Sacred Pilgrim, Secular Pilgrim

This book is part travelogue, part philosophical reflection, part historical overview, and part autobiography. Dickinson narrates his journeys to various Roman churches alongside their curious and often contradictory histories, guided by the overarching question: what does it mean to be a pilgrim, especially in the secular, pluralistic age in which we live? For him, pilgrimage takes place whenever he allows himself to be truly attentive to a specific geographical place. He listens in ways he normally does not and is transformed by measures he struggles to fathom. By engaging the practice of pilgrimage, Dickinson finds that there is no other way to connect, confront, and confess himself than by merging his physical-geographical-material nature with the theoretical and spiritual. Pilgrimage in this book is a ceaseless dialogue with everything that surrounds us, the places, people, and presences in which one immerses oneself. It is a pilgrimage out of, and even deep back into, one's own person.