Pilgrimage and change war peace and environment

University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1986 Pilgrimage and change : war peace and environment John John Francis The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits you. Recommended Citation Francis, John John, "Pilgrimage and change : war peace and environment" (1986). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers.edu/etd/7336 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana.

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Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Pilgrimage and Change: War Peace and Environment by John Francis B., Southern Oregon State College, 1981 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science University of Montana 1986 Approved by wet Ch@Airm¥n, Board of Examiners BOL bes sO Dean, Graduate Lipa ed A, LG SL Date J Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements I want to thank my committee members, Dr. Ron Erickson (Environmental Studies) and Professor Mary Birch (Social Work) for their support, suggestions, and criticisms.

I especially want to thank my advisor and committee chairperson, Professor Roger Dunsmore (Humanities). Without his tireless giving, guidance and dedication, this paper may never have been written. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Paul Lauren (History) for broadening my understanding of war and the pursuit of peace, to Dr.

Paul Dietrich (Religious Studies) who aided me in discovering pilgrimage as a social process, and to Dr. Tom Birch who taught me to question it all, including myself, My appreciation also goes to Dr. Dexter Roberts for the winter walks, his presence and editorial comments, and to Karen Boice for her support and what seemed to be an endless job of typing and editing. Finally, I want to thank Sara Miller for her work as sign language interpreter at my final defense.

ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Acknowledgements.e Bamboo and Silence. Thousand-Mile Summer.,“° Teachings in the Wilderness.

School of Reflection. War, Peace, and Environment.2cceeene iii c8 6 °Àđeđ} 61 “6ˆ 606 oeoeee a ee Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Page ii 32 48 59 63 71 99 105 119 Chapter I Introduction The environmental crisis is an outward manifestation of a crisis of mind and spirit.

There could be no greater misconception of its meaning than to believe it to be concerned only with endangered wildlife, human-made ugliness, and pollution. These are part of it, but more importantly, the crisis is concerned with the kind of creatures we are and what we must become if we are to survive. Caldwell I have begun a pilgrimage -- an eighteen-year around-the-world walking and sailing journey -- as part of my education to raise environmental consciousness, promote earth stewardship, and world peace. How I came to be on this journey, as well as the meaning which the experience and the concept of pilgrimage has for me and society, is the subject of this paper.

The concept of pilgrimage is not new. It is as old as the urge to wander, and has roots in alli major historical religions as well as a number of the smaller tribal cultures including those of Egypt and Meso-America. The amount of pilgrimage and related literature written by theologians, historians, social scientists and others is staggering. In recent times, Belgian ethnographer Arnold van Gennep (Rites of Passage) and anthropologist Victor Turner (Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors) have added much to the empirical 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.

Further reproduction prohibited without permission. understanding of pilgrimage as a social process. Van Gennep was able to define three distinct phases through which every pilgrim must ‘pass. The first phase was that of separation or detachment from the familiar; the second he referred to as liminal.

a sort of ambiguous state during which the pilgrim is part of no fixed social structure, and the third was that of reaggregation, which occurs when the pilgrimage is completed and the pilgrim returns to society. It is the separation from the familiar with which the story of my pilgrimage begins. The transition to van Gennep°s second phase is slow and its boundaries may be unclear, but it is where I find myself at this writing. In the second or liminal phase Turner recognized the power of pilgrimage as an agent of social change or an “anti-structure"” because it is a structure that by its very nature questions all other social structural rules and suggests new possibilities.

Of these new possibilities, one most mentioned by researchers and pilgrims is the experience of total brotherhood. It is what Turner calls "communitas," an intense feeling of kinship and community that transcends place and time, uniting pilgrims from all ages. In attempting to understand pilgrimage there is a danger in a strictly empirical approach. Such investigations can yield a certain knowledge of the objects and events, but will usually ignore the spirit or creative.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. force with which they are imbued. While Turner is comfortable with empirical investigation, in his study of pilgrimage he also recognizes the importance of personal documents, explanations, or interpretations of the phenomena, which he says gives the viewpoint of the actors.

