PILGRIM WAYS
Theological Reflections By Henry Ralph Carse, Ph.D.
Part Five - Encounters
The soul of “sacred space” is the living encounter experienced there. My view, then, is that there is no “intrinsic” sanctity to a pilgrim shrine; a place becomes holy through a process of transformative meeting between “self” and “other.” Wherever pilgrims congregate, sharing their expectations of such transformations, there is increased probability that further encounters will occur. However, in interviews with pilgrims, I was struck by how often the most life-changing of these are framed by “shrine-less” places, or by off-the-beaten-path contexts.
Many of the dynamics of pilgrimage are mirrored in tourism. In his key sociological work - The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class – Dean MacCannell describes an intentional journey as a “social production.” In the case of pilgrimage, the “production cast” includes the individual pilgrim, the pilgrim group, pastors and facilitators, local guides, and a host of other characters like bus drivers, shop keepers, local clergy at various shrines, and people of all faiths met along the way. Christian pilgrims may be seeking a “divine milieu,” but they are also certainly rubbing shoulders with their fellow human beings at every turn. Whether any of these unscripted discourses becomes spiritually significant is a question of deep theological import.
Victor and Edith Turner (Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture) wrote of communitas – a spontaneous sharing of deep fellowship among pilgrims. This principle, however, did not play as important a role as I had expected in my interviews. Perhaps individualistic norms among the English-speaking pilgrims I spoke with were a factor. Whatever the reason, I found a much stronger tendency to form bonds – on a one-to-one basis - with those seen as “other.” Pilgrims might have significant conversations, for example, with local guides (usually Jewish, Muslim or Oriental Christian), local hosts (for meals and home visits), or apparently “random” folk.
For devout Christians wanting to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, encounters with Muslims and Jews can be disturbing. One pilgrim, Trudy, refused to enter the Muslim shrine of the Dome of the Rock – which she called a “Muslim temple” – on the grounds that “they don’t believe in Jesus!” Waiting outside, as the rest of her group visited the place, Trudy had an experience of encounter with Jesus, who came to her as if to support and comfort her:
I really saw him, he was there. And he had his hands out towards me and he was weeping. And I knew… I was with him… I could have touched him… It wasn’t imagination, he was truly there, no doubt.
The intensity of Trudy’s encounter raises important questions about authenticity and moral intelligence, as well as interfaith dilemmas that are difficult to harmonize and resolve. Meetings with Jews, especially in the context of Zionism in the Holy Land, are equally fraught with such issues. Social and religious stereotypes are everywhere evident in the pilgrim’s gaze.
“Jerusalem Syndrome” is a clinical term indicating an ambivalent pilgrimage phenomenon in the Holy Land. This syndrome is a form of psychotic decompensation, thoroughly studied by Israeli psychiatrists like Dr. Yair Bar-El. The syndrome seems to be “induced by proximity to the holy places of Jerusalem,” and so can be seen as a form of encounter. Sadly, individuals who suffer from Jerusalem Syndrome are unable to maintain balance, and miss the opportunity for a lasting spiritual transformation. Instead, upon return to their home environments, they forget everything.
By far the majority of pilgrims, however, have positive, enduring, and soul-changing encounters while in the Holy Land, and enjoy significant spiritual growth during the reflection period upon returning home. For these pilgrims, the radical “otherness” experienced on the pilgrim way is experienced as an unmediated and surprising encounter with Christ – beyond normative definitions. The very diversity of the faith groupings that are met along the way enhances the sense of Christ’s universal saving presence. As one anonymous pilgrim wrote:
Holy Christ… I thank you for never finding one religion more acceptable than another. And though it tires the world that there is not one faith and that faith theirs, it in no way tires you, and for that I thank you!
For most pilgrims, the deepest significance of their “Christ-in-Other” encounters takes time to emerge and have a spiritual impact on their lives. For this reason, it is the homecoming that is perhaps the most crucial formative chapter in the entire pilgrim journey.
To be continued…