It's Not the Destination, but the Journey Itself

Have you ever taken a pill against fever? Have you listened to heartwarming piece of music? Or looked at a breathtaking painting or read an outstanding piece of literature? Have you yet enjoyed the conveniences of pleasant gadget or merely taken advantage of how food is processed? We all have experiences like that and we easily praise the good results, the turnouts and the final, well working product we consume or make good use of. In fact we are obsessed with good results but oftentimes fail to look beyond the surface. In this world of means and ends, the latter seems to be the only thing that matters, and the earlier seems nothing more than a stopgap that connects our intentions to our goals. And once goals are achieved, the arduous processes that necessarily precede them - the tension, the anxiety, the dramatics of uncertainty, and all the human travails that hurl those goals into fulfillment - are discarded like a cocoon is to a butterfly.

It was Good Friday here at St. Ulrich parish in Unterschleissheim near Munich. The sun was bright and provided peasant cool warmth throughout the day. And then at 5.30PM this group gathered: Parish people coming from all thinkable contexts and backgrounds, teenagers and parents, aunties and retirees, males and females, deriving from different family settings and differing social status, all tied to personal worries and burdened with their individual concerns and troubles.

We congregated on the parish's outdoor quadrangle with one purpose in mind: to renew the experience of walking. No matter who we were and how we differed, we were yet all the same: We formed a community of people all set and ready for walking. The walking itself was made the issue, the moving, enjoying the company of the other at a time and falling into silence and contemplation at others. We were sharing a path, a rough surface as well as smooth asphalt, we went along barley fields and passed by trees and shrubs. We followed streets, even at times waited for one another, asking what turn we should take, what road to cross.

Leading the pack are two people, taking up a life-size cross on their shoulders while all the others visualize their life's burdens on the same cross that blazes the pilgrimage's trail. The life size cross grows truly heavy on one's shoulders the longer it is carried, and yet the bearer's relief is not for him to take, but for the others around him to offer. The bearers carry the cross as far as they can, and as good as they can, but every once in a while others sense the weariness and offer to take the bearers' place. What remains profoundly beautiful in this practice is that it speaks much about communion as it does about life in general.