 Spiritual: October 09, 2024 Issue [#12778] |
This week: Pilgrimage Edited by: NaNoNette  
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| "Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage." ~ Frederick Buechner |
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Pilgrimage
Many religions have a built-in requirement to complete a pilgrimage. To make this possible, religions set up sites all around the world to make those pilgrimages possible. Even a relatively young nation such as the USA has pilgrimages routes and sites in many states.
Older nations have much older churches, monasteries, and abbeys that give pilgrims a place to go to for spiritual renewal. One such place is the Mont St Michel on the North-West coast of France. Cut off from the mainland by the tides, the Abbey's early beginning trace all the way back to the year 708. No, there is no "1" missing. This installation is more than 1300 years old.
The Abbey of Mont St Michel sits on the top of a small island. There is a village around it. The village itself has a separate Saint Pierre church. The church is at the highest point that can be reached without any stairs. Anyone who wants to go higher has to be able to walk up hundreds of steps.
Any visitor, whether religious or secular will be turned into a pilgrim by the island. There is no fast way to the top. Every step has to be taken one by one. The passages are long and winding. There are stairs everywhere. They go up. They go down. They are wide. They are narrow. They are straight. And they are winding. Some are so steep and narrow and winding that they are designated as one-way only. The point is that once the abbey is reached, there is already some exhilaration of the mind just from the physical effort to get here.
The abbey itself is vast. Because of its age, it has seen many variations and was built during many different architectural periods. At some point, the church heart collapsed and was rebuilt in a different style. The other parts of the abbey were built on top of older, already existing parts. When a visitor first enters, they are in the guard room. From there, it goes on through giant halls, giant rooms, giant dormitories, food halls, reception areas for visitors during the time when the abbey was only an abbey and not a place for tourists.
At some point, down some stairs, a modern visitor finds themselves in the old, old, old church. Just a room with a cross and an altar. Maybe large enough for a dozen people to pray.
Then, it goes on to other rooms. One room has enormous pillars. Those pillars are thick enough to need a whole kindergarten class to hold hands to encircle it. Video game players will recognize it as New Londo Ruins from Dark Souls.
By the time the tour of the abbey on Mont St Michel is over, any visitor will have gained a whole new appreciation for architecture, religious people who choose to live on islands, nuns and monks who still live in these buildings, and even those who are not religious will find their version of spiritual renewal because the experience is too unique and unsettling to just be swept aside like a documentary seen on TV.
Did you ever wonder why some of the most impressive religious buildings are on hills or mountains? |
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Replies to my last Spiritual newsletter "Nature Religions" that asked Have you invented any nature religions for your fictional worlds?
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