Dear Friends in Christ,

As you read this, a group of pilgrims from Grace and other churches will be setting out to walk the Saint Cuthbert Way in Scotland.  The Saint Cuthbert Way links Melrose in the Scottish Borders, where St. Cuthbert started his religious life in 650 A.D., with Holy Island off the Northumberland Coast, his eventual resting place and his original pilgrimage shrine.

We will be doing a lot of walking—62.5 miles over six days.  But a pilgrimage is so much more than walking.  It is a journey of the soul, taken with the intention of encountering the divine and open to transformation along with way.  Each of us has been prompted by the Holy Spirit to undertake this pilgrimage.  We trust that we will encounter that same Spirit, although we do not know when or how.

I write to ask your prayers for us as we travel—for our safety and for our enlightenment.

I also write to invite you to consider the place of pilgrimage in your life.  Pilgrims learn that what matters is not the destination but the journey, particularly, the attitude and disposition of that journey.  You may not be traveling this summer.  You may not even be leaving Alexandria.  Yet we all have journeys, even small ones, that we can undertake with purpose and intention.

Where is the Holy Spirit prompting you?  Where do your maps end, and what might lie beyond the edges?  If you were to walk into the unknown—literally or metaphorically—what direction would you walk?  We will always—as the Epiphany story reminds us—return home by a different road.

I look forward to sharing stories of our journeys.

Yours in Christ,

Anne+