Levin replied, “It seems to me that [these new institutions] are useless, and I cannot feel interested in what you wish me to do …”

— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Have you ever been called a “nerd”?  If so, take heart:  you are not far from the kingdom of heaven.

Not all nerds are Pilgrims, of course.  But it would be fair to say that one can’t very well be a Pilgrim without also being a nerd.  In an important sense, pilgrimage and nerdiness go hand in hand.

Just what is a “nerd” anyway?  If you’ve never heard the term adequately explained, you may be interested in what Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has to say about it:

     nerd \nerd\ n [perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children’s book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel)]:  an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; esp:  one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits.

This definition is instructive on several different levels.  Let’s dismantle it and examine its component parts.

We can begin by noting that the epithet “nerd” is most often employed as an insult.  If this weren’t already obvious from the snide tone in which it’s generally applied, one might be led to the same conclusion by the dictionary’s use of the negative modifiers “unstylish,” “unattractive,” and “socially inept” to describe the “nerdy” individual.

There’s an important corollary here.  The compilers of our dictionary are apparently working on the assumption that stylishness, attractiveness, and social aptitude are good and desirable attributes.  If “nerds” are frumpy, ugly, and socially “out of it,” it follows that “non-nerds” are the opposite – that their “coolness” is measured in terms of trendiness, good looks, and sophistication.

“Slavish devotion” is another quality that leaves the “nerd” open to derision.  No surprises here.  In a society that prides itself on skepticism, cynicism, urbanity, street smarts, and high-browed contempt, “devotion” (let alone “slavish devotion”) to anything but self is usually looked down upon as foolish and naive.  Most of us are above that sort of thing nowadays.

Finally, this “slavish devotion” is especially odious when it attaches itself to “academic or intellectual pursuits.”  Why?  For the simple reason that “intellectual pursuits” are not particularly conducive to or compatible with “slavish devotion” to pop culture.  And since pop culture is the standard by which all things are measured, anyone who fails to take a keen interest in it must necessarily be viewed as a moron, if not a public enemy.

If the Pilgrim is not invariably “intellectual” in outlook, it must be nevertheless be conceded that he is often what people today describe as “religious,” and that is something far worse.  After all, the dominant religion of mass culture cannot possibly brook any rivals.  Those who direct their attention to aberrant pursuits like prayer, reading, and scriptural study while neglecting such cultural staples as Twitter, YouTube, CNN, professional sports, and Saturday Night Live can only be regarded as a threat.  They have to be labeled appropriately – as “nerds” – and relegated to the margins of collective life.

In the last analysis, a “nerd” is simply a conscientious non-conformist.  In the case of the Pilgrim, he is someone who chooses remain outside the sphere of the kosmos and the assumptions of the present age – someone who has been radically transformed by the renewing of his mind.

That’s what the life of the Pilgrim is all about.

Peter therefore seeing [the disciple whom Jesus loved], said to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?”  Jesus said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?  You follow Me!”     

— John 21:21, 22

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In recent times a great deal of ink has been spilled and a lot of hot air spouted on the theme of community and corporate life, both inside and outside the church.  As a necessary corollary, so-called “rugged individualism” has been given a very bad name.  We are constantly told to “Come Together,” “Celebrate Community,” promote “Team Spirit,” and look upon “I, Me, and Mine” as dirty words.  Speech has been altered and ancient hymns edited (e.g., from “Be Thou My Vision” to “Be Thou Our Vision”) to reflect the correct viewpoint.  Oddly enough, all this is being done at a time when “selfie” is one of the most commonly used words in the English language:  the Oxford Dictionaries named it “word of the year” for 2013, and its frequency in everyday parlance has only increased since then.  Is it possible that we’re protesting too much?

It’s time someone pointed out that there are two sides to this coin.  Certainly community is essential to kingdom life.  We have already said that the true Pilgrim places a high priority on koinonia and fellowship.  “You fill up what is lacking in me, just as I supply what is lacking in you” – or, to use Dante’s terminology, “I inyou as you inme.”[i]  This kind of spiritual sharing and intimacy is one of the primary principles of the Pilgrim way.  But having said this, it’s vital to pause and add that koinonia and community are not the same thing as “collectivism.”  The Pilgrim knows that any kind of “community” that places the group ahead of the individual and asks him to sacrifice his soul to the interests of the corporation is nothing short of a deadly fraud.

“It is like looking at pictures which are too near or too far away,” said Pascal in his Pensees.[ii]  “There is just one indivisible point which is the right place.”  For the Pilgrim, that one indivisible point is the place where the value of the individual and the claims of the community can be held in reasonable balance.

Eradication of the individual personality and enforcement of a group-based identity are hallmarks of totalitarianism in all of its various forms, including fascism, communism, the military, and religious cults.  Tyranny establishes itself through the implementation of three classic steps to total control:  1) disintegration of the individual; 2) creation of a collective conscience, plus re-indoctrination; and 3) self-criticism and full integration into the system.[iii]  In Mao’s China, for instance, the theory of the “mold” became fundamental to the Party’s approach to mass education:  “The point is to press man in a mold, placing him there periodically, to ‘re-mold’ him systematically.”[iv]  Similarly, in Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia there was no room whatsoever for dissent or deviation from the “norm.”  And we all know how the People’s Temple, the Children of God, the Alamo Christian Foundation, and the Church of Scientology, to name just a few, have cultivated “group-think” as a way of holding members to a rule of strict conformity.

All of this reflects a dangerously misguided conception of human nature.  Important as fellowship and sharing may be, the fact remains that man originated not as a member of a community, but as a distinct individual.  This is brought out rather strikingly in the first chapter of Genesis, where every other type of living creature is said to have been created en masse.  But not mankind:

     Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.”  So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind … Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind:  cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind;” and it was so …

Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness …”

Unlike the other animals, man in the beginning was not made to be part of a herd.  In contrast to all other species, he was created as a single individual – Adam.  Only afterwards did God say, “It is not good for man to be alone.”  And at that point He brought onto the scene not a community of people, but another individual.  What’s more, this second individual was not simply a copy or clone of the first one.  By no means was she cast in the same “mold.”  On the contrary, she was in almost every way Adam’s opposite number.  Herein is wisdom:  for oneness is not the product of sameness.  Only in the coming together of the opposites, differences, divergencies, contrasts, and complementarities represented and symbolized in male and female does the true unity of inyou-inme fellowship have a chance to flower.

