This passage uses the metaphor of clothing to have us look at ourselves and our attitudes. What garments do we need for our pilgrimage journey? The passage talks of love, compassion, kindness, humility, strength, discipline - things like this. So reading this, we are reminded that we have the opportunity to examine ourselves and consider which of these garments we need to work on? Which need to come off?Today, I'm focusing on love - the basic garment of faith. I wrote yesterday about the vigil for Diana and today I find myself reflecting on the incredible love story of Jack and Diana, and the model of how faith and love play out during troubling times. It was around the time of Kristen's birth - a decade or so after they were married - that they first saw signs of what would become MS. Diana would end up in a wheelchair a few years later.
The faith journey resulting from such a blow was complex, but both of them were accomplished authors, and their sharing through the written word has been inspirational. The twists and turns they've been through would be fit for a Hollywood movie. Just last year, it looked like Jack was dying of cancer and Diana insisted on being brought home from nursing care so that she could personally oversee his care. Suddenly, the tables were turned and we quickly discovered Diana had ALS resulting in an extremely rapid decline and her death yesterday.
I realize today that my pilgrimage with God is really a product of two beginnings. The first is my start in faith provided by my family and church experience while growing up. This was followed by my interaction with this incredible family of faith provided by my marriage to Kristen. John in turn takes aspects of both of these as his starting point and will add to it over his lifetime.
It's no wonder that the labyrinth example is provided. A labyrinth is a circuitous route inside a circle. (I wrote about my labyrinth experience while at the monastery in my other blog http://www.georgevisitsholycross.blogspot.com/) Our pilgrimage paths do twist and turn as we approach God, just as our paths intersect each other's (we're all companions for the journey in some form), and from each other we learn about the garments of humility, strength, discipline and love that we are to wear for the pilgrimage.
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