DOUBLE PILGRIMAGE
For most of my life, I have known only one pilgrimage, the path of life that is given to me in relationship to the world. It is the world around me that happens to me, that hurls heartaches, headaches, opportunities, and wonders at me, and the world that is kind, kindred, harsh, and violent to me. The “Korea world” in the late 1960s and the early 1970s in Seoul was mostly my vast playground filled with wonder and mischief. The “America world” through the late 1970s into the early 1980s was rude and harsh, and I valuably gained independence and confidence in navigating life. To me, ironically, the world of my early Korea was plentiful while the world of my young America was scarce.
The “Christian world” from the early 1980s until probably about 10 years ago has been yet another world. The panoramic swing of emotions and lessons learned in Christian life (as in what and how to do and what and how not to do) created and forced an outlook of life and its meaning beyond Christianity as a religion. While all my “worlds” were significant bubbles, the evangelical world was a bigger illusionary and confined bubble, detached from the world. Recognizing the bubble as a bubble has freed me and “freed“ Jesus out of a parochial evangelical world. In all, I have needed to journey through life through my perception of these real “worlds.”
While my pilgrimage through these worlds is uniquely mine, I also know that it is not unique, and I am not alone. Over time, I have learned the finely tuned skills of survival and accumulated knowledge to navigate the world. The pilgrimage was generally prescribed to me as the world tried to dictate my reactive posture of the pilgrimage experience. I have always been irritated and thus protested the nature of the prescription of a “well-traveled road” and assumed and accepted boundaries. These protests—“going off the trail” to use the pilgrimage language—were not without cost and hardship.
As a young Christian, the foundational understanding and view of pilgrimage had not changed much. If at all, the so-called “heaven” was now the prescribed destination. I was taught to endure and persevere since the earth was not my home. And take as many people and peoples to heaven with me. The world was posited in my heart as inhospitable and profane.
As my wife and I are about to embark on the grandest journey of our life to Asia, I have discovered and paid attention to another pilgrimage in the last 5 years. It is the pilgrimage of my soul, inner self, true self, or the given self by God. If the former pilgrimage is about learning to relate to the external world, the latter is about discovering the interiority of my soul, inner terrains and landscapes, peaks, and valleys (and caverns), and treasures and traps. It is as much intricate and complex as the world, if not more.
Beyond the façade of my busy and sometimes frenetic pace of life, I have discovered the gift of slowing down, rest, and Sabbath. Whenever I visit Manhattan, New York, I tell myself I am alive and love this unparalleled city. It is also the same me that loves the slow countryside living, closer to nature, away from the pollution of all sorts. Since my wife would not watch action movies, I am alone when watching adrenaline-pumping action and adventure movies. At the same time, I can easily find myself in nature and get lost in observing and finding inspiration in nature. I have enjoyed Robert Ludlum and Bernard Cornwell’s fast-moving action-packed novels while at the same time, I have immensely been drawn to poetry. I enjoy extreme forms of exercise—sweat-it-all-out-kind of exercise. Yet, I am just as happy to meander through art exhibit rooms filled with exquisite collections. I remember being lost in the world-famous Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia years ago and could not have been happier. So full of contradictions and yet they are all me.
On another layer, while I am an extrovert, I have learned to find energy by being alone, especially in nature. I have learned to experience life at “3 miles an hour” (which is the unhurried walking speed) and began to see things I have not seen and simply missed. Learning to pay attention to what is real has revolutionized my spirituality and thus my outlook on my pilgrimage journey. I am discovering that compassion for my own fumbling and yet holy (both human and divine) pilgrimage has created sympathy and generosity for others’ pilgrimage. I have come to love the divine attention of life carefully stewarded and gifted by writers, artists, and poets. I have begun to read the Bible from this perspective, not as a manual or a rule book consisting of a collection of theological and missiological constructs.
I do think that in the end, the double pilgrimage is not two separate journeys but one. Each of our pilgrimages is both unique and universal. Because of its uniqueness, we must pay attention to our self, our life, and our “world.” Because it is universal, we share in the perennial human tradition of discovering our own pilgrimage and finding inspiration and instruction from others.