The Slowness is the Point

[T]he old adage “it’s the journey, not the destination that matters most” is particularly true of modern pilgrimage. If the destination is the point, I can get to Santiago from anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. But that’s not the point. 

The point is the long walk itself and the simplified life of being a pilgrim—it’s a respite “far from the madding crowd” of modernity. For forty days and forty nights, our lives are reduced to the blessed singularity of walking from town to town, from church to church, from one…