Dark Devotional: Tourists Vs. Pilgrims

An archeologist writes about the empty tomb. He says, “Pilgrims come to touch Golgotha and the tomb because the events that took place here define our faith. Everything we believe flows from this center. Tourists travel away from their center to go and experience other lands — to learn, or to rest, or to be entertained. But a pilgrim, in contrast, travels toward the center. The core of his faith in essence is to touch and be touched by the holiest, most significant place on earth.”

My friend and I recently returned from a Christian conference. We planned it for a year. We made travel plans, arranged babysitters, booked hotel rooms, loaded our trunks with girly supplies for our weekend away, eager to learn from inspiring mentors and each other.

We drove several hours away, traversed the unfamiliar city, eventually settled in our arena seats, and got out our journals to document our inspiration.

Forty eight hours later, I hadn’t written down one word. The entire weekend, not one thing jumped out at me. I didn’t cry. I didn’t laugh especially hard. I might as well have been anywhere still clinging to my average day.

I circled around the conference and sang their songs hoping something of their sweetness would rub off on me. It was nothing less, and nothing more than … fine. The conference was fine.

I felt sick at myself for it, but I left angry that so much energy had been invested into fine.

On the way home my friend and I dissected our experience.

She said this:

I think it was a nice conference. And I think we are nice people. If the world were designing a conference, and worldly people were attending it, it was exactly as it should have been.

(Long pause.)

But, I’m not so sure about the world anymore.

I squinted at her. She blinked at me. I prodded.

I don’t know, she said. The conference was cozy and I felt good. The gospel was pleasing and the crowd was satisfied. I feel like I am leaving an enjoyable vacation.

Leaving an enjoyable vacation metaphorically rested, well fed, and tanned — it wasn’t exactly what we were after.

We weren’t in the market for tourism. We were in the market for transformation.

We wondered if tourists were ever really transformed.

We considered our role in our disenchantment.

We explored our wordly, tourist ways, lamenting how our sightseeing Christian faith tends to sprint alongside our culture keeping up just fine when really, we wondered, if we shouldn’t be taking the world head on, traveling the opposite direction, pilgrims sliding past tourists, tourists wondering where we’re headed on such mission.

Our time together that weekend felt clean, but we weren’t sure if clean was our calling anymore.

Something more unrecognizable felt more holy.

As it was, as tourists, we could see how often we were ready to go to battle against every evil except our own, our one true goal to stay the same and never really desiring to be made new. We lamented our own desires to be loved instead of to love. We pointed out our friendships’ only real talent was conversation, and our hurt feelings always gave us permission to walk away. We never even considered laying down our lives. As passersby, yes, we might occasionally work to acknowledge ourselves, but we never came anywhere close to dying.

And there was simply nothing head scratching about the rules of this earthly kingdom. It all made perfect sense.

But the Holy Spirit alive and well inside of us should make us look different, my friend and I yelled. The Spirit in us should make the world wonder about our sanity, always doing things inside out and upside down. Our faith hinges on the ludicrous, after all.

The real kingdom, not this one we’re passing through, with all its splendor, hangs its faith on a crucified Messiah sent to save people who saw him as a contradiction in terms — if Jesus was Lord then he couldn’t be crucified; if Jesus was crucified then he couldn’t be Lord. Because that would be ludicrous.

My friend and I knew the well worn paths of the tourist and frankly, we felt bored with them. We had been walking them our entire lives, passing through, but never penetrating. As tourists, we were living outside of the kingdom of heaven. But as pilgrims? As pilgrims we wanted to race there.

What does a pilgrim church look like, we wondered? Does it lead people to holiness and tell the truth about what it might cost? What does a pilgrim conference look like, we dreamed? Does it give a dicey message that challenges us to imitate the backward way of Jesus, and stay in and be transformed by imperfect churches?

We drove out of town with a jeweled vision, feeling like holy rascals. We barely recognized ourselves.

That night when I got home, I was inspired to work on an assignment that wasn’t due for a few more months. When I sat down to read the Scripture, I felt tingly with recognition.

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

the calf and the young lion shall browse together,

with a little child to guide them.

The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,

together their young shall rest;

the lion shall eat hay like the ox.

The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,

and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.

There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;

…

for his dwelling shall be glorious

I read these verses and shook my head at the absurdity of children and snakes playing together, lions and calves eating together. It’s madness! I thought. I read it again to see just how mad and realized my bewilderment was God’s compassionate indicator that I have been brainwashed by another kingdom.

And then I smiled, remembering the conversation I’d had with my friend a few short hours before. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the kindness of God, so I did both just to be safe.

I am a pilgrim passing through the beauty of the universe to the creator of the universe. On my way, however, I have become accustomed to everything being wrecked. I know this culture has made me sick as I race to keep up because God’s world, my true home, makes no sense to me. It even sounds foolish. But foolishness in one kingdom is perfectly reasonable in the only one that matters.

So.

Lions? Lambs? Children? Cobras? Jesus saving the world while hanging on a cross?

It all sounds about right.

Thy kingdom come.

Allison M. Sullivan is the author of the essay collection Rock, Paper, Scissors. She lives in Bryan, Texas, with her husband, Seth, and their four children, Sylas, Amelia, Blaise, and Wren. While in the trenches of motherhood, she’s currently applying her degrees in special education and cynology outside of the classroom. She is on the board of Elizabeth House Maternity Home and teaches a re-entry course at a women’s prison. She also teaches yoga. Follow her on Facebook: Allison M. Sullivan.

Dark Devotional: Tourists vs. Pilgrims