Episode 270 - Kyle Wisdom, "Walking With Purpose: Pilgrimage on St. Cuthbert's Way"

"I think for myself, it's realizing that there is a journey has given me more patience sometimes with myself that it's okay, I haven't arrived. I can still be somebody who's learning and making mistakes." - Kyle Wisdom

On this episode of Restoring the Soul, we have a special guest, Kyle Wisdom, who shares his transformative experience on a pilgrimage to St. Cuthbert's Way. Kyle takes us on a journey of anticipation, disappointment, and profound reflections. Throughout the episode, we explore the significance of pilgrimage in the Christian faith and how it can impact our daily spiritual lives. Kyle's pilgrimage becomes a metaphor for navigating the twists and turns of everyday life, emphasizing the importance of living with anticipation. 

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Transcript

MICHAEL CUSICK: 0:57

Welcome to another episode of the restoring the soul Podcast. I'm Michael John Cusack and a special guest today talking with Dr. Kyle wisdom, who's a dear friend of mine and a colleague in a number of ministries. Kyle, welcome to the program. Thanks, Michael. Great to be here. I want to talk with you about via Divina the practice of spiritual pilgrimage. And you and I have some history together with that. So tell us a little bit of the story. And we'll kind of go back and forth about what we did last summer, and how you got into that.

Kyle Wisdom: 1:33

Sure. So last summer, a bunch of people got together, and you were one of them. And we went on a pilgrimage together, I co lead it with a friend and was so delighted to invite you and to have you come. And we ended up planning pilgrimage through Scotland and Northern England that started out in Edinburgh, and finished on the island of Lindisfarne. And it was something I long wanted to do, since I started my PhD in the UK love to explore the meadows and beautiful countryside and in and around Scotland, and also love to be out in nature and to connect with God and to do it in fellowship with other people. So that was something I had wanted to do for a long time. And, to me, having the chance to be in community to be intentional about practicing life and spirituality together. And having a destination where we're going. Those were all really important things in a pilgrimage that I was really excited to do and to have you come along with.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 2:46

And it was life changing. It was in a number of ways. When you say that you've wanted to do it for a while we started discussing this before the pandemic, and then the pandemic slowed it down and it didn't happen. And you kind of stayed at me. You were relentless. And I eventually was able to do it with my schedule, but to say yes. And I was initially like, that sounds great. And I thought that's kind of feels extravagant to do. And it was it was a gift that I gave myself. But the community that developed along the way, the spiritual meaning of it. And then, of course, I'll share with the public what you already know that I got COVID and was not able to finish the pilgrimage. 100 kilometers proximately and actually crossover, like you and the rest of the gang did and talk about how in that last two miles how people take off their shoes and when what that's like in particular to go to Holy Island.

Kyle Wisdom: 3:44

Yeah, well, it was amazing. You know, we tried to have a focus on Celtic spirituality. And so we were on a path called St. Cuthberts way. And we walked, as you said, this 100 Kilometer paths that Cuthbert had traveled in his own ministry that ends on holy Island, or the island of Lindisfarne, which was an ancient scriptorum, where people copied manuscripts of the Bible and did so for hundreds of years. And there's been a worshiping community on this island for a long time, including Christian Abbey in place of reflection and meditation. And along the way, because it's an island, you can't get there at certain times of the day. So there are these poles, which look like bamboo poles sort of jammed into the ground into the mud, that stretch two miles across from the shore going off into the distance, and you can barely make out the island out there. And as you come towards the end of the pilgrimage, you've walked about, I don't know 96 and a half kilometers all the way till this point. And in order to get the rest of the way. You can't just go anytime you want. You have to time it with the tides. So we're a little I don't know, overachiever. So we got there a little bit early. So we had to wait. But we actually watched all the waters recede through the bay. And there's this causeway of a road a paved road that cars can drive across. Of course, we didn't go that way. So we went across the pilgrim poles, which is actually a more direct route, kind of as the crow flies. And in order to do it, you could go with your hiking boots and get them totally wet and soggy in the mud or you can take them off and walk barefoot. And that's the actual historical practice as people take off their shoes, take off their socks and you walk about two miles across the tidal flats over to Holy Island. And it's beautiful. You can smell the ocean you can hear this huge chorus of birds like nesting and making lots of noise. The sky was constantly changing with clouds and then sunshine and clouds and Sunshine. Thankfully, we didn't get rained on. But as we were going, we were encouraged to reflect on two things. One was, what might you want to leave behind in your spiritual life? And we walked in silence for the whole two miles. And we were contemplating this and thinking about this along the way, what might you want to leave behind in your life and your spiritual life or a habit or it kind of anything that maybe God might be asking you to get rid of? And what is it that you want to receive? And what would you like to ask God to give you as you head in that direction, and reflecting on what you want to leave behind sort of for the first mile, and just walking in silence with the wind and the birds and the muck, and the sand kind of squishing up between your toes was multisensory, to say the least, and was such a rich time of reflection, and it felt very sacred, we were kind of all spread out in a group, there was about 14 of us. And we're, you know, there'll be like 200 yards, sometimes between you and the next person. So it felt like a very individual experience, even though we were kind of doing it together. And then we had a retreat at Holy Island and got to kind of debrief and some people felt comfortable to kind of share some of their experiences. But it was, it was really, really rich for me, and really rich for my wife, and I think really rich for everybody else. So

