Pilgriming doesn’t happen alone, nor should it.

 The human-animal is a social creature.  We need other people… all kinds.

While in Spain, walking the Camino de Santiago, I met hundreds of people over my month of walking.  I met people from numerous countries, divergent backgrounds, young and old, conservative and progressive, from east and west, from varying religious persuasions, and more than a few from none. 

And you know what I don’t recall about all those souls and those hundreds of conversations?  I can’t recall being offended, not one time.  Sure, there were some conversations that drug on a bit longer than I liked, but getting bored is very different than being offended.  

Offended is when the other’s opinion, partisanship, or platform feels like it is encroaching on mine. Offended is when I feel wounded when another disagrees with me.
Offended happens when I forget the other is a human just like me.

Now, did my fellow pilgrims have divergent opinions from my own about faith, politics, and values?  All the time.  But still, I have not one memory of being offended.  Or for that matter, I have not one memory of being offensive (if that is even possible.)

Why?  There are probably numerous explanations, but let me offer one.  All of us were on pilgrimage, or to say it another way, all of us were embracing a common story and a higher value.  And that value washed away the inkling to find offense. 

At Pilgrim Lost we believe that life is a pilgrimage and all people are fellow pilgrims.  But amongst we pilgrims, what is our common story?

The Torah says, “Do not hold a grudge, but love your neighbor as yourself.  I am the Lord.”
The Qur’an says, “Be kind to orphans, the needy, the neighbor, the stranger, the friend, the traveler, and the slave.”
Hindu writings say, “This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.”
Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no greater commandment.”

Maybe we do have a common story.

And when you read these foundational human scriptures, penned centuries apart, on different points across the planet, all of them are applied to the person who is other.  The Qur’an is the most blunt… kindness is for the stranger and the traveler.  Jesus followed his encouragement with a story of two strangers who met on a road, men who should have been enemies.

Abraham Lincoln said,
“We are not enemies, but friends.  We must not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection…  when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

We are all travelers on the road of life and our path will be crossed by many a neighbor… let us not call them stranger but friend.  And let us move beyond offense and embrace our better angels together.