All posts in Travel

  • September 9, 2019

    Returning To The Way of St. James

    Returning To the Way of St. James
    Brian Zahnd

    But I would walk five hundred miles
    And I would walk five hundred more
    Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
    To fall down at your door
    –The Proclaimers

    In the fall of 2016 Peri and I walked 500 miles from St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain along the 1,200 year-old Camino Francés pilgrim route. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. It may have blistered my feet, but it healed my soul. The truth is, when I set out from St.-Jean on September 14, 2016 (Holy Cross Day) I didn’t know how much healing my soul needed. But as we walked into Santiago forty days later I was aware that I had walked into a deep peace that is still with me today. Though it may sound like a cliché, I can honestly say the Camino changed my life. Peri tells the story from her perspective in her Camino memoir, Every Scene By Heart.

    Last year for our vacation we walked the Camino Portuguése from Porto, Portugal to Santiago — a pilgrimage of 160 miles that took two weeks. It was a Camino tune up, but not the same as the long 500-mile walk. Unfortunately, Peri developed a stress fracture of her tibia on this Camino and ended up on crutches for eight weeks! The Camino does present physical challenges.

    This fall we are returning to the 500-mile Camino Francés. We begin walking on September 12 and will return to St. Joseph in time to celebrate the 38th anniversary of Word of Life Church on November 3. After pastoring Word of Life for nearly four decades we now have an excellent pastoral staff and the congregation will be just fine while Peri and I go for a long walk. But why do I want to go on another big Camino? I have a fairly definite reason.
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    No Comments / Camino de Santiago, Travel /

  • May 24, 2018

    The Sign That Saves The World

    FraAngelico

    The Sign That Saves The World
    Brian Zahnd

    Look to me and be saved,
    All you ends of the earth!
    –Isaiah 45:22

    Peri and I are on our way to speak at the Christ at the Checkpoint conference in Bethlehem and we’re spending a few days in Florence, Italy exploring the cradle of the Renaissance. Visiting the museums and art galleries, I’ve seen hundreds of crucifixion paintings, and I’ve tried to view each one with a reverent eye. I never look at depictions of Christ crucified with a jaundiced eye. Their religious nature and ubiquitous presence may illicit a yawn from the secular cynic, but not from me — I’m an incorrigible Christian. I believe the cross is where Christ saves the world. Looking at the cross with the right eye, the reverent eye of humble faith, is the locus of salvation. The cross is the sign that saves the world.

    Ten years ago when I first began to connect Fyodor Dostoevsky’s enigmatic phrase “beauty will save the world” with the cross — it is at Golgotha that the ugliness of human sin is overcome by the beauty of divine love — the image of the cross as saving beauty that I most often referred to was Fra Angelico’s fresco. Today when we visited the San Marco Monastery I was able to see this fresco painted by the monk-artist Beato Angelico in 1441. As I lingered in contemplation of Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion, it prompted me to once again ask — what does this mean? Take a moment and ponder this question with me.
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    No Comments / Art, Christianity, Cross, Theology, Travel /

  • March 5, 2018

    Dominus Flevet (The Lord Wept)

    DominusFlevet

    Dominus Flevet – The Lord Wept
    Brian Zahnd

    “And when Jesus drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’” –Luke 19:41, 42

    Today is my birthday and I’m with Peri in the Old City of Jerusalem; we’re spending a few days here before leading a pilgrim tour of the Holy Land. This morning we began our day with prayer in the beautiful Church of All Nations located in the Garden of Gethsemane. We then walked to Bethany so we could retrace Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into the city of Jerusalem.

    On what we now call Palm Sunday Jesus arrived in Jerusalem as the long-awaited Messiah and King of All Nations. Unlike Pilate who entered the city from the west riding a warhorse (there’s always some dude on a horse!), Jesus entered the city from the east riding a lowly donkey in a deliberate embrace of Zechariah’s prophecy about a humble king who would come to teach peace to the nations.
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    No Comments / Jesus, Peace, Travel, War /

  • April 23, 2017

    Kyrie Eleison

    Camino
    Kyrie Eleison
    Brian Zahnd

    Six months ago I walked across Spain. Five hundred miles.
    Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
    Forty days and forty nights.
    A full life with two full moons. Harvest and Hunter’s.
    Heat and cold. Dust and rain. Wind and calm.
    It was all there.
    Beauty and blisters.
    Ecstasy and exhaustion.
    Pleasures and pains.
    Mountains, forests, and plains.
    Spaniards and Germans.
    Americans and Russians.
    Brazilians and Peruvians.
    Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese.
    They were all there.
    I was all there.
    Every step of the way.
    A million, three hundred thousand — give or take a few.

