Today is the feast day of Saint Brendan, often called "The Navigator" and "The Voyager." If you're like me, you might not have grown up hearing about him. You might not have ever heard about him. I only discovered him when I read Christine Valters Paintner's Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics with a reading group--none of us had heard of this Irish saint.
To be fair, not much is known about him. He lived from roughly 484-577, mostly in Ireland, although he did go on a voyage to discover a more Edenic place. Some legends have him making North America. There's the mythology: celebrating Easter Mass on the back of a whale, not once but seven times. Eventually he realized the place he'd been looking for was right at home.
Paintners gives him credit for the idea of the Earth as our original monastery. She uses his voyage as a way to talk about how pilgrims need to be pilgrims in community, not pilgrims sailing alone. She talks about pilgrimages being non-linear; Brendan and his monks often sailed to places they'd been before, moving in circles "spiraling again and again to familiar places from new perspectives" (p. 101). She also talks about pilgrimage including times of waiting and not knowing what's ahead.
Saint Brendan shows us that pilgrimage is more of a mindset than a place/goal/destination. For those of us who don't have the luxury of picking up and looking for paradise, it's good to remember. We may have people counting on us, but that doesn't mean we can't take on elements of pilgrimage. Zen folks might refer to "beginner's mind," which Saint Brendan seemed to adopt regularly.
We can too.
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