Meanwhile, you and I live in a society that seeks relentlessly to press us into its ever-hardening mold.  Commercialism, advertising, television, technology, pop culture, professional sports, entertainment, news media – these ubiquitous manifestations of conformist propaganda are working round the clock to transmute the unique individual into the standardized mass man or woman.  The Internet has compounded the problem on a geometric scale.  Armed with our “mobile devices,” we have willingly and almost worshipfully granted it the power to keep each and every one of us locked into the same thing hour after hour, day after day, and year after year.  There is no longer an inch of ground left to genuine solitude or original thought.  “America voted … ,” Ryan Seacrest used to say, apparently assuming that everyone in the country tuned into American Idol with religious regularity.  He was absolutely right, of course.  Modern people always do as they are told.

Read John Bunyan’s book and you will find that this is not the Pilgrim way.  Christian set out for the Holy City entirely on his own, with neither wife, child, nor friend.  Why?  Because that is the only way anyone can ever really respond to the Master’s unique call upon his life.  “What do you care what others are doing?” said Jesus.  “You follow me!”

______________________________________________________________________

[i] Paradiso, Canto IX, line 81.  Italian “m’intuassi, come tu t’inmii.”

[ii] #21.

[iii] Jacques Ellul, Propaganda (New York:  Vintage Books, 1973), 313, footnote 6.

[iv] Ibid., 309.

As the poet mounted the rocky steps, climbing higher and higher, he had a return of the irrational feeling of a visionary vertigo.  He told himself again, as if in warning, that it was his whole duty in life to walk on a tight-rope above a void in which many imaginative men were swallowed up.

                    –– G. K. Chesterton, “The Shadow of the Shark” in The Poet and the Lunatics

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Like many notable Pilgrims, Kevin of Glendalough was what some of us might call an “odd duck.”  If eccentricity and idiosyncrasy are to be regarded as marks of sanctity – as in some cases they may well be – then Kevin was surely one of the holiest of Ireland’s numerous saints and seers.

Even the hagiographical legends surrounding his birth are not so much miraculous as bizarre.  The snow that happened to be falling on that occasion is supposed to have melted as it touched the ground around his house.  It’s also said that when the time came for the child to be delivered, Kevin’s mother felt no labor pains.  For reasons like these, and because an angel from heaven expressly commanded it, the boy was called Coemgen or Caoimhin in the Irish tongue (Anglicized as Kevin):  “He of Blessed Birth.”  He was the first person in history ever to bear this now very common name.

All this seemed propitious enough.  Still, there were things about Kevin’s personality and character that were not particularly well suited to sainthood.  For one thing, he is reputed to have had a terrible temper as a child.  He also made it fairly clear that he didn’t like people.  This circumstance may have had something to do with the development of his strong love and deep affinity for animals.  Whatever the cause, one thing seems certain:  Kevin did not grow up to be your average, run-of-the mill “regular Joe.”  Today he would probably be known as a “nerd” or a “weird-o.”

In spite of this, he must have impressed the monks who raised him as an exceptionally holy man, for he was ordained a priest while still relatively young.  Unlike most priests, however, he took this occasion to divorce himself from human society and move out to the wilderness of Glendalough, the Glen of Two Lakes, a remote spot in the province of Leinster.  The reason for this move?  He wanted to avoid the company of his followers.  Not a great way to kick off a thriving ministry.

In Glendalough, Kevin took up residence in a Bronze-age tomb now known as St. Kevin’s Bed, a hand-hewn cave cut in the sheer rocky face of Lugduff Mountain about thirty feet above the surface of the lake.  The name is apt, since the hole is too small – about four feet wide and three feet high – to have served him as anything but a sleeping place.  Here for seven years he lived the life of a hermit, seeking God’s face in extreme asceticism and cultivating an extraordinary intimacy with nature.  Birds and beasts sought his companionship.  An otter once retrieved for him the psalter he had dropped into the lake while standing and praying waist-deep in the frigid water – an habitual practice with him.  On another occasion – or so the story goes – a blackbird landed in his outstretched palm as he knelt in prayer and proceeded to build her nest there.  Kevin’s response?  He was moved to pity; and

               Now he must hold his hand

Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks

Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.[i] 

Kevin must also have been a rather attractive fellow, for despite his efforts to stay secluded he somehow captured the attention of a pretty young maiden.  Unfortunately, the girl did not experience the same degree of compassion at his hands as had the blackbird.  When this bold Kathleen came looking for him in his wild abode, Kevin is reputed to have driven her away with a bunch of nettles.  One writer goes so far as to make the doubtful claim that he “hurled the maiden from the rock into the black lake shrieking.”  Strange behavior, to be sure.  But such was the hermit’s devotion to his vows of chastity and purity.

Eventually Kevin came out of this long retirement, at which point one might assume that he would be singularly ill-equipped to get involved in the hands-on work of meeting the day-to-day spiritual needs of other people.  Oddly enough, it didn’t turn out that way.  In spite of his anti-social tendencies – or perhaps because of them – Kevin had acquired the reputation of being a man intimately acquainted with God.  As a result, a group of monks gathered around him in Glendalough, where they built a monastery known as Kevin’s Cell.  The saint had oversight of this community until he died at the age of 120, somewhere around the year 618.  And as his fame as a teacher spread, people came from far and wide seeking his help and guidance; so that afterwards,

     a great number of pilgrims out of every quarter of Ireland came to visit Kevin’s church; so that this is one of the four chief pilgrimages of Erin:  to wit, the Cave of Patrick in Ulster, Croagh Patrick in Connaught, the Isle of the Living in Munster, and Glendalough in Leinster.[ii]

Is there a moral to this story?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  But in any case it’s worth remembering that there may be more to the eccentric and curmudgeonly recluse than meets the eye; and that retreating from the world is sometimes the best way of impacting it for the kingdom. 

(Woodcut by Clive Hicks-Jenkins)

___________________________________________________________________________

[i] Seamus Heaney, “St. Kevin and the Blackbird,” 1996.

[ii] From The Lives of Irish Saints, quoted in Celtic Christianity: Ecology and Holiness, an Anthology by Christopher Bamford and William Parker Marsh (West Stockbridge, MA:  Lindisfarne Press, 1987), 86.

    But one must face the fact:  the Power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however “good”; and the Writer of the Story is not one of us.  

                               – J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter #191 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

We have spoken here at length about a number of shockingly counter-intuitive Pilgrim values; values that, taken together, create a sort of negative photographic image of the world and stand in direct opposition to everything the kosmos treasures most; values like meekness, weakness, defenselessness, child-likeness, poverty, madness, failure, defeat, and death.  It remains to be said that the Pilgrim willingly embraces these values because, among other reasons, he recognizes his inability to do otherwise.  He knows that it is not in him to be mighty, brave, powerful, good, pure, holy, successful, heroic, or victorious in his own strength.  For all of this he is entirely dependent on Someone else.

