A Pilgrim

My Webster's dictionary defines a pilgrim as 'one who journeys to foreign lands.' This is a definition that could suit me well: I've been to Canada, Mexico, and France. The second definition Webster offers could define me as well: 'one who travels to a shrine or a sacred place as a devotee.' After all, it's impossible to be in France and not trip over a church several times a day, and I find them all fascinating. When my dictionary goes on to talk about pilgrimage, the comparison becomes even more interesting. 'A journey to a sacred place' and secondly, 'the course of life on earth.' I feel strongly that I am such a pilgrim, that I am on this pilgrimage to sacred places and that this somehow has become my course in life. Here stands St. Jacques (St. James the Greater) in the south transept of the great Abbey Church at Conques in southwest France. His walking staff, robes, and hat emblazoned with the scallop shell that identifies the pilgrim mark him as the saint of pilgrims. His venerated bones at Santiago de Compostele in Spain are housed at  the shrine that is the goal of pilgrims on his Way, the Chemin de St. Jacques. Pilgrims light a candle to him in the elegant Romanesque church that anchors the beautiful village of Conques, asking him for safe travels. Here is where I first discerned that I am a pilgrim; here is where I begin my pilgrim's stories.