A Sweet mix of the secular and sacred
Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest travel season of the year with 42.5 MILLION people traveling. Expect delays.
We all know it is about the journey not the destination. In this regard, we talk about journey as a verb, to make a journey, to travel.
The action of journeying speaks to more than the logistics of packing, flights, trains, and way finding. It isn’t about the accommodations or the companions.
To peregrinate is to hold a mindset of growth. The state of movement, progress.
It is one thing to physically roam from destination to destination. It is another to have a journey of personal development. A faith journey, from nonbeliever to believer. A love story, from strangers to soul mates. A quest, from meager to mighty. The growth, from novice to expert. Sometimes the journey is backwards, faithful to agnostic, lovers to adversaries, healthy to ailing.
The verb journey is derived from mid-14c, “travel from one place to another.” Also, from Anglo-French journeyer, Old French journoiier “work by day; go, walk, travel.” Also, from jorunee “a day’s work or travel.”
Journeying it is about both the smooth sails AND the bumpy roads. One does not arrive. One travels from state to state. All the while appreciating the ride, gratefully accepting the crooked line.
Journeying is movement. Yet, to enjoy the ride requires deliberate presence in each step.