For some great photos and the reportage of these four students who walked part of the way with us, click on the link below… (and be sure to watch the very short video!)
Tag: Theological Studies
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Kahnawà:ke to Montreal Walk, 2019!
Last Saturday, October 26, a group of eleven, mostly Settler Canadians, walked the Seaway between 25-30 km from Kahnawà:ke’s Cultural Centre to Montreal. I’m a Settler scholar from Treaty Four territory, and I planned this walk as a “bodily territorial acknowledgement,” in preparation for our Theology in the City Conference at Concordia this week. We pilgrims were a mixed group – a Buddhist monk, two professors, two undergraduate students, a doctoral student, and a writer! With the knowledge and approval of the Traditional Longhouse of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawà:ke, we began with a smudge led by Dr Christine Jamieson (Interior Salish – Boothroyd Nation) – Christine teaches Indigenous spirituality in our Dept of Theological Studies. Then we were off! We were blessed by the nicest day of the week: sunny, dry, and warm. We were enthusiastic walkers who made good time, and were back in Montreal by supper. I’m thankful for the good conversations and quiet moments of beauty and contemplation along the way. Thanks also to the enthusiastic reporters from the Concordian, led by Jad Abukasm, who walked the first leg with us and enjoyed breakfast at our table at the Sunnyside Diner (formerly Friendly’s) in Kahnawà:ke!
(all photos Matthew R. Anderson)
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Old Montreal to Kahnawake
Once a year we take students from Old Montreal, Griffintown, and Pointe St-Charles, to Kahnawake….learning – and relearning – history and culture, the expropriation of land and what communities are doing now, all through our feet.
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A Long Walk across Iceland
In the summer of 2016, I invited myself and some other Canadians along on an Icelandic pilgrimage that has recently been instituted. It was an adventure! Here is a short introduction to the pilgrimage – with thanks to our Icelandic hosts!
(In Feb 2017 I was asked to be keynote speaker for a Bishop’s retreat, on the subject of pilgrimage. This was my first presentation. The others will be on unsettledwords.com. To go through this presentation, press the link below)
Have a look at what we’ve been doing in our department at Concordia Montreal’s Theological Studies!
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/190139931″>Indigeneity at Theological Studies Concordia</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user32514305″>Matthew Anderson</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
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A Five-Minute Cooks’ Tour
on the subject of – what else? – western Christian pilgrimage (clink on the following link) https://vimeo.com/183303404
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The Way is Made by Walking
Bare details don’t tell it all: Bær to Lundur, 17 km, Oddsstadir to Fitjar, 12.2. There is a map, but no obvious trail. Elínborg, Hulda and Floki, with few others, dream of a trail walked by Icelanders and others, to mark faith, and history, and friendship. They have planted posts over the years to help guide the way. But unlike the Camino, unlike even St Olaf’s, here there is rarely a visible path. A Spanish poet wrote that “the way is made by walking”. And isn’t that the way it is with life? The way is made by walking. And so is the trust, and the faith, and the community, and the hope. And the pilgrim.
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Pilgrimage Gross
Somewhere between Hvalfjördur and Thingvillir (the double ‘l’ pronounced with a d/t sound, thus Thing-vit-leer) we were drenched in mist, rain, and mud. And, since our day ended up being an almost 30 km scramble over what the Icelanders call ‘leg-breaker trail’ (Leggjabrjótur), by the time we were done we were sore and wet and cold in every possible way. And dirty. When my daughter looked at some of the clothes we’d been wearing, she coined the term: pilgrimage-gross.
Which got me thinking about appearances, pilgrimage, Icelanders and North Americans. Nowhere we stayed had the kind of full-length, or even half-length, mirrors so common in North America. There was a kind of self-acceptance and natural toughness to the Icelanders with whom we walked, an easy gracefulness that seems to come from closer contact with the natural environment. What’s more, I noticed that the folks we set out with became more handsome and beautiful as we shared the trials and the trail together. So even though our clothes (and especially our boots!) became progressively more ‘pilgrimage gross’, a kind of ‘pilgrim beauty’ shone even more through the mud, mist and cold, and was everywhere present in the people and the land.
My short TV appearance on Icelandic TV, filmed at the end of our walk (at the end of the report in Icelandic)
I was feeling somewhat exhausted when CBC Radio One’s All in a Weekend called me on the trail for a follow-up interview while we were high up on ‘bone-breaker’ trail after having been briefly lost in the clouds (by the way, Gabriel had to shout out to me how to say “bye” in Icelandic, but they cut that part). The “troll” comment was a reference to the big, happy rock-and-roll guy! #thingsyouwishyoucouldtakeback
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/programs/allinaweekend/a-walk-across-iceland-1.3692927
There was also an earlier interview on CBC radio about Iceland, just before leaving:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/programs/allinaweekend/pilgrimage-to-iceland-1.3692347
Concordia (and theological studies) has been getting some good coverage out of the 2016 Icelandic pilgrimage!
somethinggrand 