On The Road To The Center

I was saddened to hear about the one thousand, three hundred Muslim pilgrims who died while on the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, because of the heat, but I was not completely surprised.

Modern travel has lessened the sacrifices demanded of pilgrims, but over the centuries, men and women have always faced danger, sickness, and death on their way to and from sacred sites. The question that many people who are unfamiliar with pilgrimages have is “Why take the risk?”

Pilgrimage is an important element of most of the world’s major religions. Jewish pilgrims journey to Jerusalem, as do many Christians and Muslims, while Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh pilgrims journey to sacred sites in India.

We know fish and birds take long journeys to return to places where they were born, and, in a sense, religious pilgrims have a similar sense of “going home.” Of course, the migratory instincts of fish and birds are just that, instincts. Fish and birds don’t choose to return home; they’re hardwired to do so.

Pilgrims, of course, are different. Pilgrims travel to far-off places, places they may have never visited before, because they choose to do so. But despite having never visited the sacred site before, they also have a strong sense of returning to their spiritual center, their “home.”

The sacred site for the pilgrim is where something of utmost significance occurred in the past. For Muslims on the Hajj to Mecca, that site is where Abraham and, later, the prophet Muhammad encountered God. For Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Jerusalem is where humans also encountered God. Buddhist pilgrims visit the most significant sites in the life of the Buddha.

But a pilgrimage is more than a visit to the past. The pilgrimage site is also the psychic and spiritual center for the pilgrim. Muslims pray five times a day in the direction of Mecca. Jews pray three times a day in the direction of Jerusalem. Pilgrims are those who physically travel to where their prayers, their deepest selves, have been oriented throughout life. For pilgrims, the holy sites are where God is nearest to them. In a sense, the site is where God is waiting for them.

Pilgrims know what the Hebrew Psalmist penned thousands of years ago. “For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

I suspect that many in Mecca on the Hajj, despite suffering from the heat, would amend the verse to say, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than in an air-conditioned hotel suite.”

Next year, millions of Catholics and other Christians will spend days—likely, uncomfortable days—in Rome for the Holy Year. Officials are already warning that the crowds will make travel, dining, and lodging in Rome difficult. But millions will go to Rome nonetheless.

If you are a “pilgrimage sceptic,” I would invite you to do something beyond dismissing pilgrims as being a bit crazy. After pilgrims return to where they live, ask them what they have gained from their trips.

I did this recently with a friend who’d just returned from a pilgrimage. His eyes literally sparkled as he shared what it was like to stand where he’d always wanted to stand, to be surrounded by others who, like him, were praying.

My friend acknowledged that there were tiring moments, but nothing, he said, compared with knowing that his life had been changed forever. In looking at him, I had no doubt that he was telling the truth. He’d taken a difficult and challenging outward journey, but his inward journey had taken him home.