The Lord’s Prayer concludes with this peculiar petition:  “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  If in the course of our mindless repetitions of this Prayer we were to pause long enough to feel the full weight of these words, we might find ourselves caught up short in the face of their deeper implications.  Notice what they do not say:  they do not say, “Strengthen us in the face of temptation that we might be able to resist.”  Instead, the plea is “Keep us completely away from the influence of evil!  Don’t allow us to go anywhere near temptation!”  Why?  Because if we do, we know we’re bound to fall.

This thought is powerfully and memorably illustrated at the climax of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.  At the end of the long, bitter pilgrimage, after so many sorrows, sufferings, and dogged decisions to push ahead in spite of the odds, when in the final moments of his agony he stands at the edge of the Cracks of Doom, positioned at last to carry out the fulfillment of his terrible charge, Frodo Baggins looks at his incredulous companion, Sam Gamgee, and quietly says, ”I do not choose to destroy the Ring.”  Against all expectation, Frodo – even Frodo – succumbs to the power of the evil talisman.

It was an outcome few had anticipated.  With good reason, Gandalf and his colleagues had supposed – or at least they had hoped – that a humble hobbit from the Shire would not prove quite so susceptible to the seduction of Absolute Power as the so-called Great and Wise ones of the world.  To a certain extent they were right:  it took a long time for the influence of the Ring to reach Frodo’s heart, and that was only at the point of its maximum strength.  But eventually the burden turned out to be too heavy for him.  And had it not been for the dissolute creature Gollum, who at that very instant bit the ring-finger from Frodo’s hand in a lustful frenzy and fell with it into the abyss, the mission would have failed and the Cause would have been lost.

Tolkien reflects on the significance of this plot twist in a letter to one of his readers:

     There exists the possibility of being placed in positions beyond one’s power.  In which case (as I believe) salvation from ruin will depend on something apparently unconnected … [i] 

In a second letter he adds:

     Surely this is a more significant and real event than a mere ‘fairy-story’ ending in which the hero is indomitable?  It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome in themselves.[ii]

Ultimately, says Tolkien, “Frodo failed” – just as St. Francis “failed” in the estimation of biographer Julien Green.  He failed because he was stretched beyond his own power.  And when at length Deliverance arrived, it was precisely from “something apparently unconnected” that it made its unexpected appearance:

     Frodo deserved all honor because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further … the Other Power then took over:  the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), ‘that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named …‘[iii]

This is a thought that the Pilgrim takes very much to heart.  He recognizes his own weaknesses, limitations, and sins.  He understands that the words “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” are not a promise of superhuman invincibility but rather a confession of utter dependence – dependence upon that “one ever-present Person.”

For all these reasons he is careful to “watch and pray that he might not enter into temptation.”  For he knows that when he thinks he stands, that is the moment of all moments when he is most likely to fall.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[i] Tolkien, Letter to Miss J. Burn, 26 July 1956; #191 in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 1981).

[ii] Tolkien, Letter to Amy Ronald, 27 July 1956.  Ibid., #192.

[iii] Ibid.

            But I’m all right, I’m all right

            I’m just weary to my bones –

            Still, you don’t expect to be bright and bon vivant

            When you’re far away from home,

             So far away from home. 

                                    – Paul Simon, “American Tune” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It seems there is no longer any place in the world for such a thing as sadness.  Sadness has been scratched from the catalogue of acceptable feelings and emotions.  We deprive it of its former dignity and respectability by calling it a sickness, labeling it “depression,” and drowning it in therapies and drugs.  In a hundred ways we sweep it under the rug and expel it from the realm of “healthy” human experience.  In the process, a brand-new Brave New World has emerged – a place where “everybody is happy” and where responsible citizens keep a ready supply of soma at their belts as a defense against the onset of sadness and sorrow.

The Pilgrim sees all this for the sham it is.  He understands that the world as we know it – the world through which he passes en route to his ultimate destination – is a very sad place indeed.  It’s an abnormal world:  a world fallen from its axis and drifting off course, the prey of relentless decay and progressive death; a world filled with sorrow and regret from one end to the other.

Because he sees the bigger picture, the Pilgrim does not have the option of turning his back on this grim situation.  For him there can be no easy way of escape, no medication strong enough to mute the pain.  As a follower of the “Man of Sorrows” he has an obligation to embrace and enter into the sadness.  And as a homesick traveler – a stranger and exile in the country of disillusion and discontent – he aches to lay hold of the promise of something better.  To that extent every step of his pilgrimage is dogged with affliction and grief.

George MacDonald gives us a portrait of such a “man of sorrows” in the character of Eric Ericson, a poet, tutor, and solitary thinker who plays a significant role in the action of the author’s monumental novel Robert Falconer.  In one especially memorable scene Ericson describes for young Robert what he hears in the sound of the restless sea:

“The sea-moan is the cry of a tortured world …  Its hollow bed is the cup of the world’s pain, ever rolling from side to side and dashing over its lip.  Of all that might be, ought to be, nothing to be had!” 

This, as Ericson clearly discerns, is the central problem of existence:  all is not as it should be, nor am I the person I ought to have become.  Herein is found a source of great sorrow for those who have eyes to see.  The Pilgrim bears the burden of it every day of his long and tiresome journey through the kosmos.

Few writers have given us a more poignant picture of the exquisite sadness of creation than J. R. R. Tolkien.  His long and detailed account of the history of Middle-earth demonstrates how a world can be both broken and beautiful at the same time (a concept many modern people seem to have difficulty grasping).  The chronicles of the elves in particular return again and again to a single constant theme:  the theme of a grand but dismal fall from former glory and grace.  Dark threads of tragedy and loss run through nearly every elven song – like the one Legolas sings to his companions about the lovely elf-maiden Nimrodel:

                                   Where now she wanders none can tell,

                                                In sunlight or in shade;

                                    For lost of yore was Nimrodel

                                                And in the mountains strayed.

Why is this important?  Because, like it or not, there is no escaping one fundamental truth:  you can’t hear the Good News until you’ve heard the Bad.  There will be joy in the morning for the ones who brave the darkness of the night, but it is likely to go unnoticed by those who banish the shadows by lighting their own false fires.  The story does not end in sadness, because the Man of Sorrows bears our griefs and takes our iniquities upon Himself.  But can this mean anything to the person who finds other ways of masking the pain?

It’s a question well worth asking.

“Let there come on me fire, and cross, and struggles with wild beasts, cutting, and tearing asunder, racking of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil, may I but attain to Jesus Christ!”

                                    — Ignatius to the Romans, V.3

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Here in the comfortable and progressive West the word martyr has long been associated almost exclusively with a laughable psychological complex.  That may be changing.

Despite all the talk about strengthening borders, we are daily being pressed on all sides by strange new influences and forces:  foreign mindsets and ideologies characterized by a shocking degree of raw zeal and youthful vigor.  They are adamant and determined.  No wall can keep them out.  Our pale, worn, groundless platitudes about “rights,” “freedom,” and “the American way” seem impotent beside them.  As a result, we are discovering that martyrdom is no longer merely a thing of the gold-illuminated, rosy-tinted, and romantic medieval-religious past.  It is a present and immediate reality.

