Image & Pilgrimage in Christian Culture #1

Taking a journey into the unknown may evoke some emotion of  uneasiness and terror. Especially, when one takes a journey without any idea of how to predict the elements which will shape the experience. The focus of  ones pilgrimage holds individual significance which contributes to a larger whole.  "Inside the Christian religious frame, pilgrimage may be said to represent the quintessence of voluntary liminality" (p.9).  Even in all the unease of a taking a journey to explore a feeling or notion of being called to do so, voluntary liminality struck me as the most courageous part of taking a journey. Going into a place that is neither one place or another, is powerful. Often this limial place produces anxiety, because the old structures, beliefs, and values no longer seem to exist or work and yet there is some sense of emotional happiness immediately ahead. There is the hope that on the other side of this space there is a sense of new, there is a new connection  with the meaning of life and your purpose in it, the desire to find security. This sense of liminality can happen when you lose a job or find out about some medical ailment, lose a loved one or suddenly have no where to live. It can also happen when you fall in love with another person or move out on your own. All of these things will contribute, they will push or pull life in so many different directions, and the journey will happen, and change will occur. So, as a Christian embarks on a sacred pilgrimage they voluntarily enter this space and the in the presence of change there is the ability to find humble comfort and faith, a courageous entrance of a liminal space, the unknown.