradition of pilgrimage, walking to Mecca on the Hajj. Today, thousands of people make pilgrimages in all sorts of ways in order to connect with God, with themselves, and their communities. Stories about pilgrimage are fascinating since each one is very different. Personally I have a couple of pilgrimage stories. As a teenager in the Journey to Adulthood Sunday School program, my class made a pilgrimage to San Francisco and the one of the Redwood Forests. Directly after seminary, before I started my first paid job in ministry, I made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, walking the land which Jesus and millions of other Christians have walked. What's your pilgrimage story?...