LOCAL PILGRIM
This daily Lent devotional from the Presbyterian Outlook invites you to explore and observe new and familiar places in your community. What will God reveal to you when you pause, ponder, and reflect?
A cemetery, a bar, a library, an emergency waiting room: what do all these places have in common?
In Local Pilgrim, Outlook Editor/Publisher Teri McDowell Ott and other writers explore what God might reveal to us if we intentionally explore our communities. Who do we see? What do we hear? God reveals God’s self when we look.
Lent is the perfect season for a pilgrimage such as this, leading to meaningful contemplation and sacred discoveries. As you make your way through this devotional, you might find yourself inspired to go somewhere new; or somewhere familiar with a notebook in hand; pause, ponder and pray. What will God unveil? Join us on your local pilgrimage to new and familiar places in your community.
Each daily reflection, beginning with Ash Wednesday and culminating on Easter Sunday, will combine personal reflection, Scripture and prayer. May God bless you and keep you on your Lenten journey.
When I was a kid, I loved Louis Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy, which is about an 11-year-old girl who records observations about her community in her treasured notebook. Harriet’s spy work leads her to learn and reflect on local happenings, from the family who owns the local grocery store and is worried about maintaining their business, to Little Joe, their delivery boy, who is sneaking the store’s produce to hungry children. Harriet eventually gets in trouble for her spying, when her friends find her notebook and have their feelings hurt by judgments Harriet has recorded. But by the end of the book, Harriet learns important lessons in empathy and is given a new role to take advantage of her gifts — editor of her school newspaper.
The idea for these Local Pilgrim Lent devotions arose from my fond memories of Harriet the Spy and all she discovered through careful observation. I also wanted to know my community better. Our family moved to Harrisonburg, Virginia, in June of 2022, but I hadn’t taken time to explore beyond the places my errands take me. These “local pilgrimages” led me, notebook in hand, to some wonderful places — an inclusive playground built for children of all abilities, an arboretum I had always wanted to visit but never made time for, and my public library that welcomes and respects everyone who enters. I also ventured to places I’d never have gone without an assignment: a city bus, a seedy bar, a cemetery, and the waiting room of our local hospital. Other writers of this “local pilgrim” series ventured to places equally beautiful and mundane, as a sacred exercise in attending to whatever God lays before us in our lives and our communities.
I’ve been blessed by this Lenten series, purposefully exploring, discovering, and reflecting on my community. Lent is the perfect season for a pilgrimage such as this, leading to meaningful contemplation and sacred discoveries. As you make your way through this devotional, you might find yourself inspired to go somewhere new; or somewhere familiar with a notebook in hand; to pause, ponder, and pray. What will God reveal to you? I trust your pilgrimage will bless you just as “Local Pilgrim” has blessed me.
Teri McDowell Ott, Editor, Presbyterian Outlook
May God bless you and keep you on your Lenten journey.
