spirituality – Mick Canning

We recently returned from a week in Cornwall, and where we stayed was close to the end of a pilgrim route, St Michael’s Way. This is a short twelve and a half mile walk from the North Cornish coast to St Michael’s Mount, in Mount’s Bay on the South coast. Although the route is such a short one – a day’s walk for most people – it still apparently qualifies for a pilgrim ‘stamp’ on the official pilgrim passport for the very much longer long-distance Camino pilgrimage, since in the Middle Ages many pilgrims walked this route to the Benedictine monastery on the island, then took a boat to France to continue on towards Santiago de Compostela.

I am interested in learning – as far as it is possible for the staunchly non-religious person to learn – what the religious get out of pilgrimages. In the past, they were generally viewed as a way of gaining merit, of putting a few points in the bank when it came to whether you were headed for heaven or hell in the afterlife. Frequently, they were also undertaken in the hope of cures from diseases; various remnants of saints such as bones or clothing were held to have miraculous properties, and the touch of these might cure whichever disease ailed you.

Personally, I view pilgrimage as a spiritual thing, rather than a religious one. Something that puts the pilgrim in touch with their ‘finer’ feelings – a way of understanding what is important in life; relationships, simplicity, art maybe, minimal possessions – we will all have a different interpretation of this. In the past I have considered attempting one of the Camino routes – through France and Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. These are long, serious, routes, hundreds of miles long. Had I done so, I would have walked these for pleasure, as well as a personal challenge, rather than as a pilgrimage. Now, though, I am curious to see how much of the ‘religious’ experience I might have.

Whether visiting a church or a standing stone, a ‘holy’ well or a Sufi shrine, all are invested with spirituality. All are invested with meaning to many people and although I know I will never be able to experience the feelings of, say, a Christian at a site they consider holy, I might experience something akin to it. I’m not suggesting I might feel awe at the shrine of a saint, more that I might get an impression of the feelings of the visitors who do. And because I cannot quite find the words to express what I might hope to find, I reckon that’s an indication it’s an experiment worth making.

…a monk.

Yes, you heard me correctly. a monk. Regular readers of this indulgence will know I pour scorn on organised religion, but also that I have a hankering for the simple life and for solitude. I would love to be disciplined enough to do without fripperies, but I never quite seem to get there. Obviously social media would also have to go if I was a monk. In fact, even if I didn’t become a monk, I think perhaps social media should go. That would be good for me.

But not books, of course. They’re Important.

In another time, a time when belief in the predominant religion was a given, I would have had no problem in becoming a monk. But since I don’t have that belief, it sounds like a contradiction to say that to me the spiritual side of life is extremely important, but the spiritual is, to me, separate from religion. I view the spiritual side of me as being that part that yearns for simplicity, for art, for the minimum possessions required for life, and to be surrounded by nature. Incidentally, I also understand that monks are given a daily ration of beer or wine.

That also sounds good.

And because I was fortunate to have been born in an age of scientific enquiry when most people no longer blindly accept religious dogma, but are generally prepared to question it, I am free to make choices based on my own conscience and on what I consider important.

But I could almost, under certain circumstances, become a Buddhist monk, even in this life. I have said before how I am attracted to Buddhism, although as a philosophy rather than as a religion. I like the way the emphasis is on yourself to make your best life. Gods don’t have to be involved.

I have twice spent a week in that sort of environment – one time a week of Zen meditation, which was very hard work but left me with a great feeling of clear-headed calm, and once on a retreat at a Benedictine monastery where I made a point of attending a simple morning service each day and spending the rest of the day in thought and writing and painting and gently wandering around the extensive grounds. As a panacea for the stresses of modern life it was difficult to beat. I could, as I said, see myself in another life settling into the routine there on a permanent basis. But not in this life.