MICHAEL CUSICK: 7:20

thanks for sharing all of that. So what you just described is the part that I missed, and I want to go back, as we've talked about next year, and still finish, you have to finish all 100 kilometers. But the times that we were together, and I figured I probably went about 90 miles all sudden done. And the utter surprise for me, you and Coco, your wife, were the only ones that I knew, or the group of 12, initially, but all different kinds of conversations on the path at dinner at breakfast in the morning, staying at Bed and Breakfast and things like that, and the community, the connections and the conversation that came just by walking. And even though there were parts of it that were not led or directed, I also discovered that the walking process allowed me to reflect and to experience and discover things different from if I was just sitting in my chair reading a book about St. Cuthberts are about pilgrimage or even the scriptures. It was like somehow the scriptures came alive. Did you experience that, that the movement somehow fuels the fire of what God did on that experience for you?

Kyle Wisdom: 8:35

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's at least two things that I think of one is just being in nature. If we do our devotions, and the book of Scripture, another ancient book people talk about as the book of creation. So you're out in the book of creation, God's revelation in the world, that we can experience it live and literally walk in the midst of that is very powerful. And I think so many people find very moving and spiritual to be outside in God's creation. That was one thing. I think another thing is just kind of moving your body, right, left, right, it integrates your brain, it integrates the hemispheres between your brains. It helps you be connected to your body, I tend to be sort of a thinker, and I have a PhD in political philosophy found out I really liked philosophy, and it's really easy for me to be just stuck in my head. And something about the movement and motion, also in community really helps me kind of get settled, feel more connected, feel more integrated, and connected with the Lord.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 9:52

You know, this sounds so simple, but because a lot of these podcast episodes more recently are around this question of why bother with devotions? Why bother with creating some kind of spiritual rhythm in your life, I believe more and more that getting outside outdoors, and moving of any kind, has tremendous spiritual value. And you live in Orlando, I live in Denver, but we just spent the last four days together here in Denver. You're back home now. But one of the things we did was we went for a hike. And it was about I think you measured it 4.3275 miles or something like that. And the time together a fellowship was awesome. But it was so invigorating, to be outside, to be in the mountains to move to talk to breeze. And there were both moments where we both just kind of looked around and it was awe inspiring. What was that like for you? And are you able to articulate that that is spiritual for you?

Kyle Wisdom: 10:56

Yeah, Great question. I think the first thing is, I was glad I was able to keep up with you being down here at sea level and getting up to altitude with someone who's exercising a lot these days, I was, I was glad to be able to do that. So that that was that was affirming. It was fantastic. Obviously, you're one of my favorite people to spend time with. So it was a treat to be able to do that together. And I think, to me, I guess it's, it's really hard to describe it's, and I say, would say it's mysterious, maybe even mystical. I don't know why. But being in nature, being up high, having views and vistas where you're looking down on things, being in the midst of the rich, green valleys and peaks. Yeah, it's just, it's awe inspiring, and it touches something in my heart. And I don't know what to say other than that must be God, and so holy spirit, but to also be there with a brother in the faith and to have such rich conversations about the heart about, you know, this cultural moment that we live in and trying to discern, you know, kind of some of our own ways in which we maybe are capitulating to the culture, or just kind of going along with it? what ways do we need to maybe go upstream or go countercultural a little bit and to kind of live faithfully in the context that we're in and try to make our own contribution in the world. I mean, those kinds of conversations don't often come up in the car, or sitting down to eat a meal, as good as it may be, you know, you you get distracted, there's the food you're talking about delicious, that is you get interrupted by the serving staff, but extended time to be in beauty. And just the richness of visual input you get really soaks up a lot of space in your mind. And I think, and I don't know if it's just nature or how it works, but it's a little bit easier to be comfortable in silence and let space kind of breathe in the midst of the conversation to reflect on things and to be able to come back and pick up a conversational thread where where it may have dropped it before. But I would say it's profoundly spiritual.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 13:13

