In his consideration of identity culture and postmodern thinking, Zygmunt Bauman looks back to a particular moment in history for an image and a way of thinking about the world.

When Rome lay in ruins– humbled, humiliated and sacked and pillaged by Alaric’s nomads– St. Augustine jotted down the following observation: ‘[I]t is recorded of Cain that he built a city, while Abel, as though he were merely a pilgrim on earth, built none.’ ‘True city if the saints is in heaven’; here on earth, says St. Augustine, Christians wander ‘as on pilgrimage through time looking for the Kingdom of eternity.’

“The figure of the pilgrim,” Bauman asserts, “was not a modern invention; it is as old as Christianity.  But modernity gave it a new prominence and a seminally novel twist.”

This imagery isn’t just Augustinian, though.  Many early figures in the Hebrew Scriptures were pilgrims of a sort.  That becomes part of the argument of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews.  Moving from creation to Abraham, the writer asserts that

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.  For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.  If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.  But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (New International Version)

The pilgrim character of the faith can be a difficult stance to maintain, of course.  Like all analogies, it falls apart at some point.  Even still, it communicates something vital (and often missing) from our approach to faithful living.  Bauman goes on to say that

For pilgrims through time, the truth is elsewhere; the true place is always some distance, some time away.  Wherever the pilgrim may be now, it is not where he ought to be, and not where he dreams of being.  The distance between the true world and this world here and now is made of the mismatch between what is to be achieved and what has been.  The glory and gravity of the future destination debases the present and makes light of it.  For the pilgrim, only streets make sense, not the houses– houses tempt one to rest and relax, to forget about the destination.  Even the streets, though, may prove to be obstacles rather than help, traps rather than thoroughfares.  They may misguide, divert from the straight path, lead astray.  ‘Judeo-Christian culture,’ writes Richard Sennett, ‘is, at its very roots, about experiences of spiritual dislocation and homelessness . . . Our faith began at odds with place.’

There have been times in my life when this pilgrim mentality was quite clear and evident for me.  Reading about street and houses is something that I think of often (as a bus rider and oft-pedestrian who has rented for all of my adult life but who has great affection and appreciation for those who open and share their homes).  And I cannot help but think of The Way, which depicts a man’s journey on the Way of Saint James.  Something about that story resonates deeply in a way that is more than just escapism and tourism.

A lot of life is determined by what you are tethered to (and who determines that connection).  While the image of the pilgrim is far from the only analogy for the life of faith, I cannot help but feel that it is a necessary one.  Bauman does a good job of setting this up before picking it apart from a postmodern perspective.

(image of Chartres Cathedral from famouswonders.com)