Dear Pilgrim
By Andrea Lingle
“This is what I would like for us to strive for, friends. We should engage in prayer—thirst for it, even—not because it feels good, but because it gives us the strength we need to be of service.”
-St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, p. 292
-St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, p. 292
Dear Pilgrim,
You may not think that you deserve that title. Perhaps a few of these great days of Easter have passed without the writing or walking or sitting we had intended to do. Perhaps you have discovered that living intentionally does not always mean you do what you intend. Perhaps you are feeling the strain of emails that you discovered you missed eleven days after you got them or meetings you found out about twenty-one minutes after they started.
Does being a contemplative mean that your intention and your practice and your reality always line up?
Should your day-to-day not include silently raking sand are you excluded from being a mystic?
Ought you be concerned if the prompts are left at the top of an otherwise blank page?
There was a woman drawing water from a well. She did not cast a shadow as she held her palm up against the noon-sun. It had taken her thirty minutes to haul the three jugs to the well. Water is needed for so much in a house: drinking, washing, cleaning, watering. She would take three trips back to the house with the terracotta jugs. Her hands were rough from tugging and shoving the jugs day after thirsty day.
She did not have time to be a theologian.
When Jesus perched on the edge of the well, just enough in the way that she had to stop her task to look at him, he did not see a busy woman, too out of spiritual practice to be of interest, he saw a pilgrim.
I know you don’t feel like a pilgrim. I know you forgot to take the salmon out of the freezer and had to have pizza delivered. I know the dog barfed on the floor, again. I know your head aches and your knees click and tears seem to hover too close to the surface these days. I know. I see you. I see you trying so hard your arms shake. I see you scrambling to fill a thimble with hope. I see your roughened heart, worn by tugging and shoving your way through life.
And I call you Pilgrim.
I do not tell you to take heart or be brave or have faith. I tell you this:
Pilgrim, know you are beloved of God.
That’s it. That’s all I have. Know this one thing: you are beloved. Whatever your poverty, whatever your infirmity, whatever your uncertainty, you are beloved.
Writing Practice Rules:
Grab a pen and paper or dictation device or computer.
Write/record the prompt at the top of your page.
Set a timer (you can adjust the time to suit your needs…I keep the practices short so they don’t seem overwhelming).
Take a few moments to visualize what the prompt is bringing up.
Write or speak or type!! Try not to edit or criticize. Just write.
Write the details of what is coming up. I call this catching what rises.
If you get stuck, make loops with your pen or nonsense syllables with your voice or tap the keyboard.
If you get really stuck, rewrite/record the prompt as a new paragraph.
Write the details of what you are seeing until the timer goes off.
Writing Prompts:
I forgot to…
I missed…
Seven things want to do today…
Even if I never…
There is beauty even in…
I remembered to…
I found…