    I saw my life. The Camino was my life. My life compressed to forty days and forty nights.
    A five hundred mile walk of life. A precise (or at least an approximate) reflection.
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    No Comments / Camino de Santiago, Poetry, Spiritual Growth, Travel /

  • April 12, 2017

    What Does This Mean? (Five Hundred Miles of Crucifixes)

    San_Martin_Fromista_cristo
    What Does This Mean? (Five Hundred Miles of Crucifixes)
    Brian Zahnd

    Six months ago Peri and I walked five hundred miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago. It was quite simply the most wonderful, most spiritual, most healing thing we’ve ever done. The Camino changed both of us. This morning as I prayed I thanked God in tears for the gift of the Camino. Until today I’ve not written about it, mostly because I’m still absorbing it. But Holy Week seems like the right time to share one aspect of my experience.

    We began the Camino on September 14, 2016 ( Holy Cross Day). After a long trek across the Pyrenees mountains from St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France we arrived in Roncesvalles, Spain. In Roncesvalles I spent some time alone in a thirteenth century chapel gazing on a medieval crucifix. While sitting in this dimly lit sanctuary the Holy Spirit seemed to give me four instructions for my five hundred mile walk:
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    No Comments / Cross, Jesus, Theology, Travel, Uncategorized, Violence /

  • September 7, 2016

    A Sabbatical Walk to Santiago

    Camino

    A Sabbatical Walk to Santiago
    Brian Zahnd

    I’ve been a pastor for 35 years. One church. Nonstop. I’ve written 3,270 sermons. In the past seven years I’ve written six books. I’ve never been away from my church for two consecutive Sundays except during some international ministry trips. I’ve never gone two Sundays without preaching somewhere…ever.

    Now it’s time for a sabbatical. I’m going to be gone for seven Sundays. No sermon preparation, no preaching, no writing, no counseling. It will be a time of reflection, a time of prayer, and a time of walking.

    Walking, walking, walking…

    Peri and I are going on a 500 mile walk.
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    No Comments / Travel /

  • May 25, 2011

    Thinking Tikkun Olam in Istanbul

    IMG_9740

    I’m sitting on a rooftop in Istanbul. I’m thinking. Thinking about the world. Thinking about Jesus. I’m thinking about Jesus as the savior of the world and the Jewish concept of tikkun olam (“to mend the world”).

    The world is broken.
    It needs mending.
    Jesus is the answer.
    Jesus is the savior.
    Jesus is the savior of the world.

    This is the confession of the gospel.
    This is the witness of the apostles and prophets.
    Consistently, repeatedly, scripturally, evangelistically, apostolically.
    Jesus is the savior of the world!
    Liberate it from cliché and dare to conceive it in a real and radical way.
    Believe it in a fresh, invigorating, imaginative way.
    Jesus
    saves
    the
    world
    !!!
    This world!
    (And not some other.)

    OK, but what shall we do with this apostolic faith in Jesus as the savior of the world? Read more

    3 Comments / Christianity, Travel /

  • January 17, 2009

    The Crosses of Jerusalem

    Peri and I are in Jerusalem. Today as we walked about the Old City crosses caught my eye. The cross is forever linked with Jerusalem. Allow me to share a few pictures of the crosses of Jerusalem.

    Shalom.
    BZ


    Three Crosses on the Via Dolorosa
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    2 Comments / Travel /

  • January 10, 2009

    Saint Francis of Assisi


    Peri and I are on our way to Israel. Since Tuesday we’ve been in Rome. Yesterday we took a train to Assisi to explore the world of an Italian prophet from the 13th century. Over the past year or so I’ve become fascinated by Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). I’ve read five biographies and listened to one lecture series on Francis. His conversion, his life, his impact upon society are profoundly inspirational. So we went to Assisi.
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    2 Comments / Christianity, Travel /
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