One of the themes in spirituality that I like is pilgrimage. No doubt, the first time I ever heard the word, pilgrim, was the story of the Mayflower in 1620 and all that early American history. Pilgrims were the people dressed in rather funny outfits, who came to this country for religious freedom and had Thanksgiving with the Indians. I am sure that is a second-grade version of things with little relationship to the deeper facts of seventeenth century American history.
As I moved through the years to college and a few religion classes, I again ran into the theme of pilgrimage. This time it was a spiritual theme. As I became familiar with some of the Catholic tradition, I learned about the importance of that theme. I learned about various pilgrim sites---Lourdes, Jerusalem and many more. On to graduate school deepened my knowledge replete with some trips to some of these sites. I have been fortunate enough to be in Jerusalem and Rome. Even though Quakers don’t use pilgrimage language in the same way as the liturgical churches, I also count my climb up Pendle Hill in northern England where the first Quaker, George Fox, had a vision of a great people to be gathered. For me that was a pilgrimage.
I know sometimes theologians use the theme of pilgrimage to talk about our spiritual journeys through life. For example, if the goal of the Christian life is to imitate Jesus, then to walk that path he walked is a pilgrimage of sorts. It does not necessarily mean we travel to Israel and make sure we get to Jerusalem, Galilee and all those historic sites. Rather it means we travel his way of faith. It means we find ways to love those we may not like. It means working for justice, such as sharing what we have. It likely means we are called to serve.
With this theme of service, I make a connection to the life of being contemplative. I have learned much about the life of contemplation. It is the way I would like to live my life. Without going into details, being contemplative means things like living in the moment. It is to live with as much awareness as I can---being attentive to the important things and detaching from the junk in my life. Truly it is a life of love. It is important for me that community is involved---it is not a solitary journey. And finally, reconnecting with where I began, it entails a life of serving others and serving God.
All this brought me to the opening words the last chapter of Gerald May’s wonderful book, Will and Spirit. His book talks about the psychology of the life of contemplation. And the last chapter has to do with service, which for May, is an essential part of the contemplative journey. May tells us, “It is a maxim in contemplative tradition that one needs help from others in the course of one’s spiritual pilgrimage. But this maxim is not complete without its corollary: helping others is a part of being a pilgrim.” (297) I would like to unpack these two sentences.
The initial observation is May uses the metaphor of pilgrimage to talk about the spiritual journey we all walk. Astutely, he also notes that we all need help from others. In this sense, we have to recognize that life is a contemplative journey, or we have not understood life at all. We are not self-made people. We did not get into the world by ourselves and life is not a journey of independent, autonomous individuals making their own way in life. We do need help from others.
Perhaps one of the most important choices we make in life is allowing people to help us. And more importantly, when we have the choice, choosing those people we want to help us. As I look back on my life, I have been very lucky in some of the choices I made. Sometimes we know what we are going to get when we choose someone to help us, but more often than not, what they give us goes beyond what we could have imagined. For example, one of the most helpful givers of spiritual wisdom to me is a friend who would not even consider himself to be religious. And he is not in any conventional sense. But I do think he has a deep sense of the Spirit and he is tapped into that. So May is correct; we all need help from others.
Then May turns to the corollary, as he calls it. It is also our job to help others. This is most especially true if we claim the life we live is a spiritual pilgrimage. Service is part of the deal. To be sure, one cannot claim to follow Jesus and ignore serving others. Helping others is part of the journey. Sometimes I know that I am helping. Many other times, I only know in retrospect---or maybe never at all---that I have been of service.
I think service starts as simply being there for others. It requires being present---present in the moment---which is one of the ways I define the contemplative journey. It sounds so simple---so easy, in fact. And it is, if we actually are on a pilgrimage that is contemplative. But so many of us are too busy, too distracted and serving our own ego to be present to others and to be helpful. Furthermore, if we are self-sufficient and strong, we surely don’t need anyone else’s help.
This is one of the core truths of contemplation as pilgrimage---as I see it.
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election. He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!” I think Brooks puts
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