Stations Journal Journey #31

Nov 12, 2025 

I have completed Station #12. It feels hard to grasp, but here I am. I’d say that Jesus has fully died, but that feels so untrue at this moment. Everything feels so alive. I know it to be true that when death is close, we can also feel fully alive. I feel like I have lived through a liminal time this year as I have brought this project to life, intentionally trusting this 12 month creation phase.

I am contemplating today the trajectory of this project as a pilgrimage. Pilgrimage writer Lacy Clarke Ellman describes the classic spiritual pilgrimage as a sacred journey; movement that brings us toward our True Selves and the Divine; a profound physical and spiritual quest that becomes a soul-stirring journey in search of transformation or Sacred Encounter. 

Ellman says there are 3 things necessary for pilgrimage. 

1. A journey, often motivated by longing, that takes us away from what is familiar, whether in actual travel or an intentional inner shift. 

2. Engagement with the true self on this quest as we pose the deepest questions of our soul, and listen intently for responses. When we face the inevitable obstacles of the ego, temptation and the false self (not to mention physical challenges), who we are in God becomes revealed.

3.  Sacred Encounter. Ellman writes that “In the practice of pilgrimage, the pursuit of the Divine is at the beginning, middle, and end of the journey and everywhere in between. It’s what fuels any pilgrimage, and when it comes to transformation, it’s the alchemy that turns what’s rudimentary into gold.”

   
   

Two years ago I heard God directing me to release the steadfast commitment and love I had given to the institutional church for most of my life. I see now that this was the beginning of this most recent pilgrimage, taking me away from what was so beautifully familiar, and yet also exhaustingly frustrating. I vowed to walk through doors that opened before me, leading the way. A few months later, curator Dr. Angela Clarke suggested we should mount an entire exhibition in fabric of the Stations of the Cross. The designs were already complete, ready and waiting, the fruit of an earlier journey. Dr. Angela says of this new seed she planted: “It was just begging to be done.” The door opened and I walked through. That simple. Not easy, but simple.

Ellman says a pilgrimage can be undertaken as a fulfillment of obligation. That was certainly the plan when I undertook the completion, in fabric, of this series that has grown steadily within me for more than 15 years and now burns with passion. But over these last 10 months of sustained work, I have definitely engaged intentionally with my true self,  and know that I have uncovered even more of who I am in God. And while I have been focussed on each day’s task, each Station’s colours, pieces, lines and stitches, I look up now to find that I have journeyed to a new and significant place of sacred relationship. I find I am being transformed. 

The end has moved significantly closer. Or maybe it’s just another beginning. That’s the way of transformation, isn’t it? 

That is what I trust for today.