This aspect of pilgrimage is realized differently depending on the nature of your journey. In more formal pilgrimage experiences, the community of pilgrims must unite in order for individuals' goals to be explored. In more internal or individual pilgrimages, your experience of community might be the process of figuring out how your individual journey is tied to the larger community of Friends/friends.

While creating simplicity and being renamed help you come to peace with your internal life, the development of community brings peace to your external life.

Though there is no one way any of these aspects occur, but we should remember to reach out to community once we have begun build our internal temples.

Community came naturally on the Appalachian Trail because there are so many hikers travelling on the same path in the same direction. But the Trail functioned in such a way as to disallow clinging to community. It forced us as pilgrims to balance our individual and our communal selves.

The mantra known by every thru-hiker was "Hike Your Own Hike." This meant that, no matter who I happened to be hiking with at the moment, my hike was my own. I was not tied to any other hiker, though I relied on my hiker friends for social sustenance and sometimes safety.

When my father joined me on the Trail, I was hiking with four people who I had met three days before. Dad watched us and participated fully in our small community and then asked us, "What would you do if one of you fell over a cliff?" We immediately responded, "I'd lay down my life to save whoever it was." Then he asked, "What would you do if one of you chose to leave the group?" Our response, informed by the Trail mantra, was natural, "I'd say, I'll miss you, but I hope you have a great hike." Our experience of community was deep love and commitment, yet not controlling of members' individuality.

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Naming Your Journey | Blessing By Community | Simplicity | Being Renamed | Building Community | Moment of Grace | Search for Conclusion | Reintegration