Walking by Touch

In his fascinating book, Touch, author Gabriel Josipovici discusses the idea of pilgrimage not simply as a religious act, but as a profound metaphor for how we engage with the world and our own bodies. He argues that modern culture is overly reliant on sight, which offers a “frictionless domination” over reality, whereas the act of pilgrimage necessitates touch. To truly peregrinate, he says, one must walk long distances and feel the physical exertion of the journey, a journey that tangibly represents the distance between the familiar and the unfamiliar, ourselves and the Divine.

Josipovici goes on to discuss medieval pilgrimages in which relics were the ultimate goal. He argues that the physical distance traveled was not a hurdle to overcome but a crucial part of the spiritual process—a “therapy” that enabled a genuine encounter with the sacred. Yet when the seeker arrived, often to their dismay, the relics were still contained behind a glass casing or some form of caging that prevented complete union with the Divine, simultaneously reinforcing arrival and a further sense of distance.

Additionally, he compares the writer’s life or the spiritual seeker’s path to that of Indian sādhus, itinerant monks who make physical pilgrimages to holy sites to justify their existence through movement and devotion. They know a sense of distance will always remain; even so, they journey.

I find it interesting that I was reading this book when we decided to relocate to Boston temporarily, where Arin is allegedly moving toward the priesthood, and I am neurotically enmeshed in writing my second book. With this single decision, we thrust ourselves into the role of “pilgrims,” each of us journeying independently toward the sacred, while co-journeying along the same footpath.

Although we “peregrinated” in a fast-moving vehicle (significantly faster when Arin was driving) rather than on foot, we still covered 2073 miles. We exchanged Westcliffe for Boston, the familiar for the unfamiliar, comfort for discomfort, what we thought we knew of God for all we do not.

We now live smack-dab in the middle of a multicultural, thronging city. Nature is a scarce commodity, as well as pure air and silence. The churches here are strongly ethnic, occasionally ethnocentric, and Arin has one professor who frequently vacillates between Greek and English, allowing him to catch bits and pieces of each lecture. There are many ways we feel like strangers in a foreign land, as if we have no business being here and should promptly turn around and return home.

Assuredly, this experience impacts our view of God. On a seminary campus, we find Him more ambiguous than ever before — more vaporous, less “pin-down-able,” less of what we thought, more than anything we hoped, simultaneously more fully present AND achingly absent.

This journey also affects how we view each other and ourselves.

(Side word of warning: never come to Boston and attempt to navigate traffic if your marriage is on the rocks! Arin and I are crazy about each other. Still, directing and attempting to follow each other’s directions in Boston traffic has taught us more about ourselves and our communication style than any therapist ever could. One of my favorite memes I’ve encountered since living here says, “I’m now on my way to another state because I was too scared to switch lanes in Boston.” Being in the wrong lane here can easily cost you an hour-and-a-half of your life, which you will never get back. True story!)

Regardless, this experience somehow manifests our own inner disparities. We are more acutely aware of where we want to be individually and how far we still have to journey. Although exceedingly grateful for our marriage, we are also learning ways to improve it. Every day, we see how we fall short of the Divine: we do not love others as we should; we are selfish and absorbed in our own struggles; we are quick to speak, slow to listen, and judgmental. We struggle and fail. We are broken.

There is a deep mutual, albeit contradictory, understanding that, despite arriving at the reliquary, we still have so much farther to go.

Hugely embarrassing disclosure, but two nights ago, after Arin fell asleep, I stole away to a local restaurant, had a solo glass of wine, and came back and ugly-cried on the bathroom floor because I was so distraught over my writing, or lack thereof. Like the thick-tongued title of David Sedaris’ book, “Me Speak Pretty One Day,” I bemoan everything I’m not, my lack of beautiful words, my jumbled, disjointed thoughts, that I am not, and will never be Annie Dillard.

Like the Indian sādhus, I too seek to justify my existence through devotion and the movements of my pen. Yet unlike them, when I look down the road and realize how far I have left to travel, I drink a glass of wine and plop down, bawling like a baby on the bathroom floor.

Even so, Arin and I make good pilgrimage companions; he, probably, better than I. When I drop to the path, certain I can’t go on, he sits with me in silence until I decide maybe I can go a bit farther; he carries my pack whenever he can. If he grows tempted to fall behind, slowly turn around and slink back toward home, I grab his hand and tell him there’s a burger joint just around the next bend. Thankfully, it works every time!

In my heart, I know all our opposing feelings are true: we are severely lacking and entirely full; we are foreigners, and also at home; we are broken and simultaneously healed. God is fully present, and we achingly perceive His absence. But in the words of C.S. Lewis, it’s this absence that calls us “further up and further in.”

Only elusive voices are alluring.

And so we continue, traveling independently but also hand in hand. Day by day, we inch closer to our inner man, each other, and the Divine. For only by journeying toward the relic do we slowly become the relic — unholy vessels transformed by thunderstorm and wound, scorching sun and calloused feet.

There is also the growing realization that, while we are journeying toward something holy, the path beneath us is no less sacred. Every day, every struggle, brings us closer to our destination. More truthfully, every day, every struggle IS the destination. For this is not a journey of sight, of knowledge, or logic, or reasoning. It is a journey of mist and fog, of feeling our way blindly with one groping foot, and occasionally crawling on all fours.

This, my friends, is a journey of touch.

*

It’s 12:30 p.m. EST when I wrap up the previous blog post. Outside, snow is blowing sideways. The wind is howling through the cracks of this century-old apartment, rattling them like old bones. I’m still in my PJs and taking a book-writing break after my bathroom meltdown and all.

I sit, pondering my own words. The question of writing still remains: how to become what I’m not or make peace with what I am.

I scan over the notes that I wrote while reading “Touch” back in November to make sure I’ve covered all the points. There, at the bottom of a long list of chicken scratch, is a single line I missed: To span the expanse, become the bridge.

I sit on this for a long while. Just thinking.

I consider author Fr. Iain Matthew’s words about St. John of the Cross, how his goal was simply “to pull back the curtain and reveal the journey as real.”

Could I do this, I wonder?

In thinking about long journeys, could I become the road beneath the pilgrims’ feet, fashion myself into the earth upon which they trample? Can I find the words to pull back the curtain and reveal all of our journeys as real? Can I, through writing, become a bridge that spans the expanse?

I’m not certain, but I suppose I’ll never reach the relics if I simply stop walking.

*

I close my computer, and the second I do, a new thought flashes across my brain: Christ is the ultimate pilgrim. Exchanging comfort for discomfort, home for a foreign land, cosmic spaciousness for constrictive flesh, and for what? Not to encounter the Divine, as Gabriel Josipovici writes, but inversely, to encounter the humble, the weak, the broken, and destitute.

Christ went on a pilgrimage to encounter humanity.

Beyond imagination, we become the “relics” sought by Christ, the final destination of His long peregrination. Yet unlike relics as we know them — encased behind glass and off-limits to touch — Christ does not study us from afar but penetrates humanity through the incarnation; He became man so we could become gods.

To span the expanse, Christ became the bridge.

I, too, must bridge the expanse in return.