God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don't let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.— Rainer Maria Rilke, who died in 1926
— Rainer Maria Rilke, who died in 1926
For First Time, Ruins From Era Of Jesus Found At Garden Of Gethsemane
“Archaeological excavations by the Antiquities Authority ahead of construction unearthed a 2000-year-old ritual bath near the modern church at Gethsemane, together with the remains of a church from the Byzantine period (ca. 1500 years ago).” – The Jerusalem Post
It is hard to pinpoint one single reason for the pilgrimage revival, but the pandemic will surely provide a few more. “It has been a time for deep reflection,” says Satish Kumar, the self-styled “Earth Pilgrim”, ecologist and nuclear disarmament advocate, who is an adviser for the BPT. He is optimistic that the pandemic will bring a shift in focus, particularly in regard to travel and tourism.
St Ann’s Well, on the eastern slopes of the Malvern Hills, is my starting point for the day. The Victorian café is closed, despite a brief lull in lockdown regulations, but the spring water flows liberally through a marble, dolphin-nose spout into a scallop-shaped basin below. The water is the main draw here — and has been for centuries. It is believed to be of such purity as to have miraculous healing powers. But the basin is significant, too, its shape the abiding symbol of pilgrimage through the ages. And I am a pilgrim, albeit for one day only. Joining me on my 12-mile pilgrimage from Great Malvern to Worcester Cathedral is Guy Hayward from the British Pilgrimage Trust, a charity he co-founded in 2014 to encourage more people — even those with only a day or weekend to spare — to make pilgrimages in Britain.
And, though church congregations have been declining for years, interest in pilgrimages seems to be heading rapidly in the opposite direction. The annual number of people walking the world’s most famous pilgrim route, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, has more than doubled since 2009, exceeding 347,000 in 2019. Then there are the books — the numerous guides to Europe’s celebrated pilgrimages are being joined by a rash of titles aimed at helping the rediscovery of forgotten routes in the UK. They include Hayward’s own book, Britain’s Pilgrim Places (published in August and co-authored by Nick Mayhew-Smith), and Andy Bull’s Pilgrim Pathways, published last month, a detailed guidebook to walking 20 ancient routes over one or two days. Hayward turns out to be one of life’s enthusiasts, thirtysomething, easy-going, mildly eccentric and with the voice of an angel — more of which later. Mercifully, too, he handles religion with an open heart and mind, instantly dispelling any wariness I might harbour about being forced to confront my own confused, and largely lapsed, Christian faith.
Setting an intention” for the day, in silence and with closed eyes, before we start to walk is about as awkward as it gets, my mind veering between noble thoughts of returning home a better person and less noble ones of what I intend to have for dinner. “Bring your own beliefs,” says Hayward, quoting both the motto of the British Pilgrimage Trust and the words, he feels, that are at the heart of the modern pilgrimage movement. “Since Henry VIII banned pilgrimage in the Reformation 500 years ago, there has been a pilgrimage vacuum,” he explains, “which means we are in a pioneering position now to reinvent the tradition for modern times.” Rather than pilgrimage being a purely religious construct, he prefers the idea of “an unbroken journey on foot” as a means to connect both with the earth and with the self through a holistic sense of wellbeing. “These are exciting times,” he says, as we arrive at the porch of Great Malvern Priory for a private guided tour by vicar Rod Corke. We are in a pioneering position now to reinvent the pilgrimage tradition for modern times Guy Hayward, British Pilgrimage Trust
How the historic Spanish city is using contemporary art to celebrate one of its most famous pilgrims
Mankind is always the same, noted Dryden of Chaucer’s pilgrims, “and nothing is lost out of nature, though everything is altered”. Commemorating the pilgrimage of St Francis of Assisi to Santiago de Compostela exactly 800 years ago, the lavish visual art exhibition that has just opened in the Spanish city similarly dwells on the affinities and the gulf between Francis’s age and ours. Bringing together pieces by Tacita Dean, Roni Horn, Anthony McCall and 32 other contemporary artists, On the Road cost around €1m – much of it from sponsorship, say its organisers, the Galicia regional government, but it is a budget that will still strike many as distinctly un-Franciscan in spirit. Others might criticise the sometimes strained relationship between certain objects and the saintly theme.
How Christmas Became Such A Child-Oriented Holiday
Yuletide wasn’t always an occasion for Santa Claus and toys and families opening presents in front of the tree. Historically, particularly in England, Christmas was such a time of rowdy revelry (not to say drunken debauchery) that, in the 17th century, Scottish Presbyterians and Massachusetts Puritans went so far as to ban it entirely. (December 25 wasn’t a public holiday in Scotland until 1958.) Christmas as Americans think of it today is a more-or-less deliberate creation of the 19th-century powers-that-be. – Zócalo Public Square
“The greatest part of knowledge is knowing where to find something.” Let us all say thank you to one another – to our colleagues in all sectors of librarianship – and support our profession as we move forward into a challenging 2021. We know how to find many many somethings. We are librarians! [h/t The King William’s College Quiz 2020-2021]
The meaning of life can be revealed but never explained.
— Kenneth Rexroth, born in 1905
