Convergence on Georgia, A Pilgrimage Slowly and Widely Taken

The countdown has begun! In five days, I depart on a literary pilgrimage of writers from across the country, converging on Andalusia Farm, home of the great American writer Flannery O'Connor. This is a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity, where after writing to each other and getting to know each other from our written works, we are joining as pilgrims on a trip that is both spiritual and recreational.

One experience this past weekend made me realize the spirit in which to take this trip. When I took a sewing project over to Grandma’s house this past weekend, life slowed down for a few hours and I was aware of how things happened at a slower pace. First off, just driving out into the countryside and away from the whizzing traffic and the speed of work brought me a sense of calm. In the city there is always noise and activity and I always feel as though I have to be doing something and doing something fast! But driving out to the country changes your perspective on things. The woods is like a curtain so that you somehow lose track of time, or time seems somehow irrelevant out here. Surprisingly, nature seems to be in no rush. 

Inside my grandparents’ house, life also unfolded at a slower pace. And since it’s been a few years since I tried my hands with a sewing machine, I was a little slow at that. It was a blessing to have to slow down, to concentrate and to approach the process slowly and carefully. Grandma was my first teacher of the craft. I used to spend hours at her house, learning how to sew an apron, then a skirt, then a full-length dress that won a merit award at the county fair. Now Grandma was coaching me again, helping me fit the dress, pin it in place and plan out the steps to tailor the dress to fit me - a custom fit! 

I forgot, too, how much patience it takes to just thread a needle, to spin a bobbin, to measure and pin, to press and straighten, to stitch in a line, to pull out stitches because I made an error, to restart and retry, until finally, I exclaimed, “I think it's done! Look at this, Grandma. Did I do it right?” And we laughed together, yes, it turned out as I had hoped and it looked lovely! But first came all the fussing to make sure it fit me just right and that my stitches wouldn’t show and that they were the right tension for the knit fabric of the dress. From start to finish, it really was a lesson in patience. At the end of the evening, after sharing a supper meal with my grandparents, I took the dress home feeling grateful for my grandmother’s wisdom and expertise, pride in my accomplishment and a special ownership of the dress that now was fitted just for me.

 

In the south, things will also move at a slower pace. Not only because I will be on vacation (really!), but also because people down there move at a slower pace. I found this out when I went down to Tennessee on mission and had to learn how to slow down. I need this vacation to not be mighty roller coaster ride, but rather, a journey "slowly and widely" taken, as one of my writer friends said. In other words, a vacation that doesn't whiz by on an agenda. One where I don’t worry so much about everything we do but about how we do it. A deep, pondering walk along the sandy shore rather than a noisy race over the water on a speedboat. 

Yes, I need to take this journey in true, southern style, because, as a fellow writer told me, back when this trip was just a hopeful seed in my head, "That pilgrimage, slowly and widely taken, is a book!"

And so I come...with my ears open to hear the bells of Gethsemani as Merton heard them and with my eyes wide in wonder over Manley Pointer, the peacock, so I may stand transfixed as the priest character in the story "The Displaced Person," who exclaimed with jaw gaping, "Christ will come like that!" 

I'm excited to touch the tangibles of Flannery's home after reading about her for so long and to see the red sun set over the dark woods "like an elevated Host drenched in blood and when it sank out of sight, it left a line in the sky like a red clay road hanging over the trees" (from "A Temple of the Holy Ghost").  

Like Flannery, the writer, I am seeking to plant my writing in the broader landscape of my country, and like Thomas Merton, whose abbey we will visit, I am on a soul-searching quest to find my purpose in life and to discover how God wants to use my writing to impact the world. 

I come as a pilgrim with a story, looking to enter into others' stories and to see all of ours in a broader light. I come with prayers and hopes and dreams. I come to be changed, challenged, enlightened. 

In an excerpt from The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, Paul Elie comments:

"A pilgrimage is a journey undertaken in the light of a story. A great event has happened; the pilgrim hears the reports and goes in search of the evidence, aspiring to be an eyewitness. The pilgrim seeks not only to confirm the experience of others firsthand but to be changed by the experience. 

"Pilgrims often make the journey in company, but each must be changed individually; they must see for themselves, each with his or her own eyes. And as they return to ordinary life the pilgrims must tell others what they saw, recasting the story in their own terms."

To learn more about my fellow pilgrims, visit their blogs:

Roxane blogs at Peace Garden Writer
Karen blogs at Write 2 the Point
Beth blogs at The Goodness of the Garden...All Year Round
I will also have the joy of meeting Kaye Park Hinckley, who is releasing a short story collection Birds of a Feather through Wiseblood Books in July.

 Stay tuned! And may the rest of your June be "slowly and widely" taken, too.