Pilgrim Band - Mutual Mentoring and Our Quest for Meaning and Purpose

Pilgrim Band

The Pilgrim Band is more like a phenomenon than a movement. Or perhaps it is better to say Pilgrim Bands are like a convergence of phenomena that can look like a movement, and be analyzed as a movement, but cannot be contained by any structure or explained by any specific analysis.

These convergences of people are the result of another more granular shift in how individuals participate in religion. In the latter half of the 20th century, perhaps prompted by the despair following world war, the decline of religious credibility, and the emergence of the “Death of God” philosophies, we witnessed the multiplication of “seekers”. “Seekers” evolved as the growing minority of people alienated from established religion, borrowing from an olio of sacred traditions, texts, and tastes, and shaping spirituality around their personal tastes and opinions. The “seeker” was the product of radical individualism transforming religiosity.

But I think that changed in the emerging millennium. “Seekers” became the norm, not the exception, but “seeking” became as pointless and meaningless as the former religious institutions left behind. Out of the mass of “seekers” comes a smaller, more intentional group I call spiritual “travelers”. These are no longer radical individualists. They intuit that meaning and purpose lies beyond their egos, and no amount of borrowing, adapting, or customizing religious ideas will ever satisfy the loneliness and emptiness that dogs our days.

And so, in these recent decades, “travelers” are finding it useful to find “companions”. I say “useful” deliberately, because I think this is at root a pragmatic decision. The demise of religious institutions and the collapse of social civility go hand in hand. I’m not sure which one causes the other, but certainly the loss of religious structures has encouraged the collapse of social norms, generated a sense of moral chaos, and generally made the world a more dangerous place to seek meaning and purpose. It’s safer to travel together than to stand alone.

As many know, my own journey over the past 75 years originated in organized religion, evolved into consulting to help churches and clergy sustain credibility as agents of personal and spiritual growth, and social assimilation and transformation. As that grew increasingly frustrating for people such as myself, to stem the tide of religious and social disintegration, I began to see hope emerge observing seekers becoming travelers, travelers becoming pilgrims, and pilgrims forming bands. These, I believe, are replacing “denominations” and “congregations” as the primary agents of personal/spiritual growth and social assimilation/transformation.

I first saw this happening at the fringes of church and society. I saw at the edges, out of the corner of my eye … less from consulting experience itself and more in the flow of life between consultations and in extreme environments. I saw through a kind of peripheral vision in the atypical environments of Newfoundland, Labrador, and Alaska; and the coastal cultures of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; the megalopolises of the US northwest and northeast; and the cultural diversity of Australia and New Zealand.

But what has developed on the fringes is moving into the center. The Pilgrim Band is not a fringe phenomenon anymore. It is becoming mainstream. And, for me, it is a source of hope and a “way forward” for both religion and civilization.