Today’s post is by guest blogger Bob Sessions: Construction workers don’t usually have beautiful images of herons on their hats, but Peter Jemison isn’t your ordinary construction worker. In fact, he’s manager of Ganondagan, a New York State Historic Site near Victor (and the hat is temporary, just until the site’s new Seneca Art and Culture Center is completed). Lori and I met Peter Jemison when we were at a meeting of the Midwest Travel Writers Association in the Finger... Read more
Oops! Mistakes happen. This site is being transferred to its new home at Patheos, and for some reason this triggered an email alert to an old post. But let me take advantage of the opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas! See you in the New Year, dear readers! Lori Erickson Today’s post is a sermon I gave Sunday at Trinity Episcopal in Iowa City. Of Good Shepherds and Sheep If you’ve listened to enough sermons over the years,... Read more
The ancient Celts of Ireland described holy sites as “thin places” where the veil between heaven and earth is transparent. In exploring spiritual destinations around the world, I’ve never come across a better description for why certain places simply feel different from other sites. I think that’s why Machu Picchu, despite its exotic setting, seemed familiar to me in some ways. I felt something there that I’ve experienced at other holy sites, from Lourdes and Ephesus to Kyoto—a kind of frisson, that wonderful French word that describes a blend... Read more
In 1911, Yale professor Hiram Bingham III made a discovery that catapulted him to international fame and put a remote site in the Peruvian Andes on the bucket list of generations of travelers. In Bingham’s book Lost City of the Incas, he describes the moment: “Hardly had we left the hut and rounded the promontory than we were confronted by an unexpected sight, a great flight of beautifully constructed stone-faced terraces, perhaps a hundred of them, each hundreds of feet long and ten feet... Read more
Tell me, is there any spiritual destination in the world with a more evocative and mysterious reputation than Machu Picchu in Peru? I’ve visited many holy sites around the world, and I can’t think of one that can compare. So when I received an invitation to visit (thanks to the Society of American Travel Writers), I simply couldn’t say no. Much is still a mystery about Machu Picchu, and certainly my own knowledge of it is far from comprehensive. But my visit there intrigued and moved me,... Read more
Today’s post is a sermon I gave Sunday at Trinity Episcopal in Iowa City. Regular readers will recognize some familiar themes from previous Holy Rover posts. If you’re interested in the Honoring Your Wishes program but don’t live in Iowa City, you can find similar programs in many other places. In the U.S., see Caring Connections, which is part of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. A growing number of other countries have similar programs. My friend Teri, who came from a large... Read more
We seem to be on a theme of spirituality in aging these days, so in that spirit I offer to you a video recommended by my friend Lucy, who had seen singer Christine Lavin in concert recently. Lavin sang a song about what can happen when you don’t plan your funeral in advance (Note to my family: I want my body to be put in a Viking longboat on the ocean–or the Coralville Reservoir if that proves too difficult–and have one of my... Read more
Every so often I come across a book I read very slowly. I want to savor every sentence, wring every bit of meaning out of each line, and think deeply about how the words apply to my life. Kathleen Dowling Singh’s The Grace in Aging: Awaken as You Grow Older is one of those books. First, let me acknowledge that it has a somewhat clunky title. It sounds frightfully earnest, doesn’t it, like the literary equivalent of bran cereal? And books on aging... Read more
Now that the holiday season is past, I’m back to Rovering again here at the Holy Rover. But even during my break away from writing, the theme of pilgrimage kept coming up. Today, near the beginning of this new year, I want to share some of those gleanings. The first is the Reese Witherspoon movie Wild. I’ve been a bad girl, I’m afraid, and didn’t read the book first, but I loved the movie. It’s based on a memoir by Cheryl Strayed, in which she... Read more
Sometimes the stories in the news seem overwhelming, don’t they? Each day brings another tale of intolerance, injustice and tragedy. So today I want to tell you about a place that has restored some of my faith in the goodness of humanity: the Saints Center for Culture and the Arts in Stuart, Iowa. Its story begins in the early 1900s when the Catholic community in this small town west of Des Moines decided to build a church. And not just any... Read more
Holy Rover
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In