Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, NC

Mission trips to Mexico, South Dakota and Appalachia; pilgrimages to Scotland, Italy and the Holy Land; Youth Inquirers' journeys to the National Cathedral and Woodland retreats; young folks and older folks alike going to Durham or Carrboro; all moving and all in search of the holy in both the ordinary to the extraordinary. People search for God in many different ways just as they travel for different reasons....most of the time motives are mixed if they are faithful.

The Emperor Constantine's mother Helena is credited for starting the pilgrimage route to the Holy Land, wanting to see for herself the very places that her Savior walked so that she might understand more fully who the Christ was. I'm sure getting out of town was also appealing, as was the spirit of adventure, though travel in her day was most treacherous. Only 300 plus years separated her steps from Christ's and she thought she might find something life changing.

Our young people have spent summer vacations working to clothe the naked in thrift shops and feed the hungry children through federal meal programs and take care of widows and orphans by painting houses or building bathrooms or running Bible schools in places as diverse as inner city Juarez and rural South Dakota. They often state their primary reason for going is that they have never been on a plane before, or they have never been to this that or the other state before, or their friends are going, or they need service hours.

For 10 years, the Youth Inquirers' Class has ridden on a bus each winter to explore their faith history in our nation's capitol, learning that the stones that comprise the National Cathedral tell a salvation history that they and their families are a part of. They are not required to go, and many say, "I've already been to Washington, and I don't want to go again." We take them because it forms a community of people all working to know their place in the life of God's kingdom, sometimes for the first time.

People often ask, "Why can't we just stay here and learn these things? Are there not poor people in Orange County? Are there not places that are unexplored here where God's glory is evident?" The answer to these questions is yes, but I have come to understand and believe some truths are often best learned out of one's comfort zone and context. When you sleep on a roach-infested floor for a week and take only a cold shower to wash the sweat off after working a full day in 120 degree heat to build a bathroom for a widow and her children, it is a life-altering experience. When you walk up to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, and trace your fingers across the name of your uncle after you have prayed in the War Chapel at the Cathedral, it is life changing. When you hear your prayers of petition or songs of praise echo off the walls of an eighth-century abbey or in a remote cave in the Judean desert, it changes you.

Such experiences express the wideness of God's mercy, geographically, spiritually, and mentally challenging us to see God in places far away but more accurately to see God when we come home here in our own back yards. We have walked on the Road to Emmaus and our eyes are opened and we recognize. Our young people are primed for service after a summer mission trip, and it doesn't mean they wait until the next plane ride to serve their neighbor. Communities form in the backs of buses whether they are on I-95 or rural roads in small countries across the big pond.

Jesus often went as far away as he could to think about things or gain perspective or make a plan for action in a world that he knew would always have the poor in it, not just poor in mammon but poor in spirit and generosity and faith and hope. As I think back upon all these journeys - be they mission or pilgrimage or community-building - each one has had a moment that altered my vision, if not forever at least for the foreseeable future. You are invited to think about your own journeys in the same ways, asking as you move about this world in search of the God who comes among us as one of us, "What am I learning here that I cannot learn at home? How am I different because of this venture? What am I being asked to do differently because of this experience?" You might be surprised by what emerges!

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The deadline is the first Thursday of the preceeding month.