Holidays and Pilgrimages

HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES

Article for Burnham Market Parish Magazine. July 2025

Holmes and Watson were on holiday in North Norfolk (why not?). They were lying on the dunes looking up at the clear starry night sky. ‘What does that tell you?’, Holmes asked Watson. Watson replied: ‘It tells me that this is a wonder-filled universe. That we are so small. That surely there must be some mind behind that.’ And then he asked Holmes, ‘And what does it tell you?’. To which Holmes replied, ‘It tells me that someone has stolen our tent’.

They are so annoying, those pedants who are only concerned with details and can’t see the bigger picture!! They also happen to be the ones who get things done, and who detect crime! But we need both. The pedants and the star gazers. We need to be able to see the stolen tent and the awe of a star filled night.

The problem is that most of the time we are looking down, at the details, at the next thing on our to do list: organise who is going to pick up the children, check the insurance, sort the leak in the toilet, write the article, run out to get some milk. And it is hard to stop and look up and see the bigger picture.

Holidays can be stressful, but they are also be times when we can relax, take our time, think and perhaps look bigger. It is what holidays originally were: ‘holy days’, when villagers took time off their work and came to church as part of the community, to think about God, another world and bigger things. And people would also go on pilgrimages: it was one of the earliest kinds of ‘tourism’. They would journey to places like Canterbury or Walsingham or Durham (often places near the edge) in order to see new things, or old things in a new way, to seek healing or encounter a reality beyond what they imagined.  

In some ways holidays are modern versions of pilgrimages. The early pilgrims went,

“… seeking out strange strands,

To distant shrines well known in distant lands.

And specially from every shire's end

Of England they to Canterbury went,

The holy blessed martyr there to seek

Who helped them when they lay so ill and weak”

 (Canterbury Tales)

We too go to famous sites, or special places that have meaning for us, for the sake of our health, our mental well-being, and for new experiences. The difference is that whereas pilgrims went intentionally to meet with God, to push themselves, to see things in a new way, we often do not. We go instead to have a ‘vacation’, a break. 

Perhaps there is something to be said for coming on holiday and intentionally putting aside some time to reflect on the really big things of life. If you visit a church, I suggest that you might try to look beyond the architecture and antiquity to what and to whom the building is pointing: someone who millions consider to be a living person, and the most important person in their lives. Why not try attending church (you’ve got the time!), or picking up a bible (or a text that others consider speaks of the beyond), or intentionally going for a night walk to look and to pray?

It is important that we recognise stolen tents. But it is just as important that we look up and see the stars and, maybe, see beyond the stars.