homeward bound.

so most of us are belted and buckled aboard a plane about to take-off.  Martin is driving south in Agnes.  Mackenzie is through security and waiting for her flight to Belfast and I’m waiting for my car in the airport ready to head to Grandmas.  

and so the adventures begin again.   and the pilgrimage begins a new leg.  

Martin, Mackenzie and I sat and had a coffee after we sent everyone else through security.   This is always the strangest part.  The ending of one journey and the beginning of another. 

I imagine it will be a hard adjustment for all of us over the next few days regardless of where we are.  We were indeed given the sweet gift of community in the last 14 days.   Community doesn’t always happen on pilgrimage.   Being traveling compansions doesn’t always equate to being community.   

Sometimes its hard enough to transition back into life after pilgrimage without the gift of community.  So I sit here and pray for grace to carry us home.    And grace to lead us on this pilgrim’s way.  

So go easy on us — it will be hard to articulate this journey.  We can tell you what we did.  We can tell you what we saw.   But to describe the experience of God and of community would be like trying to describe the experience of riding a roller coaster.  

Martin has to drive 4 hours or more in the mini-bus by himself.    Mackenzie is back on the 6th.  I’m back on the 7th.   So it will be a while still until we are all home.  

but then again I think it would be fair to say that at some point in the last 14 days we each found home to be a place that holds no geographical boundaries but is held somewhere between the realms of Heaven and Earth.   

So I pray that perhaps now we are actually headed in the right direction to  make it home - our real home – a home that is more than the comforts of our own bed and shower.  

“After all our exploring and journeying we will return home to know it as if for the first time.” – TS Eliot