You have spent a lot of your adult life working in Muslim majority countries, and you did a lot of your doctoral work around understanding religious freedom in Indonesia. And so I want to ask this question. I remember taking an undergraduate class in Islam, and learning for the first time that you're considered a good and faithful Muslim if you make a pilgrimage to Mecca, right. And so that is a kind of requirement to do that, to the to the point where at whatever that pilgrimage time of year is that there are millions of people that descend upon Saudi Arabia in Mecca. Why Should Christians consider making a pilgrimage? And what's the historical precedent like, who started and why and when thinking oh, it's a good idea to walk two miles across the mud through the east side of Scotland to go to this place where St. Cuthbert was, or who decided that it was a good idea to walk the Camino, Santiago, or to go to a cc? So I guess two questions. If Islam has a requirement for a pilgrimage, how might Christians think about that? How it would benefit them? And then just to comment on where this all came from?

Kyle Wisdom: 14:33

Mm hmm. Well, I mean, you make a good point about the Islamic pilgrimage, that's called the Hodge. And you can, you could do it most anytime. But it's one of the chief pillars of Islam. And going on the Hodge gives you a lot of credibility in the Islamic community, but also it means a lot for your your good deeds to outweigh your bad deeds in Islam. And, obviously, we're thinking of something quite different within the Christian world. And pilgrimage has been around for a long time. And historically, pilgrims went to Jerusalem. They went to the Holy Land to see the land of Jesus, and to experience it and to see what it was like and I think without, you know, the internet or TV, motion pictures, even or even the radio, you know, if you really wanted to see something into experience something different. You had to go there. And Christians were motivated to go there to see the life of Jesus. I've had a chance to spend some time in the Holy Land and to be in the area of the Sea of Galilee and to do Walk the mountain where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount, and to see things like all these little mustard plants that grow there, and these tiny seeds that would have just probably been right on the ground in that area for, you know, at this point 1000s of years, it makes things come alive. And so I think people have constantly been looking for that in their own spirituality. And we don't need it any less today, just because we do have things like the internet, and TVs and YouTube and other videos. There's just something radically different for seeing and experiencing something yourself, as opposed to hearing about it or reading about it or or learning from someone else.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 16:42

It seems that the idea of a pilgrimage, if we distill it down to the idea of it can include going to a destination where there's a person, or some history or a sacred space, that a pilgrimage is just also the idea of journey. And one of the things that I really learned about myself is the power of anticipation. So there was an anticipation for the trip coming up and having to go to REI and get gear and figure out what shoes are best. And then there's an anticipation of flying and then arriving. And day one, you start to hike. And then there's day two and this kind of wondering of wonder what it will be like and then of course, I had massive depression and disappointment because I got COVID. But yeah, it felt like that. The the pilgrimage was a kind of macrocosm instead of a microcosm. It was a macrocosm of everyday life, that there is a destination and life is a journey. And we have to live with anticipation and the road twists and turns. What have you learned about your daily spiritual life and the journey that you're on as a follower of Jesus as an academic, as a husband, as a dad, as a friend? How his pilgrimage inform that?

Kyle Wisdom: 18:11

Hmm. One thing you really brought to my mind, as you were talking is this historian and Scottish writer Andrew Walz, in his studies of the expansion of Christian spirituality and the Christian church, throughout history, he was a patristic scholar, but he would talk about two impulses within Christianity. One was an indigenizing principle, which means that Christianity can localize and take on the local flavor of any culture and has of all so many different cultures around the world. And the other principle that really stuck in my mind and just came back right now was the pilgrim principle, that just as the gospel, and the church can make its home in any culture, it's never settled there. It's always about another place. It's always about this heavenly journey. So we're pilgrims, this world can be our home. And yet this world is not our home in any way. And, you know, Peter calls us aliens and sojourners. And we're often likened to pilgrims on a journey and Christians have reflected on that. I think, for myself, it's realizing that there is a journey has given me more patience, sometimes with myself, that it's okay, I haven't arrived, I can still be somebody who's learning and making mistakes, I can mess things up. I can let that happen with my kids, I can realize that, you know, I'm here I've arrived at this point took a lot of work to get here, and there'll be a lot of work to get to the next stage. And for people who haven't had the chance to go through all the stages I've gone through, of course, they're going to take their time, you wouldn't expect a first grader to be doing graduate level work in college. And I think having sort of that pilgrim mindset that we're all kind of on a journey has given me a lot of patience, and has helped me both kind of get in touch with just where I'm at for myself, on all the learning that I still need to do as I look ahead and have role models and older models in the faith who are setting an example for me that I don't feel like I can meet yet. I can, I can give myself some grace. And as I work with people younger than me or people with maybe less maturity or it gives me compassion that you know, if I am really honest with my own life, I made a lot of those same mistakes that really irritated me that I see in other people. And I when I remember that I too, was there at one point in my journey, it gives me a lot more compassion. Passion and empathy, and also just a desire to kind of help people take the next step.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 21:04

