Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

NOT ALL THOSE WHO WANDER ARE LOST Reflecting on Pilgrimage

A Sermon by
James Ishmael Ford

30 September 2007
First Unitarian Society
West Newton, Massachusetts

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I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it. I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?

Ranier Maria Rilke

We are, all of us, now embarked upon a journey. The only question to my mind is how shall we encounter it? Are we wandering lost in the dark? Or, are we engaged in something large, and wonderful? Today, I’d like to explore how we might make this period of transition something useful, opening a way of transformation for us as individuals and for our community.

In my youth there were a handful of authors addressing matters spiritual that profoundly informed me as I started to make my way out into what at the time very much felt like uncharted territory. As such it was a little like our situation today. Probably the most important for me of that handful of writers was the German-Swiss novelist Herman Hesse. Hesse had a few things to say about voyages of discovery that helped clarify what I was doing and have carried forward through my life.

I discovered him just as his writings were being translated wholesale into English. The timing was perfect for me and I ended up reading most everything of his that made it into our language. One of the first of his books I read, and the book that continues to move me and marks more than anything else this reflection for today, is Hesse’s Journey to the East.

If you’re not familiar with the book the plot is fairly simple, the narrator, H.H. joins an ancient companionship called “the League.” The League’s primary practice is supposedly a journey to the East, but it moves through time and space through reality and fiction with no obvious end as the characters are tested and pushed in unexpected and sometimes startling ways. It couldn’t have been my first encounter with this image of pilgrimage, but it unpacked it in particularly helpful ways such as how the least among us might turn out to be most important, and how failure and more failure can be the truest marks of fully engaging the way.

Since reading that book I’ve considered pilgrimage as a metaphor for life itself, at least if consciously engaged. And nothing has happened in the past forty-odd years to disabuse me from this perspective. Our lives are so obviously like a journey, we travel from birth to death, encountering various things, discovering various things, being hurt, being challenged, and if we’re just a little lucky, encountering love, and growing deeper and wiser.

There are many conundrums discovered in a pilgrimage, magic and surprise, joy and sorrow. It seems to me it is particularly at such times as recur constantly within that novel where things are not so clear, where there are multiple possibilities, perhaps even too many choices – and, such are exactly when we find our best opportunities to grow beyond every complacency.

As you may know I like bumper stickers. I think the slogans they display reveal much about us, and occasionally, even convey some wisdom. “Question Authority” pops to mind. My favorite is probably “Don’t Believe Everything You Think.” Another I’ve always liked whether on the bumper of a car or emblazoned across a chest is “Not all those who wander are lost.” It comes from The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien, another book, or rather series of books I loved in my youth. The whole quote is even more intriguing, at least to my mind, in particular within the context of pilgrimage. I suggest it hints at the quality of conundrum in our spiritual quest, how contradiction, and riddle opens doors of possibility.

“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be the blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.” Here’s my hope for today. Let’s reflect together on how this idea of pilgrimage might be helpful for us here in this community on our journey of faith and discovery. Particularly right now, when we’re facing such significant transitions.

One would be hard put to find a religion that doesn’t honor pilgrimage one way or another. In the East Hindus have numerous sites of pilgrimage. Buddhists make pilgrimages to the sites of the Buddha’s life. Although there is an exception. Confucianists, at least once in government, were suspicious of pilgrimage, not liking peasants leaving home. Frankly, I find that negative about pilgrimage particularly informative.

In ancient Judaism the Temple was a destination for pilgrims and even today Jews make their way to the last standing remnant of that temple to pray. Christians make pilgrimages to numerous sites, in particular to the land of Jesus’ birth and teaching and death. I’m sure each of us can think of “lesser” sites that are also the object of pilgrimage in each of these faiths, probably even for Confucianists. Pilgrimage is not even bound by the term “faith,” at least in its usual sense. Think of the “freedom trail” here in Boston. Or, mixing it all up for me, a walk around Walden Pond.

