Pilgrimage

I've been considering the idea of pilgrimage quite a lot this past month after doing a wee bit of traveling within the UK as well as having my birthday (wohooo I'm a big kid now in both European and US culture!) this past week. My weird tangents and train of thoughts all bubble down to a simple idea: every man's life is a pilgrimage. We take a journey filled with God only knows what--no joke intended--until the final destination of passing away into another life. However, when referring to heaven I honestly would shy away from using pilgrimage imagery for a pilgrim implies the hard, dusty foot traveled way of this life...which doesn't really suit any talk of living in perfect harmony with God and man that will be the absolutely unimaginable experience we have in heaven. So what's better imagery for that? Fat cheeked cherub babies carrying puny cupid arrows? Meh. Not my style. That's just as unsuitable as pilgrimage imagery.

One of my absolute favorite musicians in the whole world, Brooke Fraser, created an entire album off the basic idea of pilgrimage. She says that all people go through this world marking the land and territories with their own flags. As people die or move away, new life is brought into the land and new flags are raised. I think this is stunning, and will simply not go on about how much of a genius she is because then I'd have to be wiping some drool from my keyboard. Her concept has really resonated with me as I've met such an array of characters throughout the UK, as well as even just being introduced to vastly different landscapes that seem to tell their own stories of pilgrimage even though they never move.

So where does that leave us? If we know that life is a pilgrimage, it implies that the road may be rocky, mountainous, vast, lonesome, packed without air or elbow room, breathtaking, smelly, boring, dull and grey, colorful, joyful, or even simply stir nearly nothing in us at all. I think the ideal is to focus less on where your pilgrimage currently is, for there will always be a swift change around the corner. Rather, I'd like to see what pilgrims are traveling alongside me. For after all, if we are all headed to the same destination and we all are constantly being tossed by our surroundings, I think it's quite fitting that we should support and love one another along the journey. It makes perfect sense why the greatest commandment after loving God with your whole heart is to then love your neighbor. God knows we are His pilgrims, facing one hell of a road ahead. So for this month, I'm learning to thank Him so much for the people He brings alongside us.

Pilgrim God,
our shoes might be filled with stones,
our feet are telling us we have walked,
our faces are marked with the fresh air.
As we arrive may we know Your presence
in us and our companions
just as we met You
in the journey of our pilgrimage. Amen.
~Southwell pilgrimage Anglican prayer

The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.
~J.R.R Tolkien

Liverpool

Southwell diocese

Favorite old man! With his barn owl named Kim and lil white dog named Lucy

In another life, I'd want to be a woodland fairy. I admit it!

Found a lover's lock with my initials :) thanks for that, Liverpool

English summer nights are quickly stealin my Southern heart

Johnny Cash

This title is a wee bit misleading because this post has very little to do with our beloved Johnny Cash. He serves more of an inspirational than topical role. So here is the tale of how I arrived in a foreign European city and played a show in the local music scene within a week of me being there. I can feel the suspense building!! Dun dun dunnnnn....

I had been out with one of the church families exploring a cycling festival. Naturally, men in very tight bike shorts and BMXers with crazy tricks was all good and fun BUT the night got even better. We passed by a cafe that was packed out and stopped to hear the really wonderful musicians who were part of a local music festival also going through town. I ended up staying for the whole performance and, in my foolishness, decided to ask the cafe's music manager if I could possibly take part in any upcoming open mic nights or shows. Then he said, "Ok, you want to play here? Get up right now." I thought this was some form of blunt and slightly awkward British humor....it wasn't. So lo and behold I had to play in the middle of this festival while I was still sick and jetlagged.

BUT apparently these beautiful Brits loved it because they asked me to play another three songs. I introduced one of my songs as my "Johnny Cash wanna be" (because, honestly, every musician would give their right pink finger to be a songwriter of his caliber). This eventually lead to another musician joining me on stage, a waiter coming up who played the harmonica, and an entire bar full of lovely English accents howling away to "Ring of Fire." This was one of those beautiful memories in life that you just want to take by the shoulders and give a sloppy wet kiss to in gratitude for having experienced them.

Then I was booked for an actual show at the end of that week, and got to have this lovely experience all over again! There is something so purely joyful about sharing your music with people for the first time...because in all honesty, a musician shares their soul with you when they play anything they've written. Even if a tune is dumb or a lyric unexciting, that person is showing you a wee bit of their brain. And how interesting that we get to look into the brains of musical people--probably some of the most weird and jacked up and funny and confusing bunch this earth has to offer!