A word of clarification:  a martyr is not a person who straps explosives to his body and kills himself and hundreds of other innocent people in the name of some ideal.  That kind of “martyrdom” is both counterfeit and cowardly.

The Greek verb martyrein means “to bear witness.”  That’s exactly what a real martyr does.  He speaks the truth in spite of opposition.  He delivers his message again and again, even in the face of ridicule, insult, taunts, and deadly threats.  If necessary, he submits to death rather than betray his Master’s call by remaining silent.  And in that moment death itself becomes his clearest, loudest, and most persuasive testimony.  This, too, is a crucial part of the Pilgrim Path.

George Eagles, a tailor from Essex, was both Pilgrim and martyr.  Somewhere around the middle of the sixteenth century – about a hundred years before John Bunyan wrote his little book in the Bedford Gaol – Eagles decided that he had a talent for public speaking, and that it was incumbent upon him to use his gift in the service of God.  Leaving his shop, he set out as an itinerant gospel preacher, tramping all over the countryside, living in the woods, sleeping in the open fields, addressing small groups in private houses and inns, speaking to anyone and everyone who would listen.  In the process he earned for himself the nickname “Trudgeover-the-World” or simply “Trudgeover.”  All this took place during the reign of King Edward VI – a time when there was relatively little risk associated with such undertakings.

The situation changed drastically when Edward’s sister Mary Tudor (“Bloody Mary”) came to the throne.   Mary made a law specifying that anyone found convening a gathering of more than six persons in a private or secret place was to be considered guilty of the crime of treason or sedition.  In accordance with this legislation, Trudgeover was hunted down and arrested in a wheat field outside of Colchester.  Two days later he was taken to London to be tried by the church authorities.

Convicted of having prayed that “God should turn Queen Mary’s heart or else take her away” (he staunchly maintained that he had prayed only for the change of heart), Eagles was bound flat to a sledge and dragged to the place of execution.  From one end of this short journey to the other he did not cease to read loudly from his psalm-book.  What he suffered when he reached the gallows is too gruesome to be described in detail – suffice it to say that he was, in the vernacular of the time, “hanged, drawn, and quartered.”  His head was the only part of his anatomy to receive a decent burial:  some sympathetic person picked it up and interred it in the churchyard one night after the wind had blown it down from the market-cross in Chelmsford.

The authorities found it fairly easy to put a stop to George Eagles’ preaching.  Unfortunately, they failed to silence his witness to the truth.  His story, recorded in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, has been speaking powerfully into the lives of subsequent generations of Pilgrims ever since – for more than four centuries.

It continues to speak to us today.  And not the least part of its message is contained in the thought that some of us may eventually be called upon to follow in Trudgeover’s footsteps – just as many of our brothers and sisters around the world are doing at this very hour.

                                     What though the tempest round me roar?

                                    I know the truth, it liveth.

                                    What though the darkness round me blows?

                                    Songs in the night it giveth.

                                    No storm can shake my inmost calm

                                    While to that Rock I’m clinging;

                                    Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth,

                                    How can I keep from singing?

                                                                    — Quaker hymn

  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

There is nothing new under the sun.  Disaster, strife, bloodshed, racial tensions, national rivalries, trials and tribulations — all are regular features of life in a fallen world.  Anyone who follows the news knows that things of this sort happen every day – not just today, and not just in Brussels or Paris.  The Pilgrim realizes this.  He understands that the land through which he travels and in which he sojourns is an uncertain, unstable, and dangerous place.

“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars,” says the Chief of all Pilgrims in what is often referred to as His “mini-apocalypse.”  In making this assertion, did He imagine Himself to be describing anything unusual?  Certainly not.  He was only talking about the status quo.  Why else should He have added, “See that you are not troubled”?

Nor was He troubled – deeply saddened, certainly, but not troubled – when, at another time, He received news of a couple of particularly disastrous “current events.”  In the first instance, a group of worshiping Galileans had been slaughtered by Pilate’s Roman soldiers within the very precincts of the Jewish Temple.  In the second, a tower had suddenly collapsed, killing eighteen people.  In both cases the Master’s response was the same.  He began by asking, “Do you suppose these men were worse sinners than anyone else that this happened to them?”  The answer, of course, was no – on the contrary, such occurrences are to be regarded as “business as usual.”  Then, instead of whipping His hearers into a frenzy by shouting, “Now is the time to panic!  We need more security!  Arm yourselves!  The end is near!” – instead of this, He gave the conversation a very different twist.  He refocused His hearers’ attention upon the question of their eternal destiny and relationship with God:  “Unless you repent,” He declared, “you will all likewise perish.”

Tension, bloodshed, disaster, death – this was pretty much the situation in Jerusalem at the beginning of what is now called Holy Week.  It was a time not unlike our own:  a time of civil unrest and international strife, ethnic and racial violence, revolutionary activities, and “terrorist” plots.  Armed and highly organized Zealots were biding their time, waiting in the shadows, laying plans for the bloody overthrow of the Roman overlords.  Occupying forces were beefing up security measures as tens of thousands of visitors poured into the city.  Relations between the police and the masses were stretched nearly to the breaking point.  People in Judea were looking desperately for a leader capable of responding directly to these dire circumstances with confidence and power.  They wanted a King strong enough to restore the nation to greatness and tough enough to protect common citizens from their enemies.  They expected the Man on the donkey to take things in hand and do something about the situation.  But He didn’t.  He was on a pilgrimage.  He had His own mission to fulfill.

His response on this occasion was much the same as it had been when He was told about the fallen tower and the slaughtered Galileans.  In spite of everything, He fixed His mind on the eternal and set His face like flint to go forward to His destiny.  Perhaps it was His example in this instance that later inspired one of His weak-kneed followers – the one ironically nick-named “the Rock” – to write the following words:  “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.  Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness …?”  That’s the question that really matters.

The old saying “It’s always darkest before the dawn” is truer than most of us know.  It sums up the story of Holy Week.  In the midst of political turmoil, unrest, tense relations between hostile factions, and violent street altercations, a gentle Man rode into town on the back of a harmless donkey.  Instead of overcoming and conquering all these negative forces, He was swallowed up and destroyed by them.  But that wasn’t the end of the story.  For following the blackness of Friday and the blank confusion of Saturday came Resurrection Sunday.

That’s the way it was then.  That’s the way it is now and always will be.  Such is the Pilgrim’s peculiar hope.  And this is the time to hold on to it as never before.

