Pilgrimage

can’t remember where
this was, but I am sure
it is in the Czech Republic

Pilgrimage. What do we think of when we think of a pilgrimage? How about the notion of faith that turns settled feet into restless bipeds that tramp on the dust and the gravel and the sand to god-knows-where: the Ridgeway, the Quantock Hills, the crash of the waves and the pebble-dash drag of the beach where no one goes and the rounded, well-greened bleakness and one-two, one-two of the Wiltshire Downs. Or we cross over the Channel into mainland Europe and discover the Camino de Santiago, which marks out the route that a saint’s remains travelled and is now a modern route to redemption and revival. Is this what we understand by a pilgrimage and more importantly if I think on going on a pilgrimage is this where I am going? 

In its most basic terms, a pilgrimage seems to be defined by the tread of feet and the smell and sound of all around, whether it be pilgrims, the city streets or the smells of the countryside in heat. It is about following a path that the righteous once trod, that those frightened by the glory of God now have a need to pass along. It is about a return to simplicity, an escape from the city, a need to get guilt under control, or maybe just a greed for walking or biking or running a long way.

Pilgrims? They are those that follow a path that shimmers (or perhaps glowers) with the certainty of glory, but this is a glory that comes wrapped up in the bondage of bleeding feet and blasted muscles. There is a tiredness about a pilgrimage that brings to mind for some a forced march, a route march, which leads us back to punishment again. So does this mean that a pilgrimage is pain, is punishment, or perhaps the need for an indulgence for something that we think we might have done wrong? 

So, what have been my pilgrimages?

I have been offered a massive tin mug of strong lager at midday in a Bohemian brewery six kilometres from the border with Bavaria and suddenly decided that the two former principalities have much more to say to each other over a beer than their querulous history would suggest; I have watched boxes of sharp-tasting cherries being added to a lambic to encourage the beer to breath and live again; I have wandered through the noise, the lights, the people and the heat of the Oktoberfest in Theresienwiese, a destination incidentally that I had arrived by train from a trip to the Bohemian hop lands. I have sat in the cloister-like quiet of a Saturday afternoon pub in Sheffield, a glass of beer in front of me, idling the hours away, being visited by a dog, exchanging pleasantries with a man who had just clocked out and feeling snug, safe, kept from the storm and possibly a little indulgent. 

This is not a pilgrimage for those soldiers or agents of the state who are in search of those who have done wrong (apparently), but it is about those who follow a path, sometimes obediently, and at other times hot with the lust of glory and discovery. Some chap called Jesus is reputedly to have said that he was the light and that led us to read stories about being led astray as we followed the light, usually into a mire or a bog of our own making, but the pilgrimage when beer speaks is a different journey, a restless quest, a celebration of ritual, a holiday of simplicity, a voyage into the unknown (who visited the Senne Valley before gueuze became a ritual?) and an illumination of questions that have been held for too long. 

I’m off.