Step 2: Crossing the Threshold
This is the second post in a series from A Practical and Spiritual Handbook for Pilgrims by Will Peterson. Read the first post here.
“How lovely your dwelling,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul yearns and pines
for the courts of the Lord.”
Psalm 84 is one of two psalms that deals directly with pilgrimage; it is believed to have been sung by the faithful on their journeys to Jerusalem, and it continues to be appropriate for Christian pilgrimages today.
It is one thing to be prepared for a pilgrimage. It is another to become that pilgrim. The transition into the liminal space is made with a single step out of the house and into the wider world. Would that every pilgrim start his or her travel as the singer of this psalm does: with wild joy.
The threshold held immense significance to the people of the Bible. It was the entrance to the home, to the place of hospitality. It was also the exit into a world filled with danger and unknowns. Pilgrims become such when they step out of their homes and begin their journey. Huston Smith writes, “To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life.” Please, be aware of your changed relationship to daily life when you take that step.
You have chosen to become displaced. Experience demonstrates that even a pilgrimage to a place within one’s typical locale creates a strangeness when one sets out on foot to a place only reached by car before. Shake off the worries of the home as you step out of it. Your relationship to the world around you has changed.
A short section for the shortest section of the pilgrimage, but one carrying with it tremendous excitement. Do not rush through it!
