{"id":1364,"date":"2024-05-08T05:54:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T09:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/?p=1364"},"modified":"2024-05-09T20:12:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T00:12:14","slug":"april-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/2024\/05\/april-in-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"April in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Well, it is now May, but I arrived there three weeks ago, and so the quote is legit, \u201cApril in Paris.<\/a>\u201d \u00a0I went back to resume my journey along the Vie Francigene<\/em> as it is called there.<\/p>\n

This was a journey planned to begin right after I retired from clergy life, literally the day after. \u00a0My last Sunday was Easter and the ticket was for Easter Monday. \u00a0Only I picked the wrong year \u2013 2020.<\/p>\n

By Easter, Covid was global and terrifying. \u00a0\u201cApril in Paris\u201d was nothing like the song that year.<\/p>\n

My first day of full-time Pilgrim Life<\/h3>\n Had to wait.\u00a0 It would be deferred for almost two years.\u00a0 My first venture after Covid was not the Via Francigena but Israel, in January of 2023. \u00a0Not until September did I begin the journey planned for spring of 2020.\u00a0 And only now was I able to hum that other tune, \u201cI love Paris in the springtime.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n I sat in my tiny hotel room on the seventh floor of my little hoptel with almost a view of Sacred Coeur as i drafted this long overdue post.\u00a0 Now I am back in Michigan (though jet lag is still very present) and between the time I arrived in April and when I drafted this post, I walked well over 200 km through the fields of northern France, from Arras to Reims. \u00a0I could and should also add about 30 kms around Paris itself.<\/p>\n And all of it was written down.<\/h3>\n*** ** ***My tablet tells me I wrote 45,756 words. \u00a0That\u2019s a book. \u00a0Not one worth reading, but my attempt to record what I did and felt and thought. <\/p>\n I will spare you the rough draft, but will say that pilgrim life is an internal and personal version of Base Communities,<\/a> a Catholic movement in Latin America in the late 20th century, that consciously combined action and reflection as a discipline.<\/p>\n Each day I walk for hours, and while walking take in the world and my sense of it.\u00a0 Each evening I write down what I saw and thought (as far as I can remember it) and in so doing try to find some meaning or insight from it.<\/p>\n The hardest part comes next:<\/h3>\n reflection on the reflection. \u00a0Call it editing or revising, it comes down to removing what is ephemeral. \u00a0Knowing the ephemeral is hard because everything ultimately is ephemeral.\u00a0 As I noted in my daily record, to be a pilgrim walker is to embody the premise of Buddhism<\/a> \u2013 that everything is ephemeral.<\/p>\n That task, winnowing the meaningful ephemeral from the meaningless ephemeral, will only happen after I get home; at which time the ordinary tasks of life, deferred so I could do this will demand their rightful attention. Cataract surgery is coming in two weeks. \u00a0The yard needs attention I am sure. \u00a0And then there is my grandson.<\/p>\n Pilgrim Life is far more than the walk.<\/h3>\n*** ** The easiest part is the walk.<\/p>\n ** \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ** ***Well, it is now May, but I arrived there three weeks ago, and so the quote is legit, \u201cApril in Paris.\u201d \u00a0I went back to resume my journey along the Vie Francigene as it is called there. This was a journey planned to begin right after I retired from clergy life, literally the day after. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4842,"featured_media":48,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nApril in Paris<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pilgrim Life is far more than the walk; the easiest part is the walk.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/2024\/05\/april-in-paris\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"April in Paris\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pilgrim Life is far more than the walk; the easiest part is the walk.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/2024\/05\/april-in-paris\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pilgrim Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/fred.wooden.5\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-05-08T09:54:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-10T00:12:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1635\/2022\/11\/pilgrimlife_HS.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Wooden\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Wooden\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/2024\/05\/april-in-paris\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/2024\/05\/april-in-paris\/\",\"name\":\"April in Paris\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-05-08T09:54:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-05-10T00:12:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/#\/schema\/person\/2828d1f03cbf1d49cd7aa4cb0ebfdda2\"},\"description\":\"Pilgrim Life is far more than the walk; the easiest part is the walk.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/2024\/05\/april-in-paris\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/2024\/05\/april-in-paris\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/2024\/05\/april-in-paris\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"April in Paris\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/\",\"name\":\"Pilgrim Life\",\"description\":\"Follow Fred through time and place as a literal and figurative pilgrim who finds wisdom in failure and beauty in confusion.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimlife\/#\/schema\/person\/2828d1f03cbf1d49cd7aa4cb0ebfdda2\",\"name\":\"Fred Wooden\",\"description\":\"Fred (technically Weldon Frederick) Wooden is a late life author, because he spent over forty years as a clergyman in six churches spread over five states. 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