1 - CONTEMPLATIVE
Alta Via del Granito, Dolomiti
For the past several years, I have been starting my days with Lectio365, a devotional app produced by 24-7 Prayer, based in the UK. I spend ten minutes with my husband and my daily cappuccino, listening to the reading of this devotional, where we pray the Bible. It is much more liturgical than I am accustomed to, growing up in Protestant America. We’ve been free-wheeling it and shooting from the hip, following the leading of the Holy Spirit for most of my adult life. I am glad for this life experience, but I welcome something new.
We are discovering the benefits of praying the same prayers and reading the same scriptures each day with other believers around the world, repeating simple phrases to the beautiful mystical music in the background of this audio devotional. It indeed feels like meditation, and it calms and recenters us before we dive into the fray of daily life and business (I especially love it when the reader is Izwe Nkosi, because he rolls his r’s so beautifully when he says, “re-center our scattered senses” each morning). I don’t think I would have liked it twenty years ago, as I would have labeled it a lazy way of spending time with the Lord, being read to and led through what to pray, what to say. But I’ve had a more consistent devotional life doing it this way than I ever have. I truly hate to miss it, and I love spending time with the Lord in this way each morning. I always heard about going from “duty to delight” as a young Christian, but it was never like that for me until recently.
I have often found substitutes for this level of intimacy with the Lord…I love serving Him, doing things for people, even praying in my car, attending church, being in the fellowship of other believers, having great conversations about faith, taking on big tasks in the name of Jesus, giving, hosting. This contemplative experience though is new and fresh and I like it.
Pete Greig, the founder and one of the main writers of Lectio365 took us along on a 3-week pilgrimage through Scotland recently. He defines pilgrimage as, “a walk with God in search of God.” I had never heard of St. Aidan, in whose steps he was following. I have learned about Celtic Christianity and have found it fascinating to hear about what monastic life and evangelism looked like in the 7th century. (Isn’t it amazing that people were walking around telling others about Jesus even that long ago? And that if they hadn’t, we may not have access to the gospel now? What a precious responsibility we have to pass it on, especially to the next generation through our families. Pastor Pete says, “To connect with something that is over a millennium old and worked then and works now and is still the same truth - I find that not just invigorating but hopeful.”)
I have been challenged this month to stop, to still my mind, to reflect on the Psalms, to apply them to my life and thinking. I’ve also considered for the first time what a pilgrimage might look like for myself, if it is something worth doing even though it feels very un-productive, un-Western. This constant tug towards productivity, to prove to myself and others that I have made “the most of my time” is something I have become more aware of. In my heart, I know this is a modern way of viewing my walk with God, but it is SO hard to separate myself from it! I think it has been a constant message in my faith communities to take advantage of every opportunity to express my faith by my works. We give lip service to the doctrine of “grace alone” but our actions describe something else. “Serving” God is the language we use a lot. Words like meditating, contemplating, sitting with, worshiping, praying are often overruled by serving, doing, evangelizing, sharing, sacrificing. We need both sets of verbs.
And so my husband and I have started researching the combination of things we love (Italy + hiking to name a few) and dreaming about a pilgrimage in the Italian Alps this September. Our goal would be to go on a walk with God in search of God, as it were, in a place where it might feel easier to connect with God without the distractions of modern life. Another term Greig uses to describe Aidan’s Way is that it is a “thin place” where heaven and earth don’t seem so far apart. What could be better than the Dolomites?! We would aim to accomplish a certain path, to pray and think, to repeat phrases like, “Come Holy Spirit, fill me today,” to let God have access to our hearts and minds in a fresh way and to enjoy this culture we love so much along the way.
We’ve been thinking about specific goals:
PRAYER: To read a chapter of Praying like Monks, Living like Fools by Tyler Staton each morning to give us a task in prayer for that day. And to devote time to praying aloud for our family, our church, and our community as we hike.
BIBLE: To memorize Psalm 46. To begin The Bible Project Classroom course, Heaven & Earth.
CREATIVITY: To sketch or write something creative every day. To take amazing photos!
JOURNAL: To write down thoughts of the day as we settle in for the night.
UNPLUG: To be completely unplugged from our phones other than for the above uses.
The trek we have found is 4 days, 3 nights from rifugio (mountain hut) to rifugio where we’ll sleep and eat. Each day’s hike is 4-7 miles of rocky terrain, forests, and beautiful vistas. To say we’re both excited and intimidated would be understatements! We plan to write about all this and share it here.
(This post is the first in a series about our Pilgrimage in the Italian Dolomites.)