There was a certain strength I could feel filling my lungs when I was able to just lay everything on the table to a packed out room full of people I've never met. What I have been hinting at in the past few posts about finding my song and my voice again was manifested in a really literal sense.

Being completely brokenhearted is not some lofty emotional ideal. You feel things physically. Tangibly.

Very literally my voice was weak and small for so long just as the very color of my eyes seemed to fade to a dimmer shade. I'm sure that room full of strangers had no idea what it meant to me to be able to have the strength to sing those thoughts so loudly...to not feel afraid to speak the truth. To have no fear about my past walking through the door in the middle of my struggle and beating me down to ground zero all over again. Nope! Not this time. This time I could feel strength in my lungs and voice. This time I could maybe give Johnny Cash a run for his money....JUST KIDDING. That's a ridiculous idea if there ever was one. If anything, I'm coming out of a ring of fire rather than going into one.

The French nihilist philosopher Albert Camus penned this: Au milieu de l'hiver, j'ai découvert en moi un invincible été...In the middle of winter, I found in me an invincible summer.

That has been music for me. An invincible summer from within.

A lil adventure in the main Square on the day of the show!

My lovely rommate!

Skaters in the Square

Still Waters

Let's just have a moment of honesty, folks: our faces are big fat liars.

We can be smiling and laughing and have the most merry demeanor in the whole freaking world, but inside we are more cold and dark and empty than Mammoth Cave. Some people may say that this illusion is cool and aloof and is somehow socially tantalizing. But can I just say, from personal experience, that it absolutely SUCKS to live this way? To live in the world of make believe. To have a pretty smile but actually have no control over your spirit. To have people tell you how happy you look when in all reality your soul is a weeping willow.

So now that we're being honest with one another, I can say that I was in that rut for months and now it has come back this past week. I come close enough to healing and happiness to smell which toothpaste they use. But then something will suck me back and keep carving out a space between my belly button and breastbone. A place of emptiness that can be concealed with folds of skin and fabric and smiles. Even if I have the most fantastic day in the world filled with sunshine and lily ponds and the best kind of sunburns, that two faced emotional monster will rear its ugly head.

And I have had enough of it.

During a prayer meeting for the city, I finally caved in and let my face match my weary soul. I was sitting away from the others in the church so that I could come clean to God. Like a shaking drug addict in rehab, I told Him again and again, "I just don't know how to make it stop. I don't even know how to pray. I just don't know how to make it stop. I know You've been healing me. But I just don't know how to make it stop."

I looked up and there He was...in the most beautiful stained glass window I've ever seen. It wasn't the most artistically skilled--St. Peter's Basilica probably has that covered. It wasn't the largest by any means--again, I'm sure Vatican City has that taken care of. But it had the sort of beauty that only comes from something that is absolutely true. The window was a simple picture of Jesus as a shepherd, herding a group of really plump and innocent yet empty headed sheep around His feet. Jesus wasn't decked out in some glorious robe or bearing a halo bigger than His head. Instead, His face was turned down in humility and love. He had on the kind of look that sees straight through you to the empty place between your belly button and breastbone. At that moment the only thing I could think of was Psalm 23. Yes, the one we all learned as lil kids but only really ever murmured the words because it was in weird KJV English. Yes, the one that's cheesily quoted in every semi-Judeo-Christian movie (slash oddly enough those about vampires or demon slaying priests).

The psalm's words began to flow over me like Jesus himself was gonna lean down from the stained glass window and poke my arm with His rod and staff in order for me to pay attention. Tears burned up my eyes so that all I could see was His face in the evening light that perfectly shown through His honest, humble eyes.

I will lead you beside still waters, Christina.

I will let you lie down in green pastures.

I will restore your soul.

I will lead you on paths of righteousness...for MY name's sake. Not yours.

Even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil. For I am with you.

My rod and my staff will comfort you.

I am the good shepherd. 

Often the green pastures that the Lord leads us to aren't the ones we expected. Often His paths of righteousness wind straight through that valley of death. But because our shepherd is leading us, goodness and mercy follow us on those gnarled paths. He is taking us to still waters. Let your soul be still. I'm not yet fully healed. I never will be on this side of eternity, actually. But I have my good shepherd. I'm letting Him lead me to still waters. That empty space in my gut isn't going to take control of me. I will fear no evil.