Wednesday March 17, 2010
Following the footsteps of the saints
By Jim Taylor
St. Patrick is not the only Irish saint, although he is by far the best known. When Joan and I went on a “pilgrimage” through Ireland four years ago, we met St. Brendan.
Not in person, of course. According to legend, St. Brendan reached North America about 500 years before the Vikings. In the 1970s, author Tim Severin showed that Brendan’s voyage was possible by sailing a leather-clad boat, like the one Brendan would have used, across the Atlantic to Newfoundland.
For 15 centuries, pilgrims have come to the Dingle Peninsula, as far west as you can go in Ireland, to plod the pilgrims’ path from the sea to the top of Mount Brandon — the ancient Irish weren’t much concerned about consistency in spelling
Part of the walk was fairly easy, across a ridge, down the other side. Our group merely had to watch out for sheep droppings, slippery mud, and an incredibly prickly plant called gorse, furze, or whins.
The other part involved climbing Mount Brandon, which rises roughly 3100 feet straight up from sea level. That may not sound high, compared to the Rockies, for example. But when I hike in the Rockies, I typically start at about 6,000 feet, and seldom climb more than another 2,000 feet.
Ascending through the fog
Six of us climbed Mount Brandon. The historic trail zig-zagged up the rugged slopes, marked by weathered white crosses – the traditional “Stations of the Cross.” But fog had rolled in from the sea. From each station, we could rarely see the next one ahead. We never did see the top, until we got there.
We just tramped on, following a route marked out by who knows how many millions of pious feet.
Later, after we rejoined the main group, we were asked to identify symbols that had made this part of our pilgrimage memorable.
My friend David Smith, now a retired minister living in the Fraser Valley, chose the fog as his symbol.
It was an eerie feeling, he explained, climbing into the fog. We could not see where we were going; we just had to carry on in faith that the next station, the next marker, would show up eventually. We had to trust the people who had gone before us, trust that they knew the way, even if we didn’t.
My symbol was the footprints on the trail. We all wore hiking boots, or some equivalent. But I kept feeling that underneath the marks of modern heels lay the footsteps of people wearing sandals, perhaps. Or crude leather moccasins. Even bare feet, toes gripping the slippery earth, the sharp gravel, the tufts of lush emerald grass…
For both of us, these images spoke not just of the day’s hike, but of life, of faith. We cannot always see ahead to our destination, nor how we will get there. We have to trust those who have gone before, as they trusted those who went before them.
Even if we travel our paths through life with the help of science and technology that was not available to our predecessors.
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Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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Your Turn
Last week’s column looked at the ways simple beginnings evolve into much more complex institutions. Wayne Holst in Calgary picked that column up for his “Colleagues’ List” blog. I’m always grateful for these expansions of my audience to new readers.
John Shearman felt that the issue could be seen in a slightly different light: “I would not call the issue you discussed this week as reformation, and the subsequent development as hierarchical bureaucracies, but as institutionalization followed by the deconstructing of institutions. It seems to be a pattern of all societies and cultures. It takes more time in some than in others, especially in the hinterland beyond Canada’s urban centres.
“India and Hinduism is one contemporary example. Modern industrialization of India — through professional education, information technology, and democratic government that changes the power structure every decade or so — is in competition with the historical culture of Hinduism and its strict class society with a divinely ordained caste system.
“I see ahead a similar transformation of Canadian society as our three major metropolitan areas, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, become major centres of multiculturalism with the steady increase of non-English and non-French populations to a majority status. As a result we shall have to deconstruct the institutions that have been dominated thus far by English or French culture and language. New institutions that include many European, Asian, and black influences will have to be created. This is already changing the appearance, the philosophies, the politics and practices of local governments in these urban centres.
“If the recent Statistics Canada data is to be believed, such change will go on at an ever faster rate. In Toronto, for instance, Italian cultural influences are strongly evident in candidates for the city council election in November, just as the Jewish influence was felt a generation ago. Something similar is true in Montreal where the influence of Haitian and other Franco-African cultures is coming to the fore. I suspect that South Asian and Chinese cultures are similarly changing the Vancouver scene.”
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About My Books
Over the years, I think I have written (or ghostwritten) about 17 books. Several of them (mercifully) are no longer available from any source. But here’s a listing of those that are still available. The ones marked “WLB”, you can order from Wood Lake Books, either on-line at http://www.woodlakebooks.com, or call Wood Lake Books directly at 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-654-5129 (Pilgrim Press) in the U.S. The ones marked “JT only” are now available only directly from me — as collector’s items, I price them all at $25 Cdn.
- Everyday God: Insights from the Ordinary
- Two Worlds in One
- Last Chance
- Seeing the Mystery: Exploring Christian Faith through the Eyes of Artists,
- Surviving Death
- Everyday Psalms
- Everyday Parables
- Letters to Stephen
- A New Understanding of Virtue and Vice
- Precious Days and Practical Love: Caring for an Aging Parent
- John for Beginners
- Spirituality of Pets
- Charlene Fairchild’s United Online site,
- David Keating’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Alva Wood’s satiric stories about small town attitudes and bumbling bureaucrats are not particularly religious, but good fun anyway; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
(1981 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1985, JT only)
(1989, JT only)
(1990, with William S. Taylor, JT only)
(1993, JT only)
(1994 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1995 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1996, WLB, $17.95)
(1997, WLB, $19.95)
(1999, WLB, $19.95)
(2001, WLB, $11.95)
(2006, WLB, $39)
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.
I write a second column each Sunday, called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justic issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, at the address above, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca
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PROMOTION STUFF…
If you know someone else who might like to receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or, if you wish, forward them a copy of this column. But please put your name on it, so they don’t think I’m sending out spam.
For a lighter look at life, faith, and the lectionary, I recommend my friend Ralph Milton’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it by sending a note to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
For other web links worth pursuing, try
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