I arise today through a mighty strength …

             — St. Patrick, The Lorica  

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Patrick, celebrated today chiefly as the patron saint of beer busts and Guinness guzzlers, would be more than a little surprised at his modern reputation.  It’s true that an old Irish song makes him out to have been a great tippler himself –

No wonder that them Irish boys should be so gay and frisky,

Sure St. Pat he taught them that as well as making whiskey.

No wonder that the saint himself should understand distillin’,

For his mother kept a shebeen shop near the town of Enniskillen.

                                                (“Patrick Was A Gentleman”)

— but, for all that, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the real St. Patrick ever indulged in such frivolities.  We do know that he lived a life of hardship and rigorous spiritual discipline, and that he often devoted long night vigils to serious study and intense communion with God.  If ever there were a true Pilgrim in the earth, it was Patrick of Ireland.

Though the same song claims that “his father was a Gallagher and his mother was a Grady,” the fact of the matter is that Patrick was not Irish at all.  He was actually an alien, a stranger and sojourner in the Emerald Isle, a foreigner on a desperate mission, a suffering servant and slave to both man and God.  Son of the Decurion Calpurnius and his wife Concessa, Patricius or Patrick (known as Sucat in the ancient Brythonic tongue) was born into luxury as a Roman citizen somewhere near the west coast of Britain around the year 387.

When about sixteen years of age, Patrick was captured by Irish sea raiders and sold into slavery in Dalaradia, a kingdom of Ulidia (modern Ulster) in Northern Ireland, near the mountains of Antrim.  There he served a cruel master named Miliucc who shaved his head, dressed him in rags, beat him, cursed him, fed him with the animals, and put him to work herding sheep and swine on the slopes of Slieve Miss (modern Slemish).

Patrick had been raised in the Christian faith, but, like many of us who grow up in “religious” homes, it was not until he found himself plunged into the depths of pain, sorrow, and despair that he experienced the power and reality of God in a deep and meaningful way.  In his Confession he tells us that it was there on the hillside among the sheep, pelted by rain, snow, and hail, hounded by hunger, and tormented by thoughts of his long lost home, that he first became acquainted with his true Master.  There he learned to pray and discovered that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Stripped of everything else in which a human being might place his trust, he put his confidence in God alone.  In his loneliness, he pledged his life to the service of his Creator.

Since there were no “shebeen shops” in the neighborhood, the young shepherd had to sustain himself on what some might call meager fare:  a diet of watchings, fastings, and prayer.  One night when he was about twenty-two, a voice came to him as he dozed among the rocks:  “You have fasted well and will soon go to your own country.  Behold, your ship is ready.”

Trusting in the vision, Patrick immediately set out for the sea-coast.  After a journey of more than two hundred miles, he came to a port where lay a ship bound for Britain and the Continent.  When the penniless slave asked for passage, the sailors turned him away with harsh words.  But as he was shuffling off in confusion and despondency, one of them had a change of heart and called him back.  “We’ll take you on good faith,” he said.  “You can pay us when you’re able.”

The next twenty years are something of a blur.  We know that, in large part, Patrick spent them studying the Scriptures and taking orders in the church, probably in Wales and other parts of Britain, possibly for a time in northern France.  What is absolutely certain is that, after nearly two decades of preparing himself for ministry, another vision came to him in the night watches.  This time an angelic courier brought him a packet of letters.  In one of them he read the words, “The Voice of the Irish.”  That was all, but it was enough.  Patrick knew exactly what it meant.

So great was his confidence in the God of the vision that he did not hesitate for a moment to obey what he understood to be its message.  In an instant he saw plainly that his apostolate and ministry were to be spent among the Irish, a people he had every reason to regard with hatred and fear.  Those who had enslaved and humiliated him were calling out to him to “come over and help them.”  From that point forward his course was clear.

The rest, as they say, is history – a history that, unfortunately, is known to precious few.  Patrick’s was the first of many peregrinations to be made by successive generations of Irish and Celtic Pilgrims – men like Columba, Columbanus, Brendan, Aidan, and Cuthbert.   Historians agree that these pilgrimages changed the face of Europe.  But none of them would have come about were it not for Patrick’s unquestioning confidence in the One who called him to so difficult a task – the confidence that, in later life, inspired him to pen the following words:

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven …

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding …

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me …

Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me.

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

They went forth to battle, but they always fell …

                  – Shaemus O’Sheel 

 * * * * * * * * * * * *

“We’re gonna start winning so much,” claims a current contender for the office of President of the United States, “that you’re gonna be sick and tired of winning!  You’re gonna get bored of winning!  But you know what?  We’re gonna keep winning anyway!”

An enticing thought, perhaps, for dyed-in-the-wool patriots whose main goal in life is to “make this country great again.”  But such posturing is completely foreign to the mindset of the Pilgrim.  Winning may occupy a conspicuous place at the very top of the list of American values, but Pilgrims are more than content to be counted among the “losers” – one of the worst names you can pin on anyone in our current cultural climate.  This is yet another detail in which the perspective of the Kingdom and that of the kosmos stand poles apart.

At the conclusion of his delightful biography of St. Francis of Assisi, God’s Fool, author Julien Green offers what appears to be a somewhat painful confession.  After revealing that Francis had been his boyhood hero (“I want to be Saint Francis!” he once told the priest in charge of his religious instruction and baptism), Green goes on to explain how World War II shattered his idealism and shook his soul “the way one shakes somebody by the shoulders.”  He continues:

Saint Francis kept coming back.  The world at war struck me as one vast atrocity.  My mind gradually came to the conclusion that the Gospel was a failure.  Christ himself had wondered about the faith he would find on earth at his second coming.  The souls he had touched and drawn to him seemed isolated in the storm unleashed by madmen.  Almost at the midpoint between the first Christmas and the hell humanity was writhing in, a man had appeared on earth, another Christ, the Francis of my childhood, but he too had failed.[i]

Failed?  Green himself isn’t altogether comfortable with this idea, and so he closes his book by suggesting that, after all, it may be too soon to pass final judgment on the “success” of the Gospel:

Failed?  Apparently …  He [Francis] was convinced that salvation would come through the Gospel.  The Gospel was eternity, the Gospel had only just begun.  What were twenty centuries in the eyes of God?[ii]

This is a perfectly legitimate observation, and entirely on-target so far as it goes.  Yes, it is true that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day, and that a time is coming when truth will prevail and “every knee shall bow” to the Rightful King.  But this way of resolving the present difficulty leaves out the essential point that, in a very important sense, failure – and not success – is fundamental to the message of the Gospel.