Today I find myself particularly moved at how in Islam pilgrimage, at least to one particular location, as Hajj, has become one of the pillars, the five distinctive marks of Muslim faith. Islam, perhaps more than any other Western religion holds up the power of pilgrimage as central to a spiritual life. Anyone who can afford to is expected to make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca once in her or his life.

One Muslim scholar who turned his attention to pilgrimage writ large identified fourteen distinctive marks to the sacred task of pilgrimage. Upon reflection I felt that number could be further reduced to four. There’s a beginning, there are obligations while on the journey, there is the destination and the discovery of a special relationship with that destination, and then there is returning home.

Everything begins with attention. We notice. Without this we’re not on pilgrimage, we are just wandering, wandering among the weeds and grasses. With attention, everything that follows becomes sacred. Traditionally this moment of noticing is marked out one way or another. Ritual baths, confession, something. Of course all it takes, really, is our noticing, and our dedicating what will happen to something larger than our egos. I suspect this is the secret to making things sacred, not allowing it to be just about “me.” When we allow each of us to be a part of the whole, but not the center of it all, then the magic happens.

If we would take our upcoming changes of minister and religious educator as a goal of pilgrimage, what could it look like? It’s going to be a bit different for each of us. I’m not suggesting we don’t have egos, separate identities – only that they should not, cannot, are not, the center of things. So, for me it is noticing and entering into a path of letting go. For most of us it is noticing and committing to renewing a vision for this Society. It might be that we dedicate ourselves to finding the right team to help this venerable congregation to flourish and be a witness of possibility for generations to come.

People on pilgrimage mark the journey out as special, one way or another. Often, folk wear special clothing; the medieval pilgrim’s badge leaps to my mind, as do the robes of a pilgrim on Hajj. Sometimes people refrain from eating certain foods for the duration. Again, I think the important thing here is creating a way of reminding oneself that this is a pilgrimage, not a stroll in the neighborhood, nor is it wandering lost in the woods.

If we’re applying this idea of pilgrimage to this time of professional transition, each of us needs to think how we might best do this marking. How do we remind ourselves our task is toward some goal that is more than our own individual desire? Perhaps it is committing to show up at informational meetings and other opportunities to learn and express thoughts and feelings, as well as to learn what others feel and think; making that extra time, dedicating that time to our larger faith.

And then there is the destination. Traditionally the destination has been hallowed by time or special events, and the pilgrim joins herself or himself to the stories told about that place. Again, we have something solid here at FUSN to mark our pilgrimage destination, this special place, this sacred site. It’s hard for me not to think of this building, what I’ve occasionally called our sacred monstrosity, so special in so many ways.

Of course bricks and mortar, stained glass windows and the endless plaques marking this or that, are not the inner meaning, the purpose of this place. So, what is it that makes this particular spot on the earth special and sacred? If we are committed to pilgrimage, to a holy path, perhaps we’re committing ourselves to reflecting on how this is sacred space, different somehow than other spaces. And, significantly, how are we, each of us, connected to it, to this space, to this place? That’s a particularly important question, a sacred question, a conundrum and a riddle calling for our deepest, visceral investigation.

And there is that last thing. After the journey, after the pilgrimage, one returns to the world, one comes home. In one sense pilgrimages never end. That’s a lesson I first learned in Hesse’s Journey to the East. We are all on our various journeys to that East, at once our most intimate path and something beyond any individual. And in another sense they do end, these pilgrimages do end. I go on to serve somewhere. This Society determines its best vision for leadership and calls a minister and hires a religious educator, or perhaps calls a ministerial team. Whatever, there comes a new marker, a time of fulfillment, when one has arrived at a spiritual destination.

Then, we are home, if only for a special moment, a mark on a larger journey. We return, hopefully transformed in small and larger ways. That is, if we make this a pilgrimage, our own Hajj, our own path toward sacred time, toward sacred space, toward transformation.
So, what is the take away for us? I think it is simple. We are, all of us, now embarked upon a journey. The only question to my mind is how shall we encounter it? Are we wandering lost in the dark? Or, are we engaged in something large, and wonderful? The choice is in our hands.

Amen.