Editor's Note from March 17, 2016

Issue 44: Walking Spain’s Camino, miscarriage and the universe, and a Good Friday groan. /

Pilgrims have a favorite part of the Easter story. You’d think it might be the arrival at the tomb by the women or by the two disciples; tombs have historically been the endpoint of religious pilgrimages. But for most pilgrims, it’s later on Easter Sunday, with two obscure disciples walking away from Jerusalem for an unnamed reason. The resurrected Christ appears, but they don’t recognize him. It’s only after their encounter, as Jesus vanishes, that they start to understand Easter. It’s only after their journey that they recognized its significance: “Were not our hearts burning within us,” they asked each other, “while he talked with us on the road?”

I’m thrilled to have Josh Jeter back in our pages with another travel story. Last summer, we dedicated a special issue to his travels on Mount Athos. Now he’s back with Jeff Carver to describe burning hearts (and burning feet) on one of the world’s most famous pilgrimage routes, the Camino de Santiago. It’s not an Easter article per se, but it reminded me of that Emmaus journey, mixing pain, joy, and hope.

There’s nothing directly related to Holy Week in Rebekah Curtis’s article about miscarriage and the universe either, but it prompted me to think about Jesus’ mother at the Cross, her horror at witnessing the death of the one to whom she gave life—and from whom she would receive it again. And it prompted me to think about Mary after Pentecost, pondering how the one who once dwelled in her physically now again dwelled in her, and she in him.

Wes Jakacki’s piece on Blind Willie Johnson does have a direct connection to Holy Week. And since my Good Friday tradition has long included listening to Cross-themed gospel blues recordings from Johnson and others, I couldn’t refuse Wes’s pitch. (For some reason, “Dark Was the Night” wasn’t on my playlist! I’ve corrected that omission.)

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Also in this Issue

Issue 44 / March 17, 2016
  1. Walk This Way

    Notes from a journey on the Camino de Santiago. /

  2. I, Universe

    What my miscarriage helped me see about my place in the cosmos. /

  3. Good Friday Blues

    The devastating, wordless groaning of one of the greatest songs of all time. /

  4. The Donkey

    “I keep my secret still” /

  5. Wonder on the Web

    Issue 44: Links to amazing stuff.

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