A ‘Spiritual’ Vacation?
May God the Lord, who called Abraham to leave home and kindred to journey to an unknown destination, and who led the people of Israel by the hand of Moses his servant through the desert to the promised land: Shepherd you in your pilgrimage, and lead you by safe pathways, for his Name’s sake. Amen.
From The Book of Occasional Services, p.266
Well, it’s that time again when we start taking some needed time off from our work and lives. One of the signs that it is vacation time is that gas prices have once again begun to rise! We will all have to dig a little deeper into our pockets to get us to the gulf coast, Colorado, the Michigan Lake District or wherever we are going for vacation. Nonetheless, we will make the sacrifice in order to go to some distant and different place and spend time with our families and friends. The hope is that we will be rejuvenated, refreshed and renewed.
If author Wayne Dyer is right (and I believe he is), that “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience,” then our summer travels may hold a deeper significance. One such vacation that comes to mind is a trip I took to the gulf coast during my period of discerning a call to the priesthood. I travelled from Gulfport to Pass Christian to Bay St. Louis to Biloxi and to Gulf Shores and finally to Pensacola. Along the way I visited the various Episcopal Churches along the coast, and if rectors/vicars were available I picked their brains about going into the priesthood. Some of the memories are now haunting since this was prior to the devastation of Katrina.
There were a couple of synchronicities which occurred that really lodged in my mind. I stopped in on a friend in Hattiesburg (she did not know that I was thinking about the priesthood) and said that there was a special place she wanted to take me for lunch. She said, “It’s just down the road in a little place called Seminary. Mississippi.” After leaving her I took a detour through one of those Louisiana parishes called St. Charles. I got out my saints dictionary to find that St. Charles was the patron saint of seminarians! Little did I know what God had in store – in just about a year I would be in seminary for real!
While the path to seminary may not prove to be a part of your spiritual journey I pray that your next vacation will be equally meaningful. As we stay mindful of our spiritual connection our travel can be transformed into pilgrimage. I like the following prayer by Thomas Merton; it reflects that same spirit of Abraham who set off by faith on a journey with an unknown destination.
“My Lord God I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always thought I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” From Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: An Anthology of Pilgrimage edited by Martin Robinson, pp.135-6
Blessings on your continued journey!
Carey+