Poverty, Creativity Spring 1996

ARTICLE TOOLS

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PEREGRENUS, an old friend addressed me the other day, and I shuddered at being known. Peregrenatio, pilgrimage. With sculpted stone crosses standing high as legacy in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, Celtic Christians carved a spiritual discipline of pilgrimage in the first centuries after Christ, beyond the reach of the Roman church. Peregrenati, they called themselves, those undertaking the journey to find God in the far unknown.

Landing on an English beach in a leather and wood coracle without sail or rudder, three monks presented themselves before King Alfred of Wessex and offered this explanation of why they had come: "We stole away because we wanted for the love of God to be on pilgrimage, we cared not where." These monks set out with Bible and staff and cowl on a journey led by God, committed to the idea that to travel is better than to arrive. They set out with God, to be with God, in hopes of finding God at the end of their trek.

More than stirring the Celtic blood still remnant in my own, my friend's greeting struck a plangent chord as I reflected on my own journey of faith over the last year and a half. For those months I traveled literally around the globe, experiencing God as I studied inner-city ministry, ministry to young adults, Christian community, and the world's great religions. Little did I know when I began this voyage alone the pilgrimage that it would become—from Europe to the United Kingdom, then to Israel, the Indian subcontinent, far-east Asia, and from coast to coast in America. Little did I know the range of human emotions, the extent of human suffering, the wild range of questions, the myriad challenges, and the consistency of God's faithfulness that I would encounter.

Fully aware of the subtle and ...

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