A world of solid rain out here, the subway is full and flooded, there is music in my ears as me and my umbrella wander through the falling colours and the pushing wind
Spiraling down the white tiled stairs through the white tiled labyrinth of white tiled tubes the roar of snakes under the city are filled with faces, watching the red yellow and blue panels rocking with the rhythm and climbing silently into the blinding light, they don’t mention their journey when they reach their destination
Stuck in the lift an hour the globe shinks to five people their stories and the bag of rubbish in the middle, the firemen wrench us out and we remember with fresh eyes

If you were looking back to the cookingpots in Egypt you would have an opportunity to return but instead we look on to find the altars in the desert place, to find the treasure in the sand and silence, moon and wind; we look on
Dustyfeet, there are macedonian pilgrims in the basement and fins baking carrotbread in the kitchen and hookah smoke curling to the ceiling and
new art on the walls here

We are still arriving.

Crossing lines

I sat, and I said to him, it is like
the lines on her face are songlines but no one is reading the music.

He looked over his newspaper, and he asked me,
but what is the liturgy of this space here anyway and where should it be written?
And the girl on the other side flipped her mirror and she said,
if everything is text then what is the texture of txt?
I think maybe,
she got her wires crossed, it’s the fault of the network -
but anyway,
besides, she said, continuing in her vein
all the sign-posts are pointing post-signs, but
if this is all words here, then did hope get buried under dictionaries? my house is built of encyclopedias, that may be true but the weight of the books can still crush a man, a woman, even a child

Look further down the track, the man replied, still perusing the news columns, there is the level crossing - they wouldn’t necessarily double-cross you but we may be star-crossed, who knows:
They say there is a microwave on the radio in the car on the road under the bridge over the river of sound in my ears beneath my hands in your hands,
and that somewhere in there is a subtle twist that underlines just how it’s all a giant card game and we’re all winners and losers and nothing really matters. Noughts and crosses, strike a line through and take it apart from the sidelines.

But I am just not so sure, she said, after a moment had passed
There is blood under the bridge, a child is drowning there and these words even stretched out will not make a lifeline.

In this era of fragmentation and dispersal, we still find ourselves connected to strangers in this incredible, mysterious way (family). We arrive alone, but into a network of unchosen others, to whom we often remain joined in some way throughout our lifetimes. But where previously, this bundle of oddballs would have normally bound us tightly to the place we were born, now the generalized scattering allows us the choice of moving far away, of discovering new terrains and peoples, of expanding our horizons and worldviews… and of losing connection with the ones we were originally gifted with: of becoming indifferent to our hosts.

But it seems to me that this whole set-up is also ideally suited to a kind of pilgrimage with a pretty fiery edge; just like the Hebrew nomads practised by seasons - a pilgrimage back to our families.

It’s a simple idea… people have often spoken of learning through making a pilgrimage - learning from anyone and anything you encounter and embodying your own personal and spiritual journey.
This experiment is based on that principle, but the destinations will be less appealing to our wanderlusting souls and more stretching; they are familiar, (although often unknown), perhaps mundane, ordinary, unexotic houses in quite unromantic towns and cities. They will be wherever our families are.
But part of the challenge will also be to discover stories of our own origin, forgotten treasure buried in folds of time, and there is much life here. Also there are opportunities to rekindle warmth within communities we have inherited without even having had to ask; to make friends, to find discover the lost, forgotten, often lonely we can otherwise spend so long trying to find.

So… in shorter words:

For anyone wanting to partake the challenge is this: –

To visit; stay with; spend time with less well known relations, especially of older generations. To collect stories. To meet at the end and swap what we’ve learnt and experienced over a bonfire and marshmallows.

Let me know if you are up for it.

If something of the dynamics of a lifetime of journeying can be summed up in the movement of breathing, then the inward breath might be called welcome (hospitality, making space for otherness, encounter and change); and the outward breath go (pilgrimage, sojourning, travel and change).

But if it is true as I have written that our culture tends naturally towards openness, embracing the new and movement, then we will probably find pilgrimage easier than hospitality. It will be easier to follow our restless spirits’ longings into adventure than to invite others into our own spaces, to identify with the places we are in, to commit, belong and to deepen. Only, the one without the other does not allow deep change – it will remain shallow and superficial, or become static and immobile.

For this reason, some way needs to be found for us to practise our adventurous pilgrimages with sacrificial hospitality.

One possibility is thinking in terms of seasons, of knowing that going involves coming back… others might include carrying in your backpack the values of openness to the ‘other’, taking unnecessary time to notice, being prepared to be interrupted.

Another one is a new experiment I am hoping to try, others are warmly invited…