Pilgrim: A Spirituality of Travel

By Leonard J. Biallas

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0819910015
• ISBN13: 9780819910011
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Franciscan Pr
• Length: 341 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Complete Reflection

I had the pleasure of him teaching me from this book in which was a life and mood altering experience. This book not only helped me reflect upon myself as a human but helped me to more open to all the worlds religions and rituals. Simply a book/class I will never forget.

Pilgrim is worthy of the read

This is a great book. I found it very easy to read, and I could pick it up and set it down after a page or two. Biallas shows that travel is about attitude and aspiration as much as about geography. He shows that when we leave home, we can go as tourists, travelers, and pilgrims. When we seek just to escape, get lost, and have pleasurable sensory experiences, we are tourists. When we also go away to seek adventure and extend our cultural horizons, we are travelers. When we journey to find the sacred in our everyday experiences, then we are pilgrims. For him, pilgrims are not those who journey to specific sacred shrines but those who bolster their spiritual growth by finding the sacred in their travel experiences. Biallas spends whole chapters on nature, cities, museums, cemeteries, and sacred centers. He shows how the elements of nature -- rocks, trees, and water -- provide multiple glimpses of the sacred cosmic dance. Cities are symbols of human achievement and hope for the future, and their public gardens provide beautiful and harmonious surroundings that help us retreat into the world of the spirit. Museums manifest the sacred in images of artistic excellence and beauty. Cemeteries are places to ponder the mystery and precariousness of life, to recall that our human lives have limits in space and time, and that our joys and sorrows are played out within some greater sacred design. In sacred centers -- not just churches, but the mosques, temples, wats, stupas, and mandirs of other world religions -- we experience solitude and solidity, permanence and grace. There are also many smaller sections -- often not more than a page or two -- that are very informative. He traces the history of travel, both worldwide and in the United States. He explains the customs and festivities of Midsummer Night in northern Europe. He recounts a cross country bus ride in Costa Rica on a non-air-conditioned, open-window bus, where the pigs on the roof answered the "call of nature." He tells of spending New Year's day in Cuba - the one day of the year most Cubans can afford to eat meat. He shares with us the excitement of children in Uganda drinking ice water for the first time. He explains the differences between labyrinths and mazes. He makes the arguments pro and con for graffiti in public places. He describes how photos are powerful and pleasurable stimuli for reawakening forgotten experiences. For him, wine is the most profound of liquids -- at its finest, poetry in a glass. He relates his experiences working for a day in one of the orphanages of Mother Teresa in India. He tells of a Muslim gentleman in Bangladesh who worked for the social relief service (Red Crescent, not Red Cross) who gave this advice: "Remember, the present is not an inheritance from our ancestors, but a loan from our heirs." He shares some Italian idioms with us: "Not all doughnuts come out with a hole" -- and he's right, our travels don't always work out according to plan. Given the upsurge

Opening windows into humanity

Leoard Biallas is not a theologian, but rather a student of theology and religion. This, I think, is an important distinction that is revealed in the way Pilgrim is written. Biallas does not have a complicated system of thought to pass on or argue for; the tourist/traveller/pilgrim typology he posits is mainly a didactic technique to show different ways in which people travel, and to lead us from simple escapism to the type of spiritual engagement with humanity he advocates.The book is divided into a general introduction about travel, followed by chapters discussing different types of places (museums, nature, etc.) and the ways in which one might when travelling there become more engaged with one's surroundings and reflective within oneself. The final section ties the threads together by showing how we can use travel to transform ourselves.Biallas's work serves as an excellent tour of the possibilities inherent in travelling to places on the other side of the world or just down the block. By including examples from his own experience, he opens windows into humanity, tempting us to go outside and experience the world for ourselves. Perhaps the most striking sign of his sincerity is how much of his focus is on the people he meets; I see many travel books as using the locations visited simply as backdrops to an individual's story.I highly recommend this book to anyone.

PILGRIM egages, enlightens and challenges

The central theme of the PILGRIM is simple: we journey through life as tourists, as travelers, and as pilgrims. According to Biallas, we can experience the sacred in life in every moment, in every place, in every activity, and in every person of our lives. Though we are influenced, enriched, and affected by all of our life experiences as tourists and travelers, it is when we hourney through life as pilgrims that we have encounters that transform us, leave us somehow different. To be a pilgrim is to engage life; it is to enter into life at its deepest levels.To read PILGRIM is to have an experience, an encounter with life, to review one's own life experiences through a lens that will provide one with some penetrating insights into one's own life. The contents of the books --stories, images, and insights -- are like a prism which one can place over one's own life experiences and see them bathed in an array of color, the brightness and richness of which will leave one in awe at one's own life and experience.

Renewed awareness of travel

Dr. Leonard Biallas in his latest work `Pilgrim: A spirituality of travel' takes on an aspect of pilgrimage human beings know all too well. That the spirituality of a pilgrimage begins with the spirit of the pilgrim. As he points out many times, the sacred is not found in just one area of life, but true sacredness is found everywhere. This is laid out in a very clear format. Our literary journey, as a reader is not wandering but carefully focused. The most gripping point in this book for me is to know that though I have not traveled the world physically my life has not be devoid of spiritual pilgrimages. This book gives a gift to the travel connoisseur and the inexperienced traveler of internal reflection. If the book is read with an open heart and mind one's spirituality will be transformed to view the core of travel being `direct experience' of place or moment. This idea of the sacredness of a moment is found throughout history echoing the works of such philosophers as Rudolph Otto to the modern musical lyrics of Christian music artists like Chris Rice ("Power of the moment"). The format of the book is very clear. Seeing that one will leave home seeking. Then to see the journey from a vantage point of being fully aware of your every step amid the sacred that permeates all life. Finally coming home with all your spirituality to find that the pilgrimage never ends as long as your pilgrim's heart is never static but always seeking. As Benedict J. Groeschel wrote, "This experience of travelers on this road is best described by St. Bernard in the words: `How good You are to those who seek!'" (Spiritual Passages, Page 4) Thomas Merton once wrote, " I am going home, to a home where I have never been in this body, where I have never been in this washable suit, where I have never been with these suitcases, where I have never been with these particular books..." (The Asian journals of Thomas Merton, Page 5) As Merton wrote and Dr. Biallas expounds upon in his book this is the very essence found at the heart of a pilgrim. This is a must read for all on a journey. Its openness to all faiths and author knowledgeable about the places and religions of the world comprise a wonderful work opening the doors of spiritual transformation. This transformation will hopefully guide men and women of all backgrounds to find a deeper reflective traveling experience opening up spirituality and pilgrimage to a renewed awareness of traveling worldwide.