On Pilgrimage
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by Jean Sweeney
Tonight I drive home from work. The moon is full, and Jupiter holds a steady presence in the evening sky. I grin in delight and thankfulness at the remembrance of my wood-shuttered, open window in Avila. That was the last time I saw the moon and Jupiter together. It was the end of our stay in Spain, and the full moon had flooded my bed. There was such white light, such luminosity, that I thought surely I'd get a moon tan. I could not sleep. I had risen to respond to the Lover's gift and commune with the silhouetted storks on the roof of the old cathedral. I received God's loving of me and felt as if I held this transparent, lunar light within. I was made in the likeness of Light. A sweet and tender fullness filled me.This present-time moon view now brings me back to the here-and-now and to the request to write this article on the impact of the pilgrimage to Spain on my life. In many ways the previous four years of losses positioned me for pilgrimage. I had been hollowed out, painfully stripped bare of the securities of: the comfort and context of a long-term marriage, a parent, an inheritance, and the beloved colleagues and energizing team dimension of my work. I remember feeling like a stark, winter tree with no promise of spring in sight. Yet there was sometimes this sense that a Greater Hand did the readying. And eventually enough glimpses and experiences of spring came for me to choose life.
When I read of the pilgrimage in the company of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, I felt the desire to re-dedicate my life, my ministry to God. Perhaps I was empty enough to allow God's way in all things. Really. Again.
More than a month before the trip, a letter from Shalem suggested beginning the pilgrimage with attention to the inner pilgrimage by way of journaling. I did. I asked John and Teresa to be my spiritual directors during this time. Each day I read a bit, meditating on Teresa or John's words and letting them lead me to prayer. One day Teresa said, "Consider Jesus," and I did. Both Teresa and John sent me back to the scriptures and the companionship of Jesus. The word of God in the scriptures always takes on new dimensions when I am in transitions, bringing me to radical truths about myself and my relationship to others and to God. I wondered if perhaps that is what this pilgrimage would be--a new clarity for my life.
Just as I was feeling smug in my meditations with John of the Cross on his words about the soul being attached to nothing "which would introduce noise into the deep silence," events happened simultaneously in my personal and professional life. One stirred a strong pain of betrayal and some rage, which took me completely by surprise, and both left me with a sense of having no place of belonging, no home. On that note I left for pilgrimage--noise stirring the deep silence! So much for my readiness...
During our Segovia retreat time, I sat long hours overlooking the monastery gardens, the row of cypress, and the 12th-century castle fortress. John saw this view also as he gazed from his cave of prayer. Was he only "in Love" there or did he go for healing? I faced attachments, saw the truth of what I clung to, and dared to draw a bit nearer to Nada. If I'm not going to desire to be nothing, it seems I might be brought to it anyway! Segovia was a place of letting go, a place of approaching the "house being now all stilled" and the passion of John.
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.