Hello, all.

It seems to me that the first thing a blog ought to do is announce what it is about. In this case, however, the real question is what, if anything, it is not about.

It is not about me knowing all the answers. I don't even know all the questions. I am told that I often sound otherwise, but the truth is I chose the title of this blog because so near as I can tell, I, and all the rest of us, are on a long pilgrimage. When it is done we are all dead, which could be depressing or catastrophic or otherwise really ghastly. Or, if we have been on a really good pilgrimage it will be ok. Maybe not great, but ok.

How do I define a good pilgrimage? One that leaves you facing death feeling more or less as though you have seen a lot of what was worth seeing, asked a lot of the questions that were worth asking, found a few really interesting answers to the questions, and left at least a few people with fond memories and a collection of good questions they would not have had otherwise. Beyond that it is kind of hard to say what a good pilgrimage is like.

I have an associate with sever, atypical MS. She spends her life in an assisted care residence. It would be very easy to assume that she is having a really rotten pilgrimage. I mean, she is mostly bed bound, largely broke, limited in her social contacts, cut off from the active life she loved. She has no career, she is dependent on the physical help, financial help, and good will of others. She is often in pain, and often fatigued. And, frankly, she is cranky, difficult, and sometimes needy. Bad pilgrimage, yes?

No. Oh, not a fun one. But she is exploring her world in spite of it all, she is dedicated to having an interesting and worthy pilgrimage, and she finds ways, some silly but some inspired, to make her bed-bound trip to the grave one of services she can render back to the world.

Not shabby.

As my profile will tell you, I am a student of religion, mythology, and depth psychology. I am a more or less active Episcopalian. I am left wing -- politically and religiously. I believe that a secular society is the bedrock of religious freedom: that we cannot be free if our culture demands we participate and participate in a particular religion, sect, or ritual. I believe that religious thinking in inescapable, and as a result, like many other inescapable things, it demands discipline and concern to avoid the inescapable from becoming an inescapable tyranny.

I consider no religion perfect, and no religion to be perfectly inspired by God. The gotcha there is perfect. I do not consider any scripture to be free of human influence, and human flaws, nor do I consider any mandate in any religion to be free of the alterations of time. If you attempt to argue that a mandate that was valid in 1000 B.C.E remains valid today, I will quite likely disagree, and will certainly not agree that all mandates of any particular religion remain applicable as written and practiced, all the way to the present.

I am the daughter of a history teacher with a passion for world history. That colors my understanding of the world, of history and current events. I am more interested in social history than in dates-and-events history. I am willing to believe in American exceptionalism on the understanding that all nations are both exceptional and ephemeral.

I can and will talk about all sorts of things, some of which I know little about. People on pilgrimage often encounter things they don't know much about, and end up talking about it. Indeed, I hope for my own sake that I encounter many things in future of which I am pig ignorant, as that means I am actually on pilgrimage, not just sitting in my mental comfort zone munching bon-bons and refusing to look out my own windows.

I hope at least a few people come and visit here. I hope I find at least a few interesting things to say about my journey. I invite you to share a bit about your own pilgrimages.

And I am "Lily" because the lily that will become my site picture is my own work, and comes as close to being an avatar of me as anything. In real life, however, I am just Peg. I will have to see what being Lily is like!

Have a great 2009,

Lily.