If Francis failed, it was precisely because he was determined to follow in the footsteps of a Master who was Himself an abject failure – at least in the eyes of the world; a Man who, at the moment of crisis, declined to make a grab for power and allowed Himself instead to be led away by His enemies to torture and death on a cross.  If the Word preached by both Teacher and disciple seems to have had very little positive impact on the powers that be and the larger course of world events, it’s because it was never intended for such purposes.  Its goal was to bring in death and defeat – both for the world and for the individual – in order that resurrection might follow:

He who is free in his own nature came in the form of a slave;

He who blesses all creation became accursed;

He who is all righteousness was numbered among transgressors;

Life itself came in the appearance of death.

All this followed because the body which tasted death belonged to no other but to Him who is the Son by nature.[iii]

In the end, it’s all a matter of taking up one’s cross and dying daily.  Clearly not the sort of thing that political candidates have in mind when they talk about “winning until you’re sick and tired of it.”  But then strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it.

This is the gate through which the Pilgrim seeks to enter.

_____________________________________________________________

[i] Julien Green, God’s Fool (San Francisco:  Harper & Row, 1985), 273.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444), On the Unity of Christ.

“Active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.  But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it – at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you … “

                         — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

* * * * * * * * * *

We seem to have reached a place where “love” and “hate” can be defined largely in terms of political alignments.  A “loving” or “compassionate” person is one who votes for the right candidates or supports the correct social measures.  Those who don’t follow suit are instantly labeled “haters.”

Real love isn’t that simple.  To see this, we have only to remind ourselves that love is available in several varieties, some of which come easily to the average person while others don’t.[i]  Take sexual desire or romantic love (Greek eros).  This kind of love requires relatively little effort on the part of the lover:  you just “fall into” it.  Something similar can be said with respect to familial affection or loyalty (storge), a love as natural to the human condition and as needful for survival as the desire for food or drink.  Then there’s friendship (philia), the heart-felt bond that develops between close companions who happen to have compatible temperaments and share common values, interests, desires, goals, and aspirations.  It’s a wonderful thing, but there’s nothing particularly challenging about it.

All of these loves are important to the Pilgrim, for all are essential to his basic humanity.  But there is yet another kind of love which is unique to his calling, and even for him it is not attainable apart from pain and struggle.  The kosmos regards it as a crazy, counter-intuitive, nonsensical sort of love.  In contrast to the other three varieties, it might almost be described as unnatural.  The New Testament calls it agape.

The difference between agape and the other loves is revealed most clearly in Christ’s command to “love (Gr. agapate) your enemies.”  Enemy-love is pure agape – agape shorn of outward trappings and purified of foreign admixtures.  The human heart does not gravitate in this direction of its own accord.  On the contrary, this kind of love requires work.  It goes against the grain.  It entails choice, action, discipline, and self-denial.  It might, in fact, be characterized as a type of repentance.  Unlike the social and political “love” which centers in slogans, expresses itself in fund-raisers, and attaches itself primarily to nameless, faceless, impersonal abstractions – like “the needy,” “the hungry,” or “the disenfranchised” – agape focuses on real flesh-and-blood individuals.  People you and I actually know.  And that’s uncomfortable.

In his landmark novel The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky introduces readers to a medical doctor who is intimately familiar with the struggle of agape.  In a moment of painful honesty, this physician reveals his inner hypocrisy to Father Zossima, the Russian monk.  “In my dreams,” he says, “I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity … and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together, as I know by experience … In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men:  one because he’s too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose.  I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me …”

If you can relate to this confession, you will understand what the challenge of agape is all about.  It’s a matter of abandoning mere platitudes about “universal brotherhood” and somehow getting past the feelings of aversion and disgust that divide you from your domineering husband, your opinionated brother-in-law, your micro-managing boss, your nagging aunt, the nerd in the next cubicle, or the obnoxious next-door neighbor.  This is where the rubber really meets the road.  Because if you can’t love them, there isn’t much point in talking about “service to humanity.”

How can this possibly happen?  In Dostoevsky’s narrative, it’s Father Zossima who provides the answer:  only by means of a miracle.  In the final analysis, it’s the petty barriers between people that constitute the greatest difficulty, and getting over those barriers requires an infusion of supra-natural love – a love that comes from above.

This agape love can’t be turned on with the flick of a switch or trumped up by sheer grit and determination.  It has to grow and flow of its own accord as the Pilgrim stays connected to his Power Source.  It’s like the seed that sprouts in the night without the gardener’s knowledge.  The key is to plant it in good ground and then stand back and let it grow.

And it will – not by you or your own efforts, but because of the One who made you a Pilgrim in the first place.  “Faithful is He who calls you, and He will do it.”

_________________________________

[i] See C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves.

        “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you …”   

               — Matthew 5:43, 44

* * * * * * * * * *

There are lots of reasons for loving enemies.  Among other things, enemies have a great deal to teach us.  Most of all about ourselves.

“Why do they hate us so much?”  This question seemed to be on everybody’s lips in the days immediately following 9/11.  The query itself was something of a phenomenon.  After all, how often are we treated to the spectacle of a newscaster or commentator without a ready-made analysis or explanation?  On this occasion none of them seemed capable of comprehending the horrors they had witnessed.  How much less their clueless viewers and readers!

The conundrum hasn’t gone away.  It comes back to haunt us regularly.   “Americans are wonderful folks,” we stammer incredulously.  “The greatest nation on earth!  Americans would never think of doing something so horrendous to other people [except, perhaps, for Americans like William Tecumseh Sherman, George Custer, John Chivington, Lee Harvey Oswald, George Wallace, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Ted Kaczynski, David Koresh – and the list goes on].  Why do they want to kill us?”

“They,” of course, have their reasons.  And if we could begin to wrap our brains around those reasons – if we could do the hard work required to crack the question “Why do they hate us so much?” – our eyes might be opened to see ourselves as we have never done before.  In which case we’d be forced to concede how much we owe these deadly and implacable foes who seem so determined to encompass our destruction and damnation.

As it happens, “they” are a people fiercely committed to an uncompromising standard of righteousness, morality, holiness, piety, and rigorous self-discipline.  Five times a day they prostrate themselves toward the east and pray.  They fast regularly, give alms, make long, hard pilgrimages, and punish what they regard as sin with intense severity.  To Allah they say, “You alone we worship; You alone we ask for help.  Guide us in the right path; the path of those whom You blessed; not of those who have deserved wrath, nor of the strayers” (Holy Qur’an, Surah 1:5-7).  There is nothing ambiguous about their attitude toward those who reject their worldview:  “O you Disbelievers!  I do not worship what you worship.  Nor do you worship what I worship.  Nor will I ever worship what you worship.  Nor will you ever worship what I worship.  To you is your religion and to me is my religion!” (Surah 109:1-6)

In short, theirs is a faith borne out of and adapted to the unrelenting harshness of the Arabian desert:  a religion of sun and wind and searing heat and burning rock and miles and miles of waterless waste.  In its quest to survive, thrive, and dominate, it does not – it cannot – allow for weakness, voluptuousness, waywardness, or double-mindedness of any kind.  It seeks an inward purity as clear and stainless as the sirocco-swept sands and the star-studded sky.

