The Reverend Philip Banks writes:

Broadening the mind

"It is not worthwhile to go around the world to count the cats in Zanzibar," said the American writer Henry David Thoreau in the 1850s. Views on travel and pilgrimage have varied down the years. Dr Johnson said of the Giants' Causeway, "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see." Gregory of Nyssa, back in the fourth century, said that “ye who fear the Lord, praise Him in the places where ye now are: change of place does not effect any drawing nearer unto God”!  And the Roman poet Horace offered a wise comment about travel, saying that, "They change their clime, not their frame of mind, who rush across the sea."

"Travel broadens the mind" is recorded as a proverb from the early 20th century; in the 1920s GK Chesterton added the comment, "They say travel broadens the mind; but you must have the mind." So, whether on pilgrimage or on holiday, the important thing is your approach to it. It was fantastic to hear, at our September Family Mass, from Hannah and some of the young people who travelled to Kenya this summer. They were clearly deeply affected and changed by the experience, and enriched in their understanding of the world-wide church and of the experience that other Christians have in a very different context. Likewise, the large group that Hannah took, later in the summer, to Soul Survivor, a Christian ‘conference under canvas’ which encourages young people to “live out a life of worship and see Jesus' love impact them”.  My own sabbatical travels gave me a window into the early church, and how our Christian forebears had the grace, tenacity and courage to bring the message of Jesus to their own context, and the focus of my reflections now make me ask how we can do the same today. Pilgrimage has certainly ‘broadened my mind’!

What makes these Christian travels distinctive is their ‘Christ-centred’ nature. The aim of a true ‘pilgrim’ is not to ‘see a place’ but to ‘see Jesus’. He who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the way, the truth and the life, calls us disciples to take up our cross and follow him. Even when the destination is the tomb of a saint, the Christ-centred nature of the journey is not lost, because saints are only of importance as examples of different ways to imitate their Lord on the pilgrimage of life.

How will your travelling affect ordinary daily lives back at home? If it doesn’t, then something is awry. Seeing beyond the life of our church and community in Coggeshall ought to help us look outside ourselves and see the needs of the world beyond our door. This autumn there are opportunities for us to help those Christians and others in the world who are so much less fortunate than ourselves. Kate Lowry’s talk about the work of Compassion International has inspired a number of people to sponsor a child abroad. Fr Barry and Janet will be running a coffee morning to support the church in Ethiopia. The ‘knit and natter’ group’s coffee morning will be helping to buy wool for knitted items going abroad. And our Harvest Festival will again appeal for items and money for the homeless locally. Please do support these things as best you can.

If we hold to the biblical concept of life as a journey, then the process of journeying to places where we can focus more completely on, and learn more of, God can help us to see something of God’s will for us and of his desire for us to follow in the way of the cross of Jesus, leading lives of sacrifice, service and love.

The Reverend Philip Banks

Pictures:  Kenya Youth Trip; St Martin's Cross, Iona; and a cross made from driftwood left by a pilgrim at St Ninian’s cave in Scotland.