The Pilgrim Way 2

Over the last few days, Jo and I have much enjoyed the lively chorus emitting from a humble birdbox visible from our kitchen window. Inside, a young chick has begun peering out into the world of wonder beyond, chirping with anticipation for the doting return of attentive parents carrying another morsel of food to its nest. Appreciating simple moments like these is highly restorative. As though somewhere deep within us, an innate connection is stirred by a rhythm it once knew, glimpsing a place where the soul belonged and called home.

Jesus often pointed toward Creation to illustrate spiritual truths pertaining to our human condition. He spoke of lilies flourishing without striving and sparrows held within the Father’s care. Creation is not divine in itself, nor do we worship nature, yet it bears witness to the order, beauty, and harmony flowing from its Creator.

How is it that modern life has largely obscured these resonant rhythms of Creation which continue unabated? I sense, the estrangement of humanity from Creation is not a modern phenomenon but part of a far older trajectory stretching back as far as Cain’s obsession with building a city unsanctioned by God. Like a bell muted through neglect, how many lives have lost their tonal clarity, becoming attuned instead to the “stealth rhythms” conjured from the pulse of modernity and the spirit of the age?

But pilgrimage offers a reprieve, and silence a currency, through which these foreign internalised rhythms are quietly dismantled. The natural world still resounds with the glory of God—for the meek soul, it is a harbour of solace in a world devoid of safe beacons. In its rhythms may we begin to remember what we have forgotten. John of the Cross once wrote that a bird tethered by even the thinnest thread cannot fly until it is set free. In much the same way, the soul cannot soar whilst coupled to the rhythms of this world. Perhaps pilgrimage loosens those threads, until the heart remembers how to resonate with the song of Creation, and become receptive to the voice of God again. The humble birdbox outside our kitchen window reminds me that we were born to fly.