The Discomfort of Pilgrimages (Creative Writing Assignment #23)

Note: The following quotes are all the creation of the author, and do not actually refer to any real document.


“It is said that after seven years of trials St. Abbo reached the foot of the mountain upon which Yehsalva the Elder had been crucified. Before he ascended, he knelt to give prayer and thank God for his safe passage. As he bent forward an asp emerged from a hollow in the earth and struck him in his ankle. Lying prostrate on the ground, St. Abbo was visited by an angel of the LORD who offered to give him the strength to climb the mountain and finish his pilgrimage.

“’This final trial is far too simple’, he replied. ‘My pilgrimage was to this asp. It was for him and every previous calamity that I first ventured forth. You of all should know that it was from the foot of this mountain that I began.’”

- Tykelmenos of Crete
The Book of One Thousand Steps


I am in the Basilica of St. Peter’s. Above me gold crowds the opulent vault, trailing down the pillars toward the voluminous eyes of the pilgrims and tourists. I watch them come around the corner and through the door. Their cameras are already blazing like automatic rifles. This is one of the world’s navels of spirituality and yet I feel a bitter anger when I am elbowed in the small of my back by an old woman with furiously red lipstick, or when the German tour guide leads her duckling tourists to the exact spot I have fought so hard to maintain. The ridiculousness of my anger provokes me to even greater anger. “Not now, not here,” I plead with myself.

A pilgrim is a person who battles against his own wrath. He lures it out with the trials of the journey, then he slays it.

* * *

“Let misfortune be as a friend to you. Through misfortune a pilgrimage is born.”

- Askinof Jerimiahikov
“Following the Saints: A Guide to the Perplexed”


As the train drew into the station we looked up from books and sleep to see that the clouds, our constants companions, had finally made good upon their promise. Even now the tree branches were sagging under the weight of the rain. We looked at each other: the bare arms and legs, progeny of the Italian sun. No one had anything besides a light cardigan. Tentatively hands reached for bags. With a gasp the doors opened and the smell of wet leaves gushed in. We stood watching droplets cascading down the doorframe.

A voice behind said sarcastically, “Well, at least we will remember this”.

The pilgrim is a person who remembers through discomfort.

* * *

“When the Metropolitan of Novgorod toured Rezin he was shown a man who proclaimed himself to be a hermit. The Metropolitan looked upon the man and spoke.

“’But brother, a hermit lives apart from humanity in the wilderness. You live in a mighty city.’

“’ Yet is there any other place that can cause greater loneliness than the mighty city?”’

- Grom the Scribbler
Chronicles of the Metropolitans


It is Notte Bianca and I cannot move. One arm is tightly pressed against my stomach, the other is held up in a contortion that I never thought my tendons capable of. I stand on the stairs to the Capitoline Hill. What I am waiting for in this line I do not know. I cannot ever remember being so close to so many people. The man next to me is smoking a cigarette, but I might as well have been smoking it since our faces were only inches apart. I have never been so close to so many people, but I have also never felt loneliness like this. Here in this crowd among the dozen languages that are being spoken I cannot understand anything, here among all these people who have never seen me and will never see me again.

The pilgrim is a person who is isolated when others surround him. The pilgrim is most alone when he is with his own kind.

* * *

“We spent the night under a bridge to escape the rain. Near dawn we awoke to find the swollen river rushing past our legs. I had never before felt such fear. Why didn’t I have Adel teach me how to swim?”

- John of Salingary
The Search for Telimare


When we exited the bus my throat was raw, my cold was gaining ground inside of me. I searched the exterior of the silent city for a fountain. Soon my search was rewarded when coming around a corner I heard the gurgle of water greeting water, that jovial conversation that so many of the fountains in Rome celebrate. Bracing one of my hands against the side of the fountain I leaned forward and allowed the water to flow through my mouth. The tendrils of cold wove their way into my skull and face. I then drank greedily. After I was finished one of my companions pointed to a sign beside the fountain. “Non potable. Do not drink water!”


In a silent city,
Water is laughing constantly,
It has a secret

The pilgrim is someone who chooses poorly. A pilgrimage follows the wrong answers and ends at the correct one.