ShareThisAmericans move, on average, every five years -- to a new job, home, or community. Many of the moves are just meandering; relatively few are life altering.But there are some among us who are risk-takers, treating their moves as rites of passage and their entire life as one long pilgrimage.Before a candidate is accepted into the Society of Jesus, for example, he is expected to prove that he can be just such a pilgrim. Each Jesuit novice devotes a full month to silent prayer, then six weeks to round-the-clock care of the sick, the mentally ill, and the dying.Thus prepared, each young man is given $35 and a one-way bus ticket to a destination agreed upon by himself and his spiritual advisor. Equipped with nothing more, he is expected to fend for himself for a month in the world before returning to continue his studies for the priesthood.It is a pilgrimage devised by the Jesuits' founder, Ignatius of Loyola, a soldier-saint of the 16th century, who prescribed it as "a pilgrimage without money ... begging from door to door at times, for the love of God our Lord, in order to grow accustomed to discomfort in food and lodging. This too the candidate, through abandoning all the reliance which he could have in money or other created things, may with genuine faith and intense love place his reliance entirely in his Creator and Lord."Chris Mahon, a Jesuit writing in America magazine, recalls with relish the adventures of some of these homeless vagabonds. One admitted, "Most of the time I had no idea where I was going ... so it became a requirement to simply trust that God would give me the grace necessary both to know where I ought to go and to actually find a way to get there."One pilgrim who slept outside many nights during his journey, recalled his first night without a place to stay: "As I was sitting disappointed on a wall at an industrial park, reading and waiting for it to get dark, I saw on a wall, written in graffiti, 'Trust God.' Staring at this I received new energy. It was the reassurance I needed." Later, when he worshipped in church in his slept-in clothes, "people would sit away from me at a 'safe' distance. How I regret for the many times I have judged people by outside appearance."Religion hallows rites of passage because they focus the mind on one's responsibilities to God and humankind. Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lives. Jewish youngsters study intensely for their bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah. Adult baptism serves a similar purpose for Christians.Readers of this column know my wife to be a writer of mysteries. Her current thriller features a wealthy man who survives a train wreck, only to disappear, abandoning his responsibilities. Becky calls him The Pilgrim of St. Ives.By contrast, people of faith consider their entire lives to be pilgrimages, with a fixed destination and a heightened sense of responsibility.(David Yount's "Growing in Faith: A Guide for the Reluctant Christian" (Seabury) is in its second edition. He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount(at)erols.com.??
A worthy pilgrimage
Paying taxes unites us. It also divides us. People can pay five and even six times more in state and local taxes than other folks in similar circumstances making similar incomes.
Who's got your number?
In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