Is it any wonder, then, that “they” regard our way of life as an object of revulsion and disgust?  Our self-indulgent luxuries are a stench in their nostrils.  The license and licentiousness we call “freedom” are an offense to them on every level.  Our scoffing disregard for virtue and uprightness is a thing they cannot comprehend.  It is impossible for them to understand, much less tolerate, a civilization that winks at adultery, celebrates sensuality, applauds debauchery, feeds on trivialities, and worships the likes of  Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus.

This, then, is a least part of the reason why “they hate us so much.”  And, as is often the case with enemies – even on the personal, individual level – we owe them a great deal for their unbiased and instructive observations concerning our character flaws as a people.  There is no telling how we might benefit were we to take some of these lessons to heart.

For this we can love them, not only as enemies, but also as wise teachers and friends.

“Propaganda interdicts all witness to the Lord.  The use of propaganda is contrary to the declaration of the gospel.  Counter-propaganda cannot be used against the man who himself uses propaganda.  The only way the church can take is that of silence.  Silence and not dialogue!

 “… There is a time for speech and a time for silence, says Ecclesiastes (3:7).  We shall often have occasion to meditate on this.”

       —  Jacques Ellul, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man

* * * * * * * * * *

Noise is one of the biggest problems facing mankind today.  And the most problematic thing about it is that no one thinks it’s a problem.  On the contrary, modern people love noise.  They seek it, embrace it, cultivate it, revel in it.  Most of us seem to have forgotten how to live without it.  Can you imagine sitting in a doctor’s waiting room for thirty minutes without muzak or driving two or three miles in your car without radio or phone?  Even more terrifying is the thought of an entire evening spent alone without the incessant drone of the television.  The world has indeed become a very noisy place.

What’s worse, all this noise isn’t just loud and noisy.  It’s relentless and ubiquitous.  It tolerates no margins and leaves no gaps. Like the tide upon the shore, it hammers and hammers without ceasing.  It surrounds, assails, grabs, sticks, and pulls from every side.  It’s there in the lonely watches of the night.  It goes howling down the dark and echoing corridors of dreams.  It neither slumbers nor sleeps.  That’s partly because this noise is no longer merely audible.  Madison Avenue, technology, and the electronic media have devised ways of producing visual, tactile, mental, emotional, and psychological noise as well.

This is a case of “sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.”  There was a time when the Evening News came on at six o’ clock and left us in peace by six-thirty.  Now it grinds away twenty-four hours a day.  And that’s not all.  Nowadays the TV set accounts for only the smallest fraction of a percentage point of our total noise factor.  “Mobile devices” make it impossible (always with the voluntary consent of the user, of course) to escape all this “messaging.”  Texts, tweets, and chats; Facebook posts, phone calls, and the constant pinging of ten thousand “apps;” billboards by the highway, pop-ups on the Internet, scraps of advertising crammed into every available crack and cranny of the material universe – all these things and more clog the inner and the outer spaces of heart and mind like unstoppable clouds of destroying locusts and infecting mosquitoes.

Under this perpetual bombardment there is barely a person left alive capable of thinking his or her own personal thoughts.  Spiritual and intellectual freedom, in spite of the lip-service they receive, are mere relics of the past.  From morning to night our consciousness is dominated without respite by the ideas, suggestions, and agendas of Somebody Else.  There is only one way to describe such a state of affairs:  we are all of us living under a regime of interminable propaganda.

This is yet another point at which the Pilgrim has to stand apart from the kosmos.  In this he has no choice.  He is driven to this course by his nagging awareness of the difference between the noise of the world and the distinctive music of the everlasting Word.  He understands that, in order to catch this Word, one must pause and listen in silence.  It is not to be found in the media vortex or the crashing sound and fury of world events.  It comes like a whisper in the ear, spoken gently by a still small voice.  Those who wish to receive it must learn how to elude the ever-present screens and speakers that line the walls of contemporary culture.  They must shut out the violating yammer and babble that fill the airwaves, cloud the atmosphere, and hopelessly confuse the floundering brain.

But there is another sense in which the contemporary situation constitutes something of a conundrum for the Pilgrim.  After all, he too is a man with a message:  a message that sometimes begs to be shouted from the rooftops; a message for the saving of the world.  Under the present circumstances, the temptation to jump on the bandwagon, avail himself of the advantages of mass communication, and blend the Word with which he has been entrusted with the general hubbub can be almost overwhelming.  It is a temptation that must be resisted.

One cannot fight fire with fire.  Neither is it possible to overcome noise with noise.  To manipulate, finagle, or shove this message down the throats of needy men and women is to betray the One who is its source.

The message which the Pilgrim brings as he travels through this world is a message of deep meaning and quiet peace.  As such, it can be communicated only from mouth to mouth and life to life.

            “I have very little idea of what is going on in the world, but occasionally I happen to see some of the things they are drawing and writing there and it gives me the conviction that they are all living in ash cans. It makes me glad I cannot hear what they are singing.”

— Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation  

“It’s Friday.  Sunday’s a-comin’!”

–– Tony Campolo

* * * * * * * * * *

For the past half-century the church in America has been caught up in a desperate, breathless, and mostly losing race – a race to stay “relevant” to the surrounding culture.

There are at least three big problems with this.  In the first place, there’s the difficulty of trying to hit a moving target.  Other than the fact that culture is generally “progressing” on a steep downward curve, it’s hard to predict exactly where it’s headed or what it’s going to do next.  Under the circumstances, most church leaders (who aren’t particularly adept at analyzing social trends) have no choice except to operate from a reactive rather than a proactive base.  As a result, they’re usually running about five to ten years behind the times.

The second problem is more fundamental and more important than the first.  It has to do with the Pilgrim’s identity as a stranger and sojourner.  Foreigners are “irrelevant” by definition.  People who are simply “passing through” have no reason to pay much attention to the habits, attitudes, and practices of the natives.  Their home and destination are elsewhere.

The third difficulty is inherent in the meaning of the word itself.  Of necessity, “relevance” is measured in terms of some outside reference point.  One can only be “relevant” to someone or something else.  “Relevance,” like a planet’s orbit around the sun, takes shape around a defining center of gravity.  The concept is devoid of significance until you’ve identified this nucleus.

