Strange Graces

The launch of another pilgrimage to Europe.

Penny and I are dashing about doing all those last minute things we hope will prepare us for the big launch of our 9-month jaunt across Great Britain, the Balkans and Italy, returning around Christmas this year, 2026. We’ve said our good-byes to friends and family. We’ve got three piles of clothes in our bedroom: pack for the trip, squirrel away in storage, and give away. Our plan is to fly south from Portland to Los Angeles to visit our daughter, her husband and their twins, landing in time for our grandchildren’s fourth birthdays. After a short stay, Catherine will drive us to San Pedro to the cruise terminal and drop us off in front of Cunard’s Queen Anne. That ship will take us through the Panama Canal to Southampton, England, where we begin our terrestrial adventure.

As we go, we will depend on the “Strange Graces” mentioned in Jan Richardson’s prose poem Beloved Is Where We Begin:

If you would enter into the wilderness, do not begin without a blessing.

Do not leave without hearing who you are: Beloved, named by the One who has traveled this path before you.

Do not go without letting it echo in your ears, and if you find it is hard to let it into your heart, do not despair. That is what this journey is for.

I cannot promise this blessing will free you from danger, from fear, from hunger or thirst, from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night.

But I can tell you that on this path there will be help.

I can tell you that on this way there will be rest.

I can tell you that you will know the strange graces that come to our aid only on a road such as this, that fly to meet us bearing comfort and strength, that come alongside us for no other cause than to lean themselves toward our ear and with their curious insistence whisper our name:

Beloved, Beloved, Beloved.

Next stop, Los Angeles.

Before …

… and after.