There's a lot of richness of what you just said, one of the things you said sparked a thought about, for me the pilgrimage helped connect me to the larger reality of the Body of Christ, not just globally in the moment today that we live in. But how for centuries and two millennia, that there have been believers and communities that are so very different from what I've experienced, but deeply passionate and committed to Jesus in his way. And this man named Saint Cuthbert, that he lived monastic Lee, on this island of Lindisfarne, and his life was very dedicated to God. And it was a result of that, that this happy in this community sprang up. And I just always think it's valuable, and you've helped me with the smoke so much, is to really have a global perspective about faith.

Kyle Wisdom: 21:59

And it was a unique experience to have people from around the world on our pilgrimage. I know, case, Lee, who you have had on this very podcast was there and oh, so rich to hear his experiences in Ghana, and then the work the global work that he's doing. It's so rich. But yeah, I think the way Christians have reflected and encountered God feels like, like refracted through a prism. Like, oh, there's some more colors. It's one God, and there's multiple experiences of him. And there's more colors out there than I've probably seen so far. And to be able to look at how Celtic Christians, even going all the way back to St. Patrick, how they worshipped the Lord, and had such a powerful understanding of the Holy Spirit, and would embody their spirituality in these prayers and limericks and songs. A lot of them weren't literate, and yet they just had these prayers. And these prayers have been preserved. There's a number of books you can pick up and look at and read about. And I read one last year, kind of in preparation, just collections of of prayers that are hundreds of years old, that have been faithfully passed down through these communities. And it's easy, maybe to go back to some of the devotional thing to think, you know, it's all about volume, like I need to get so many verses in me every day, or I need to get through the whole Bible in a year, or I need to read this many chapters. That's not bad. It's maybe a different color of the light spectrum. But to see people who didn't have access to a text, maybe who couldn't read. And yet, the lived and probably refresh, reflected so deeply on these prayers and had prayers for everything. There's a prayer for kindling a fire in the morning, at the beginning of the day, there's a prayer for washing your clothes, you know, just the way their spirituality was woven in every aspect of their life. Wasn't really academic, it wasn't deep, didn't contain like all this theology, it was just people living life with God. I think that's powerful.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 24:11

It may not have been deep in terms of like mystical in the way that we typically think about deep but it was deep, I imagine in terms of the grooves that were carved inside of their brain and grooves inside of their heart and their soul. You know, we talked as we hiked last weekend, about one theologian said that novelty is the enemy of spirituality at times. And that kind of repetition of printing a prayer to kindle fire and praying a prayer, for doing their laundry and all those things it, it eventually carves channels inside of us that are deep, where our whole life is kind of encompassed in God. And that's the beauty of it. The simplicity, I'll close with this, probably, I've got two kids, you've got three and a lot of churches in America where there are youth groups will say that if you really want to impact a child or a high schooler to have them have some kind of immersion in missions, and that's often a short term missions trip. And in certain circles, that's kind of just a maxim. And I want to start living with a sense of if you want to change your life, or to change the life of a young person, do a pilgrimage. And there's a time and a place to go abroad and to serve and to to bring good news through service. But there's, there's something about this experience in the anticipation of joining with those who have gone before us on this journey to connect to something larger in the body of Christ that it's a year later. Literally, we were there a year ago and I'm just Starting to unpack all that has meant to me. And I truly am eager to go back with you next year. So thank you for taking the time to just share about this via Divina is this spiritual practice? And there are people I know that I've even had on the podcasts that have done annual pilgrimages or smaller pilgrimages. Interestingly, I've heard people say, you know, we're making our pilgrimage to Disney World. And so I guess I want to say that there's all kinds of pilgrimages and that we're going to pilgrim we're going to be pilgrims towards something. It's a question of what are we what are we journeying toward? Kyle wisdom. Thanks for coming on the restoring soul podcast, so good to talk with you, friend.

Kyle Wisdom: 26:44

My pleasure. It's always a delight to be with you. Thank you.

Brian Beatty: 26:50

So we've wrapped up another episode of restoring the soul. We want you to know that restoring the soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in our intensive counseling programs in Colorado, allow you to experience deep change and half day blocks over two weeks. To learn more visit restoring the soul.com That's restoring the soul.com