The Sauntering Pilgrim

Today we’re celebrating the Feast of All Saints. Frederick Buechner defined a saint as a handkerchief God occasionally drops in a holy flirtation with the world. I like that: saints as people whose way of living here entices others into a more conscious, intentional, and life-giving relationship with God.

But I like the definition of Ambrose Bierce better. A saint, he wrote, is “a dead sinner revised and edited.” Cynical though Bierce may have been, at least he acknowledged that saints are not other-worldly ideals but are ordinary people like you and me, with all their faults and foibles, whose true essence at the last shines through their blemishes like sparkles on a sunlit sea.

In the musical Camelot, as King Arthur is preparing for his final battle, he sees Tom, a young boy of about fourteen, appearing from behind his tent. “Who are you, boy?” Arthur asks. “Where did you come from? You ought to be in bed. Are you a page?” Tom replies, “I stowed away on one of the boats, Your Majesty. I came to fight for the Round Table. I’m very good with the bow,” and he explains that he wants to be a Knight of the Round Table.

“When did you decide upon this nonexistent career?” Arthur asks. “Was your village protected by Knights when you were a small boy? Was your mother saved by a Knight? Did your father serve a Knight?” “Oh, no, Milord,” said Tom. “I had never seen a Knight until I stowed away. I only know of them. The stories people tell.”

“From the stories people tell you wish to be a Knight? (A strange light comes into Arthur’s eyes.) What do you think you know of the Knights and the Round Table?” “I know everything, Milord,” Tom replied. “Might for right! Right for right! Justice for all! A Round Table where all Knights would sit. Everything!”

After some further discussion, Arthur says to Tom, “You will not fight in the battle, do you hear?” A disappointed Tom answers, “Yes, Milord.” Arthur continues, “You will run behind the lines and hide in a tent till it is over. Then you will return to your home in England. Alive. To grow up and grow old. Do you understand? . . . And for as long as you live you will remember what I, the King, tell you; and you will do as I command.” No longer disappointed, Tom agrees, and Arthur tells him to tell the story of Camelot, and with his sword Excalibur, Arthur dubs the boy Sir Tom of Warwick.

At that moment, Pellinore, a neighboring king and ally of Arthur, reminds Arthur he has a battle to fight. “I’ve won my battle, Pelly,” Arthur replies, referring to Tom and his mission. “Here’s my victory! What we did will be remembered. You’ll see, Pelly. Now, run, Sir Tom! Behind the lines!” As his eyes follow Tom’s departure, Arthur says again, “Run, Sir Tom! Run boy! Through the lines!”

“Who is that, Arthur?” Pellinore wants to know. “One of what we all are, Pelly. Less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. (He smiles. There is jubilance in his voice.) But it seems some of the drops sparkle, Pelly. Some of them do sparkle! Run, boy!”

The great saints of our faith fought great battles. As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews tells us, they “conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight” (Heb. 11:33-34).

The list goes on. “Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground” (vv. 36-38). Such saints are worthy of our gratitude and celebration.

And then there are saints like Sir Tom, who run behind the lines of battle and return home and disappear into the crowd, to live as drops in “the great blue motion of the sunlit sea” and tell the story. We may not fight those great and ancient battles of faith, although we will fight our own battles. But we may run behind the lines of battle and return home, where each evening from December to December, before we drift to sleep upon our cot, we’ll think back on all the tales that we remember, not of Camelot but of the foundation of our faith.

And we’ll show up, with no magic wand to heal the wound, no quick fix for what’s wrong with the world. We’ll just tell the story, and we’ll walk alongside those who are fighting their own great battles through uncertainty and the failure of hope, and we’ll say to them: this is where the hard work is, but this is not where the story ends.

And we’ll keep walking with them, and we’ll keep telling the story, because that’s what we do. And just maybe, that’s where the story gets better. And though we may be “less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea,” we may end up being some of the drops that sparkle, some of them that do sparkle.