Pilgrimage

Sometimes we throw the word "pilgrimage" around in connection to travel - "I'm going to make a pilgrimage back to my old high school," "I make a regular pilgrimage to my favorite restaurant." There is a sense that we understand that making a pilgrimage is not the same as travel for business or travel for vacation. It might be to a place we have anticipated going to for a long time, or it may be a place that has multiple layers of meaning to us, or it may be toward something our hearts desire more than simply going up the road to Busch Gardens. In any sense, it seems that we almost instinctively understand that pilgrimage is different from ordinary travel.

When we leave on Saturday morning, we are not headed out on a vacation with a religious-sounding name. We are headed to a place with deep and long-held meaning and we are going for as many reasons as there are pilgrims. In a pilgrimage, one is moving toward a goal that is bigger than they are, it is a journey toward something the pilgrim hopes transforms their lives in a powerful way. The pilgrim hopes that the trip significantly transforms their life for the rest of their life. That is the reason the pilgrim is willing to sacrifice to make the trip, why the pilgrim is willing to suffer for the sake of the journey. This is why we can't just fly into Santiago. The pilgrim has to walk, to work to get to the destination and in working for this, ask him or herself why they are doing this. Why are they traveling to this place? What is it worth to them? What does it mean that they are trying to get there? What do they hope to see when they arrive?

In our case, we have 71.5 miles to think about this. Walking at about 3 miles per hour, that's about 27 hours of thinking.