How, Then, Shall We Live

Photo Credit: Ryan Roth-Klinck

By Andrea Lingle

How, then, shall we live?

Each Saturday, I sit down with my sister-in-law and plan our household’s meals for the upcoming week. We scroll through recipes, scan the week for night meetings and late practices, and scribble down the perfect plan. Groceries are brought home, sorted into baskets for each meal (so no one steals the peppers for Tuesday night), and stacked into the fridge. 

As I have been writing this series, I have noticed how many, many times I have written through these five simple steps. I wonder how deeply I have been steeped in pilgrimage theology. Did my weekly practice of meal planning somehow form on the pebbled beaches of Iona? Our journey is, once again, coming to a close. Preparation, journey, arrival, return, and, now, re-entry. The fifth step of pilgrimage is the least photographed—coming back and working out the transformation of pilgrimage. Once the stray blister or sunburn have healed, pilgrimage can be invisible. After a few weeks, I would say that pilgrimage can even be insensible. The inevitable question seems to be: Is pilgrimage transformative? Is there something that inhabits this process that, once one has embarked on the journey, continues the process through to completion? (Phil. 1:6) 

That’s it. That’s the question.

Is there something that inhabits our world that loves us enough to carry a transformation through to some end? 

At the heart of re-entry lies the question: Is there something Ultimate which beats under the appointments and check-ups and insecurities of life or lurks within the thudding heart or dripping tears or euphoria of religious experience? Is there a God? Pilgrimage is sneaky like that. It comes along slowly, wrapped up beautifully, comforting you with friendship before dumping you out on the shore to wrestle with the Question. There isn’t an answer at the end of the road; there is a question. Pilgrimage is a process of letting go of what has kept us safe from the question. All of the liturgies, companions, and motion serve to make a space safe enough to wrestle in. For you will have to wrestle. There is no clear answer to this question. God can be very hard to detect in a world where storms leave tattered communities devastated and humans horde resources. Any answer is a matter of faith, so we travel the road of pilgrimage with a question, and we return home rejoicing that we have been given the terrible privilege to be able to ask it. 

How, then, in light of this unanswerable question, shall we live?

I choose, today, to live as if there is something that will continue the work begun on the road, and so will I. Can I but have the courage to choose to do so, again, tomorrow. 

Lord, in your mercy...