Blisters and blessings

Recently, I received a gift.  It was a small paper crown, with one word written inside it - longanimity. It was the Sunday after the Epiphany.  The priest in the church I visited invited each member of the congregation to take one of these crowns from a basket, and to receive the word written therein as a gift from God, to be lived with all year.  I had to look up my word in the dictionary.  It means "A disposition to bear injuries patiently" or "calmness in the face of suffering and adversity."  I don't like my word.

But in the weeks since I received it, I've learned to live with it.  And I've realized that it has a lot to do with the way you deal with the way you travel through life.

We Christians often talk about that journey through life as being a pilgrimage.   However, I sometimes think that we use the word metaphorically, without thinking what pilgrimage is really like. When I think of pilgrimages, I think of richly colored medieval paintings, red and blue and green with gold leaf, people walking sturdily towards a golden-roofed city.

But in the last couple of years, I've walked two pilgrimage trails: St Cuthbert's Way in Scotland and north-eastern England, and Two Saints Way from Chester to Litchfield, also in England.  They have not been like the medieval pictures in my head.  My clothing is not rich red and blue and green with gold leaf.  I have well-worn gray boots, gray shorts, a washed out blue T-shirt, and a gray hat.  They're chosen for their practicality - they're quick to dry and don't show the dirt.

And my walking is not so sturdy, certainly not by the time I'm within sight of my destination.  Limping would be a better word for it.  No matter how good my preparations, walking 15 or so miles a day means that I get blisters.  You learn to live with them, but you can't forget them.

But that's not the whole story of pilgrimage.  When I crested the last hill before the sea, and saw Holy Island, when I received the Eucharist in a church where my ancestors were married and buried, when I stood on the windswept moors where St Cuthbert visited his parishioners, when I received unexpected hospitality - a short car ride, a cup of tea, a pint of beer - I knew the tangible blessing of God.


The pilgrimage we are on as Christians is one characterized by both blisters and blessings.  Jesus never promised us that it would be easy.  In fact, he has invited us to take on his yoke, to bear the cross, to rejoice in suffering - not as some sort of masochistic hazing ritual, but as full participation in the often strenuous and sometimes costly work of God that, in the words of Romans 8:1-5, produces endurance and character and hope, and in the end, a share in the glory of God.  Or, in the words of the well known hymn,
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
By the cross are sanctified;
Peace is there that knows no measure,
Joys that through all time abide.
John Bowring, 1825

Longanimity is about the blisters.  And it seems that as soon as one heals, my shoes begin to rub again.    But every time I crest another hill, I know the even greater blessings of the glorious grace of God.