Tonight I read the blog of a wise, gentle man whom I am privileged to know. He wrote about transitions and pilgrimage. "Daily transition is the substance of a pilgrimage," he wrote.
That got me thinking about the last seven, eight, nine, ten months of my life. Every day has been a day in transition--transition to new hope, new ideas, new community, new self-reliance. Every day has been a transition from old doubts, old fears, old community, old codependency. Tonight I look back on these last many months and I realize I've been on pilgrimage this whole time, moving away from the place I started and into a new place. The land I've discovered has a new, calmer joy in it. I've found quiet, abiding trust there. I've found my mirror image in a deep lake, and there's a smile playing on my lips. I've come a long, long way, and it's hurt. It's hurt so much I couldn't breathe. It's hurt so much I thought I couldn't continue. But in these many months, I've crept forward, one step at a time, powered by strength I didn't know I had. And I've found myself looking over an unfamiliar landscape--one in which I'm a newcomer, but one in which I'm also welcome. It's a strange, novel land in which I'm free to be who I am without apologizing for it. I don't have to hide. I don't have to prove myself in a thousand ways. I can come as I am, simply as I am, and be wrapped in welcome. Because it's my own hospitality I'm receiving--my own open arms. I think this is what it means to be a pilgrim: to discover yourself at home through the course of a journey, even if the journey takes you miles away from where you started. I am home.
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