I was 2,400 miles away from the urgency, assault, and angst of my home, standing on my tippy-toes and a stool to reach the relics of a man who had inspired a pilgrimage. I sought nearness not to bone or blood like early Christians who traveled to sacred geographies of martyrs, but rather to spines on a top shelf at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon. The writer who inspired my journey is deceased but not a saint—not yet, at least.

In the self-proclaimed “City of Books,” it was a bit disappointing to find only a shelf-and-a-third dedicated to a native son. But when I spotted a binding with the words “lean stories of spiritual substance,” I reached for it. I had done enough homework to know exactly what I’d find inside: honest, humorous, poignant, and sometimes breathless tributes to the “little things that were not little”—spouses, children, parents, friends, faith, and God; the author’s love for them; his love for the world; and, always, his joy.

“Pilgrimage is a symbol of life,” Pope Francis once wrote. “It makes us imagine that life is about walking, it is a walk. A soul that doesn’t walk . . . through life seeking God and for the Holy Spirit to move from within, is a soul that ends up in mediocrity and spiritual poverty. Please: do not stand still in life!”

Amid the bookshelves, I said a prayer of thanksgiving for both my journey and this destination: physical nearness to the spiritual witness of a faithful writer, Brian Doyle. 

Continue Reading This article also appears in the October 2022 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 87, No. 10, pages 17-19).