Yesterday, I went on a pilgrimage with a few members of the church and our new Senior Pastor Michelle. It was a tour around central and north Merritt Island. It was done to help orient our new pastor to the place she now calls home for this season of her life. It was a lot of fun. There is a lot of history on our little island we all call home. There are places where prehistoric artifacts have been found. There are places where Indians, the Ais, lived. There are some great pioneering homes that still stand, The Sams House and Field Manor, and there is NASA where rockets are launched, and history continues to unfold.
It got me to thinking about all the places we live throughout the world and how many of us don’t even know the history of those places. While I dug up a lot of historical facts to relay with each place, we either drove by or stopped at, I also learned from the people who were on the bus as they shared their memories of Merritt Island. I can’t speak for anyone else on the bus, but doing this pilgrimage connected me even more to the place where I live. Even as I went around with a friend to map out the route and the places, I knew I wanted to highlight, I found a few more I didn’t know about to add to the tour.
The other thing I discovered is this is a great family activity. You can dig into the history of the place you live, and then take the family for a drive, stopping at strategic points along the way. Of course, one stop we had was the ice cream shoppe. Ice cream is a must for any pilgrimage.
Our tour lasted just over 2.5 hours, but you could make your own pilgrimage as long or short as you want depending on how many stops you choose to make. You could even make a day of it and find a hole-in-the-wall restaurant or mom and pop place for lunch. Pilgrimages should not be a time for chain restaurants!
It was a great afternoon! To my fellow pilgrims: thank you for the journey and the knowledge you shared.
Peace,
Beth
Beth's Blog 