And then I walked onward into that fresh new morning, and soon crossed my Walk’s final state border, and entered the lauded realm of Tennessee … 🙂 “Bliss – true contentment, that elusive & perfect blend Joy & Peace – comes not via one’s mere contemplation of an accomplished result, or the exultant emotion of […]
“In any earnest spiritual tradition, the goal of a pilgrimage is not so much to walk a particular route or tread in a certain manner or even reach a sole destination as it is to reawaken within oneself the same holy qualities and the same purer energies embodied by the sacred path; qualities which ultimately […]
I passed quite a few interesting churches on this particular day – churches that each advertised its particular dogmatic bent with uniquely intriguing words. First there was New Hope Baptist Church, that reminded me that “Every test becomes a testimony.” And yet I wondered: a testimony to what? To the inevitable “victory” that comes from […]
I then came across the roadside C & S Big Orange Market, where manager Mahmoud joyfully offers me a gentle smile, some warm encouragement, and a bit of delicious sustenance to boot … “To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It […]
It’s fun to see the signs and flow along with what they seem to be saying. And yet what to do when the signs provide only more pause or additional uncertainties? Flow onward anyway … “The true risks of travel are a constant dance between disappointment and transformation: the constant droning fear that it’s all […]
We would all do well to remember that jokes making even indirect fun of the suffering of others are in no way funny or even mildly amusing; and that all they succeed in doing is expose those whose sense of empathy and justice and goodness and compassion has been duly drowned in spiritual sloth and […]
It was pretty cool to see the first (and I believe only) Yellow Arrow on this American portion of my Walk (with yellow arrows being one of the primary methods of marking The Way for all pilgrims who happened to be walking across Europe), and it was pretty uncool to then see yet another Christian […]
“Sometimes, even when I’m standing on a remarkable slice of terra firma, I’m besotted with wanderlust, my heart thumping for the next unknown place and my mind wondering what’s beyond the next horizon. And yet right now, walking smoothly along this roadway, floating through crystalline shadows while treading upon ancient, sacred soil, I want to […]
“And here’s the plain truth, at least as it has been shown to me: We are never far from wonder, and we are ever surrounded by beauty. I remember when I was in my thirties, and I was walking in the woods with a friend and his two-year old son. We were walking along a […]
I walked on & on & on that day, and eventually made it to the town of Blountville and the modern-molded buttresses of the Life Point Church, where pastor Bryce was very kind to me – giving me some water to drink and offering me some nonvegan granola bars (which I gently yet resolutely refuse) […]
“We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would simply reduce their weapon arsenals and draw back behind their own borders, we could have peace. And yet if we look deeply behind the weapons themselves, we see our own minds – our own prejudices, our own fears, our own […]
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