Wednesday, January 5, 2011

January 5th, 2011

2011! Here we are at a fresh point in our journey. Do you feel
refreshed? Sometimes these deep dark nights can bring us rest, but sometimes they intensify our anxieties. One way to look at the dark of the new year is a passage in a journey: and certainly a journey has a destination. Our destination is the wholeness promised to us by God, the personal wholeness and the wholeness of creation. Whew!

Yet here we are, plodding along or galloping through the days or feeling dragged into tomorrow – but in any case, we are traveling into the future, a future that is God’s promise.

For more than 1000 years, pilgrims have been walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the Way of St James. It is a collection of old pilgrimage routes in Europe; some of our St. Paul’s friends tell
personal stories of it. The symbol for the pilgrim is a scallop shell.
Innkeepers could recognize religious travelers, and they in turn could identify safe welcoming places for rest and nourishment.

At St. Paul’s this Sunday, people received scallop shells after communion – bread for the journey, and a shell to put in pocket or purse as a reminder of God’s constant presence. I have one waiting for you, too.
I won’t mail it, but it is here waiting for you.

Refreshing blessings in this journey we make together,

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean

1 comment:

  1. Thank you Catherine, each day this week as I searched for car keys at the bottom of my purse or a clean tissue to wipe my children's messy hands from a juicy snack, my shell passed through my hands and I smiled with the knowledge that throughout my hectic busy day, I am not on this journey alone. Many thanks. Charlene

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