For the Pilgrim there is only one defining center of gravity, and it never changes.  It entails no necessity of predicting or following future trends because it is, in and of itself, both present and future.  As a matter of fact, it can be described as the presence of the future.  As author Jacques Ellul explains,

The Christian is essentially a man who lives in expectation.  This expectation is directed towards the return of the Lord which accompanies the end of time, the Judgment, and proclaims the Kingdom of God …  Consequently it means bringing the future into the present as an explosive force.  It means believing that future events are more important and truer than present events; it means understanding the present in the light of the future, dominating it by the future, in the same way as the historian dominates the past.[1]

Clearly, there is a great deal about our unstable and ever-shifting society that simply fades into insignificance when viewed from this perspective.  In light of the reality of the Kingdom – which is not only coming but, according to the Master Himself, is already “at hand” – it matters very little who is in the White House, which team wins the Super Bowl, what the Supreme Court has to say, or where the Dow Jones Industrial Average lands.  To concern ourselves with such petty stuff is to be like that “ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”[2]

Does this mean that the Pilgrim doesn’t care about culture or society?  Absolutely not, for the Pilgrim cares deeply about people, and people are what culture and society are ultimately all about.  But it does imply that the Pilgrim approaches people consistently from the perspective of the Eternal Present.  He has no interest in the latest fad or trend.

It is, of course, more than likely that the kosmos will regard this approach as “irrelevant” or “dated.”  But then that’s of little consequence.  For “the kosmos,” as we know, “is passing away, and the lusts thereof; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

_______________________________________

[1] Jacques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom, 49, 51.

[2] C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory.”

“Let us not ascribe that which is the effect of [God’s] truth, only to the good-will of men; it is God’s act, ‘not by might, nor by power’ nor by weapons of war, or strength of horses, ‘but by the Spirit of the Lord.’”

—  Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, “A Discourse Upon God’s Knowledge.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It’s difficult to understand the current love affair with weapons on the part of so many people, especially those who claim to be disciples of the defenseless Lamb of God. Surely there is only one way to explain this baffling phenomenon: it’s yet another example of the infiltration and corruption of New Testament values by good old-fashioned Americanism.

This is not the way of the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim professes not only to believe in a Savior who clearly eschewed violence, pugilism, and all forms of worldly power, but to follow His example in everyday life and all kinds of practical situations. We are talking here about the example of a Man who “gave His back to the smiters and His cheeks to those who plucked out the beard;” of whom the prophet Isaiah writes that “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.”

It’s not surprising, of course, that some of the denser among His disciples thought He had changed His mind on this point when, in speaking figuratively about the hardships that lay ahead, He said, “Let him who has no sword sell his garment and buy one.” Apparently they were already one step ahead of Him. “Look, Lord!” they cried, stumbling over one another to show off their foresightedness. “Here are two swords!” His reply? “It is enough.”

If Christ had seriously intended that His followers should arm themselves, it’s hard to see how two swords could possibly have been “enough.” Two is certainly not “enough” for today’s worldly-minded weapons enthusiast. If anyone had had the slightest doubt about whether Jesus meant His words to be taken literally, that uncertainty should have been forever dispelled when, about an hour later, one of these armed heroes drew one of the two swords and used it to cut off the right ear of the high priest’s servant. The Master’s response at that critical moment was the same as before: “Enough! Put away your sword, for those who take the sword will perish by the sword!”

He was right. Enough is enough. For those who desire to live the Pilgrim life, it’s time to recognize this fundamental truth and remember that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” It’s time to say with the psalmist, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God.”

Let’s be perfectly clear.  This is not a political issue. It has nothing to do with “liberalism” or “conservatism,” “Democrats” or “Republicans.” It’s a spiritual rather than a constitutional problem. At heart, it’s a question of making up our minds where our confidence really lies. It’s a matter of staying faithful to the One who is our only true Defense.

As for Americans and their government … well, they must do what they think best. But where the Pilgrim is concerned, there are no two ways about it: he has no choice except to part ways with those who put their trust in the weapons of this world.

                 “Be it done to me according to Thy word.”

                          —Mary, Luke 1:38

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“Heroism” is at a premium nowadays.  Perhaps that’s because everybody is so painfully aware that we live in a decidedly unheroic age.  News commentators are quick to slap the label “hero” on all kinds of unsuspecting victims:  firefighters who fight fires, police officers who fight crime, airline pilots who land airplanes in difficult situations, and lots of other workers who simply do their best to carry out the tasks they’ve been trained to perform.

You’ve probably noticed that most of these people deny being “heroes.”  From a certain perspective they’re absolutely right ­– after all, there’s nothing especially “heroic” about doing your job.  But in another sense it would be fair to say that their humble protests are out of place here.  Their modesty, however commendable, is in this case merely irrelevant.  That’s because real heroism isn’t about doing something.  It’s about being done to.  The true “hero” is not the person who drums up enough gumption, courage, or initiative to charge into the breach and tackle the impossible.  He’s just an ordinary human being to whom something extraordinary happens – and who does his best to respond in the only way he knows how.

This kind of “heroism” is what Pilgrim passion is all about.  Passion is a word that has been widely misunderstood.  Like vision, it’s been reinvented in our time to suit the needs and interests of corporate America.  In this case, the original significance has been all but completely obscured.  In the minds of most of our contemporaries, passion is associated primarily with erotic ardor, intense excitement, enthusiasm, uncontainable emotion, and (as a result) decisive action.  But these are only secondary derivations of the word’s root meaning.

The Latin noun passio (a cognate of the Greek pathos) is associated with the verb patior, “to undergo, suffer, endure.”  In English the original meaning is best preserved in the phrase “The Passion of the Christ.”  Christ was not passionate in the way a modern-day lover, salesman, junior executive, or football coach is “passionate.”  He was passionate in the sense that He endured suffering and agony.  Something huge and horrific happened to Him, and He responded by receiving it.  It’s conceivable that He might not have chosen this path of His own accord – indeed, He prayed earnestly in the garden that the cup might pass from Him.  But in the end He accepted it because there was no other way to go.  In the same way, the passionate person is not the one who gets himself sufficiently fired up to take the bull by the horns and rush right in where angels fear to tread.  On the contrary, the passionate person is passive.  The two words are intimately related.

Perhaps we should have made this point clear before ever setting out on our journey.  No one takes the Pilgrim path of his own volition.  Who would embrace meekness, weakness, madness, selflessness, emptiness, defeat, and death of his own free choice?  No one; as Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “No man can choose such a life for himself.  No man can call himself to such a destiny.”[i]  The Pilgrim does it for one reason and one reason only:  something happens to him.  Something compels him.  Something convinces him that there is no alternative, no other pathway open to him.  He makes this terrible choice because he is chosen.  He hears the insistent and uncompromising call – “Follow Me!” – and realizes that it will not go away until it meets with compliance.

This, in the parlance of the Pilgrim, is what it means to be passionate.  Pilgrim passion is a matter of being cornered and conquered by the relentless Hound of Heaven.  It’s about saying, as Peter said in response to his Master’s challenge, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You alone have the words of eternal life.”

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[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.