Surrender is What Makes a Pilgrimage

My heart feels called to pilgrimage once again.

I have embarked on many pilgrimages in my life. Some span a few hours (think the Basilica of the Little Flower) and some have spanned months (think Peru). Some have been intentional and some have been quite unintentional. Unintentional for me, anyway. God always knows what he is doing.

Why Go on Pilgrimage

Regardless of the type of pilgrimage one embarks on, a common thread that runs through them all is the idea of surrendering your plans and sense of control to God, the one who is really in control.

The beautiful thing about pilgrimage is that by its very nature, pilgrimage takes a person out of their carefully chosen surroundings. When I am at home I feel a sense of control. I know everything that is going to happen at any period of time. I choose who I talk to. I don’t usually meet unexpected people. I have arranged my place very comfortably and don’t often have to experience discomfort. Everything is under tight control.

Pilgrimage breaks the control if you let it. If you go in with loose plans it can obliterate your sense of control and your sense of comfort. You might have to meet people you didn’t expect to meet. You might have to rely on providence and the kindness of strangers, something that breaks the illusion that we are self-sufficient and do not need God, really.

My First Pilgrimage

I took my first pilgrimage in 2008 when I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail. I didn’t realize that what I was doing was going on a pilgrimage. It seemed like a romantic notion at the time to hike 2000 miles from Georgia to Maine in an odyssey that would last six months, minimum.

I had just graduated from university at the time. I was spiritual but not religious. I didn’t know at the time, but I was searching for God. I did not hike the whole 2,000 miles, but stopped at a tidy 204.5 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

My Experience in the Smokies

The Smokies broke me.

The beginning of the end happened one night when I arrived at my shelter to find it full.

Since my very first days on the trail I had experienced bodily pains. My knees began aching on day one. I had doctored countless blisters. I had had a cold sore (or something), taking random medicine from a stranger to clear it up. By the time I arrived in the Smokies I had a staph infection on my hip with a painful boil oozing pus.

But this night arriving at the shelter, I set up my hammock in the trees hoping for a restful night’s sleep. I woke up drenched in water. The mist caught in the mesh of my hammock’s bug net, condensed and was dripping onto my down sleeping bag.

I was far away from my family, the furthest away I had every been alone. I was away from the idol of my life, my boyfriend at the time. I didn’t know who I was without him. The Appalachian Trail was teaching me. It was also teaching me that I was nothing if not dependent on whatever spiritual force controlled the world, and most of all the elements.

Surrender on the Appalachian Trail

Soggy and scared that my sleeping bag would get so wet that it would fail to keep me warm on such a chilly night, I spent a miserable night worrying and wondering what to do. The only thing to do was surrender and wait. Finally the sun rose. I was cold and sad, feeling stupid for having hung my hammock on top of the hill (there were no other spots).

My hiker friend gave me his jacket to warm up for a while, and hung my things up to dry for me. Another friend had endured the same kind of plight the night before that I had, but he was much more upbeat about it. He had surrendered to the circumstances more gracefully than I did.

Leaving the Trail

Feeling out of control, and awaiting the arrival of my parents and my boyfriend, I eventually made the choice to leave the trail. Maybe I did not have a strong enough reason to be out there.

The beautiful thing was meeting all the people I met and the friendships I made, and for the first time accepting kindness from strangers. This transformed my thoughts about life and my place in the world, that maybe it wasn’t such a scary place after all and that one could actually trust and things would turn out okay, even better than expected.