When I lived in Virginia, the pastor of my church often replaced her sermon with what she called “A Pilgrim’s Report”. Someone from the congregation would share part of their faith journey. Often, I felt, these real stories of real peoples’ struggles and paths were far more compelling than any sermon could be. That’s not a knock on sermons. It’s just that there is something compelling about hearing another person’s story, particularly when parts of it seem to be your own.

I was reminded of the “Pilgrim’s Report” this weekend. My son and I went down to Virginia. He moved up here to live with me this past June, and I moved up here about six and a half years ago. It was not an easy thing to do for either of us, for different reasons. It was likely easier for me, as I came up here looking for something, while he moved up here to get away from something. But the hardest part, for both of us, was leaving behind a large group of friends who were so very dear to us.

And so we came down. I didn’t see a lot of him. He spent most of the time visiting with friends. I did a mix of visiting and work. I had coffee with a couple of people I am particularly close with, and I got to visit my former church. There were all kinds of hugs and catching up. I love Vermont, and I don’t miss Virginia as a place. But I do miss the people who made up my life there. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you miss them until you see them again.

We had an eleven-hour drive back Tuesday, almost all of it in rain as a huge storm followed us up the coast. Lots of time to think. And I found myself thinking of my own “Pilgrim’s Progress”.

I came to Vermont as something of a pilgrim. I don’t think I realized it then. But I was coming in search of something I believed was here. That belief was strong enough that it moved me from Virginia, where I had happily lived the first fifty-four years of my life, to this place I had only visited a few times.

In some ways, Vermont is very like the Virginia I left behind. I lived near the Blue Ridge mountains and here I have the Green Mountains. The geography is similar. There I lived in Botetourt county, which was on that cusp between countryside and suburbia. Here I live in a truly rural place.

But the human landscape is very different. The customs, and at times, even the language is different. It takes some time for people to take you in. The standing joke is that people here wait three years to talk to you to see if you’re going to say. There is warmth here, just as there is in the South, but it takes time to chisel down to it. You have to earn it.

Part of my journey has been a journey of loss. I lost a job while I was here, laid off because of recession and industry changes. I lost a second one because new management said on our first meeting that I didn’t fit the new business model. These were jobs I liked with people I liked, doing things I loved doing that had me traveling, which I liked. I built and ended a relationship here. I lost both of my parents within a year while I was here. A lot of loss.

But it was also a time or reclaiming my life. Both of my children, at the end of their junior years in high school, made a choice to move up here with me. I hate the whys that brought them up here, but I have loved having them with me again on a day to day basis, seeing their growth as people. When divorce hit me, the hardest loss was losing the day to day presence of my kids. To have them come back, and to be part of their lives again has been a huge joy for me.

I reclaimed my creative side while I was here. I had slowly let that die off before coming here. That, according to the counselor who guided me through my struggles before and after my divorce, was both symptom and cause of my coming apart and falling into a deep depression. Slowly, I began to reclaim it. At first it was a discipline, not a joy, but as I came back to myself, it has become a joy again, not something to work at, simply part of who I am.

I have refound my faith here. Actually, I never lost my faith, but like many, I had lost the spiritual disciplines that keep us connected to God. I was so wounded before I came here, and wounded still when I came. After spending most of my life being active in churches, I came here and simply sat and listened and felt. I healed, slowly, until there was something left to give back. Discipline came into play here too. As another part of my counselor’s help, I began again to read and think on scripture each day. I found new things in it, things I might not have discovered without the suffering and floundering and self-recrimination I was dealing with. I rediscovered grace, not as a theoretical thing, but as a real thing that touched head and heart and soul. Finally, a couple of years ago, I began to have something to give back again.

I have changed my work. That is still in process and it’s a struggle, but a joyful one as I have carved out the things I was good at, but sucked out my soul, and replaced them with things that feed my spirit. I am not sure where these changes will lead quite yet, but I like the trajectory I am on.

Moving up here was an adventure. For some, who have moved often, moving probably does not feel that way. But live in one place all your life, and then move in late middle age, and it feels like an adventure. There was good stuff and bad stuff. But the best thing was discovering that I like a little adventure in my life. I had forgotten that. It’s good to feel a little lost now and then. It spurs growth. I have seen things and tried things and gotten lost in whole new ways since coming here. I’ve met people different from anyone I’ve ever known. All a challenge. Mostly wonderful.

Driving home yesterday, it would have been easy to be down. All those hugs. All that affirmation. All those people who still, years after my leaving, carry love for me in their hearts. I love those people. They made a difference in my life, a difference that lives there still, even if I am eleven hours away and have been for nearly seven years. It would have been easy to be angry, bitter at the loss, and deeply sad.

But that is not how I feel as I drove through the rain. I have been on a pilgrimage, even if I did not know where I was going, or what I was seeking exactly. I have rediscovered myself in a way that would not have been possible surrounded by the familiar. I needed to be in a place that forced me to live inwardly for a while, without being caught up in the activity of familiarity that so often keeps us from doing the hard work of rebuilding. Some people can do that work in place. I am not sure I could have.

I have come out of it having discovered a resiliency I did not know I had. I am more comfortable with my emotions, more comfortable with not knowing things and moving out in faith that at some point, the fog will lift and I’ll see the path more clearly. I have come out of it understanding the power of discipline, how doing things I don’t feel like doing can lead me to a place where those things, be they creativity, new work, faith, love…. become part of my being. I can make that difference, with or without a particular person or group of people around me.

I live now in a far less certain place than I did most of my adult life. I had a plan back then. And for twenty plus years that plan worked beautifully. When it blew up, I could not see past the pain of the moment. I was sure all was ended. Now, I know differently. Only the ending is different. Every story, at least the good ones, has twists and turns and surprises. And I’ve been blessed to have a hell of a story, whatever the ending might be.

Most of all, I have changed here. I have become more grateful for my blessings. I grew up in a world and family that taught that if you did X, you got Y. There was a direct line. You could make plans, do the right things, stay on task and a good life emerged. Sometimes that works for some people.

Mostly though, it doesn’t. Things blow up in our lives. And realizing that, each good thing I have is more precious to me than ever. I don’t take anything for granted. Every conversation I have with my kids, every moment sipping coffee with the woman I love, every taste of bacon, every moment I have to write, everything has a preciousness to me it lacked before I moved up here. And maybe that is the biggest “Pilgrim’s Progress” I have made since moving here.

That meant I could drive home yesterday feeling warm, and grateful. I don’t feel I have lost the things and people left behind in Virginia, but instead I have kept them and their love, and gained other things that only happen in a pilgrimage, even if I am still unsure where the path leads.

Be well. Travel Wisely.

Tom