What is peregrination? I’m glad that you wondered and clicked on this page.

I was blessed the other day to find a word to match what I have been called by God to do. Peregrination means traveling around, especially on foot.
A while ago I had a dream where God called me to walk around the country helping people and sharing God’s love with everyone. I thought surely this was the craziest idea that had ever come to me through God. Could I tell people that I had this experience and expect them to take me seriously?
I was then reading a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer called The Cost Of Discipleship. In it, Bonhoeffer gives a list of spiritual gifts and one of them is peregrination. I had no idea what the word meant. When I looked it up, I was delighted. I wasn’t crazy! After all, this was what Christ himself had done. Traveling around by foot.
Why is peregrination important? I think that in this world of machines, we have become disconnected from the earth. We know that we are destroying this precious earth and yet at the same time we are not aware of it because we are constantly disconnected from it. We move about in machines that destroy the earth further.
One of the other wonderful things about walking around by foot is the time if gives you to focus on God. We are always in a rush and our vehicles provide an even more effective way to rush. A trip that in the past would have taken days can be done in a matter of hours now. We no longer have time to think and prayerfully walk. Even if we do have time to think in our vehicles, we turn on the radio and refuse to think.
If you are going to peregrinate, then allow no distractions. Don’t bring a walkman. Don’t bring a book to read. Simply walk and take in the earth and God’s beauty.
Peregrination also has a destination. I do not think that peregrination is wandering around, but is intentional traveling by foot. Have a goal and a destination in mind and walk with God to that goal.