The feast after the fast
This evening begins the Muslim month of Ramadan. It’s a season of fasting during daylight hours, sharing pre-dawn and post-dusk meals with family and friends, spiritual reflection, and giving donations for the poor. There are nearly 2,000,000,000 (two billion) Muslims in the world, about ¼ of humanity. Columbus’ large Somali…
Knowing the place (again) for the first time
A number of these daily Pilgrimage devotionals have reminded me of these words from TS Elliot: We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time. – from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets I first encountered this…
Red and Green and In Between
For the last 6-7 years I’ve had a color printout of the 1930s-era redlining map of Columbus on the bulletin board in my church office. Like all good maps, it serves as a useful guide for understanding where we are and how we got here. In this case, it illuminates what areas of our…
Riding With the Wind (Pilgrimage Reflection)
After I graduated from Bluffton University, I decided to sign up for Mennonite Voluntary Service with a placement in Hutchinson, Kansas. In many ways, this whole endeavor was a pilgrimage because part of the reason I went to the “wilderness” of Kansas was to try to figure out what life…
Midweek Blog: Lent = Pilgrimage
What’s the difference between a tourist and a pilgrim? I think I first asked myself this question while studying in Cairo, Egypt during my senior year of college (half a lifetime ago, oh my). The semester included trips to many common destinations – the pyramids, a boat trip on the…
