Pilgrimage

In this season of Lent we journey toward Easter and the theme of pilgrimage is a familair way to make our preparations for discipleship. It is hard to imagine that in the turmoil of Elizabethan England, pilgrimage was itself prohibited as was all use of catholic imagery following The Reformation. The photo above is of St James Cathedral, Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela Galicia, Spain – the destination of a pilgrimage called The Camino. The poem begins by a mention of a scallop shell which is used to this day to mark the way of the Camino and in the middle ages was often used to hold water from a baptismal font to pour over a head as a sign that the pilgrimage of life had begun. Walter Raleigh at one time a favourite of Queen Eizabeth I, now finds himself once again a prisoner in the Tower of London with death by execution hanging in the air if not aorund his neck, and in the quiet he pens this poem imagining his last pilgrimage, from death to life eternal, from earth to heaven. The poem is demanding and requires from you time and space to read the words, to savor the lines, and imagine. Please give Raleigh’s words your full attention. The cause of his impending death was that he was accused by the confession of a friend, of involvemet in a plot against King James, Elizabeth I successor, though the evidence was hearsay. He defended himself but was never allowed to cross examine his accuser. Please take time to marvel at the lines “For there Christ is the King’s Attorney….Christ pleads his death, and then we live” I echo Malcolm Guite’s comment on these lines in his Lenten Meditation -The Word in the Wilderness – Canterbury Press – “There could not be a clearer account of our salvation than this, offered on the eve of his death, by a man who was accused by many of his contemporaries of atheism!”

The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage

Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my body’s balmer,
No other balm will there be given;
Whilst my soul, like a white palmer,
Travelleth towards the land of heaven;
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the nectar fountains;
And there I’ll kiss
The bowl of bliss;
And drink my eternal fill
On every milken hill:
My soul will be a-dry before,
But after, it will thirst no more;
Then by the happy blestful day,
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have shook off their gowns of clay,
And walk apparelled fresh like me.
I’ll take them first
To quench their thirst,
And taste of nectar suckets,
At those clear wells
Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.

And when our bottles and all we
Are fill’d with immortality,
Then the holy paths we’ll travel,
Strowed with rubies thick as gravel;
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral, and pearly bowers.
From thence to heaven’s bribeless hall,
Where no corrupted voices brawl;
No conscience molten into gold,
Nor forg’d accuser bought and sold,
No cause deferr’d, nor vain-spent journey;
For there Christ is the King’s Attorney,
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath angels, but no fees.
And when the grand twelve-million jury
Of our sins, with direful fury,
’Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.

Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder!
Thou giv’st salvation even for alms;
Not with a bribed lawyer’s palms.
And this is my eternal plea
To him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
Seeing my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread,
Set on my soul an everlasting head.
Then am I ready, like a palmer fit;
To tread those blest paths which before I writ. Walter Raleigh 1554?-1618

Prayer:
Holy God, I
pause and remain still, allowing
the silence to speak in my head and heart.
Lent has begun and my steps of pilgrimage,
as before, are prone to hesitate and stumble.
Encourage me, O Spirit of God, to draw breath
and to walk forward into the future you have decreed.
Forgive my sin O Holy One, renew my tired spirit, remind
me of my baptism,that my soul be refreshed by the baptismal
waters of long ago.
Holy God, I
trust the mystery of your birth, life and death, may it fill,
my own birth, life and eventual death, with grace and mercy,
hope, and trust.
Holy God, you
are the Light of the World.
Chase away all darkness and fear, and cause me to
be a “palmer fit” so to live boldly for the good of others and for
the hope of this
your world. Amen.