Here I sit in the Salt Lake City airport, waiting patiently for a flight that will take me to London and then onto Oslo to begin the Pilegrimsleden, or St. Olav’s Ways. It is hard to describe exactly why I feel the need to go on this pilgrimage. I am only a quarter of Norwegian descent, and I have no particular devotion to St. Olav (at least not yet), but for over a decade I have wanted to go walk the Gudbrandsdalsleden, partially after having read Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (a Norwegian and Catholic covert), in which the title character makes this very same pilgrimage as a penance, walking barefoot and carrying her child over the threshold of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, the burial place of St. Olav, perpetual king of Norway. The greater part of the inspiration came from having done the Path to Rome ‘pilgrimage’ in homage to Hilario Belloc, whose book The Path to Rome many have sought to imitate.
My friend Edward and I did that pilgrimage in 2014, and, while I have done some smaller pilgrimages in the meantime, I have not done a grand scale pilgrimage such as that since that year. Long has the St. Olav Way laid at the back of my mind, slowly reminding me from time to time the pull to put on a pack and walk for a month. This time, I begin alone, and Edward will join me some weeks later toward the end, logging the final days to Trondheim.
As for why? I do not know, other than that I simply want to, and that to leave a dream unfulfilled would tug on that part of my brain for ever after. What happens to a dream deferred? as Langston Hughes once wrote.
The beauty of pilgrimages, as I perceive them anyway, is that though I do them alone or with one other person, I carry my people with me through prayer. They pray for me and I pray for them. I carry a few tokens of such connections, small photos of my family and children, a plushie of Appa from Avatar made for me by an old student, a challenge coin custom made by an old colleague of mine, a chaplet made for me by a friend I made in seminary, a spinnable ratchet noisemaker given to me my someone I met on a previous pilgrimage, several prayer books, among other less interesting things.
If you have a specific prayer request you would like me to pray for, send it to my old Path to Rome prayer ‘hotline’ email: pathtoromeprayers@gmail.com. I will pray for these intentions each day and offer the pilgrimage in part for these intentions.
Our Lady, help of pilgrims, pray for us.
St. Olav, pray for us.