"These would constitute a further set of social facts. So would one's own feelings and thoughts as an observer and as a participant.184) While reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, I was impressed with the complete change in Malcolm's former anti-white attitude to one of global brotherhood that occurred during his own pilgrimage (hajj). He was the first American Black Muslim to journey to Mecca, and he writes: Love, humility, and true brotherhood was almost a physical feeling wherever I turned.All ate as One, and slept as One, Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God.Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of ail colors and races, here in this Ancient, Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other prophets of the Holy Scriptures.325, 330, 339) Like Malcolm X, I experienced similar feelings of "communitas," as those around me became aware of my journey. However, this paper is not about Malcolm X; it is about pilgrimage, its history and its present as understood by a pilgrim.

It is not an attempt to discover “communitas" or Ww "purity of motive, but rather to uncover the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 ethical justification o£ my choices and actions through a method of "experiential reflection" of the life experiences that have nurtured, awakened, and delivered me onto this path of a pilgrim. Pilgrimage, as we will see, is a process.

In looking for what philosopher Henry Bugbee calis “the moment of obligation in experience," “experiential reflection," with its retrospective orientation, is the method of choice because the ultimate justification in acting is primarily delivered out of the experience of acting. Throughout this paper are woven the circumstances of tragedy, death, and realizaton in which we explore the finitude of life and are humbled. All serve the experience of life and make it whole. In that wholeness we may find "the moment of obligation." Looking back, then, this is how it began.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter If A Beginning The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey. The inner journey is the extrapolation of the meaning and signs of the outer pilgrimage, one can have one without the other.

It's best to have both. Thomas Merton 1964 Low clouds and dense fog hugged the northern California coast, not unusual for mid-January. One expected the mild winters to be cloudy and wet. This year was no exception.

The day before, rain fell off and on between snatches of sun and blue sky. But by evening a high-pressure ridge that stretched from the western plateau across the state had changed all that. Shrouded by fog and night's darkness two oil tankers collided beneath the Golden Gate. Eight hundred and forty thousand gallons of crude spilled into San Fancisco Bay.

The sickly sweet smell of oil hidden in the morning fog drifted up from the water. My head swam and my stomach churned like when I was a kid squeezed between two fat relatives in the back seat of a hot summer car -- air conditioner failing, windows barely open. My small body bounced at each dip and pothole. 5 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.

Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The incoming tidal flow was nearly over. The oil reached only four and a half miles into the bay, then slowly drifted seven miles to sea before it flooded back onto the coast. Like others who had heard the news over morning coffee, I had come to watch, but in the end was grateful for the fog that gathered close and hid the dying birds, the fish and seals whose bodies cluttered the rocky shores, mouths and lungs filled with tar -- curdled black iridescence, Within hours after the collision, thousands of unsolicited volunteers swarmed spontaneously along the beaches to rescue stranded waterfowl and to help with clean-up operations.

Schools dismissed classes so students and teachers could take part. A girl with waist-length hair waded neck deep in dark water to capture distressed birds. Attempting to escape her grasp they flapped their sodden wings and slipped further beneath the surface. On the shore, armed with shovels and pitchforks, workers collected straw dropped onto the oil by helicopters and small craft.

Kneeling in the sand, a grown man cried as a blackened Grebe died in his hands. I was six when I saw my first death -~ a robin crushed beneath an automobile's wheel on a city street. It had fallen out of its parents’ nest. They hovered anxiously around.

I begged my mother if I could take it in to care Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. for it until it could fly. "Yes," she said; but it was too late.

The car's wheel rolled slowly and crushed the life from the small feathered body. Standing on my parents' porch the neighbors heard me cry, and sighed in concert, as if I had lost my closest friend. Blood rushed to my head. My heart and stomach knotted.

The driver had stopped, blue eyes wide and mouth slightly open.