On Pilgrimage: A Time to Seek
By Jennifer Lash
Late last year I happened across Jennifer Lash's Blood Ties. It is a harrowing story, but ultimately redemptive. It is about the power of one loving person to reverse the inexorable consequences down the generations of family neglect and abandon.
In writing about family, Ms. Lash was writing about what she knows. She is the mother of actor Ralph Fiennes and five other children, as well as at least one foster child. Unhappily, it was her last novel; she died in 1993. After her death, Fiennes arranged to have the book published.
During Lent I decided to read On Pilgrimage, her account of a journey she took alone in 1990 after her bout with cancer. She traveled mostly by train or on foot, down through France then into Spain along the well trodden pilgrim track to Santiago de Compostela. Along the way she lodged in monasteries and religious houses, and met with many travelers like herself.
And there were saints. From Therese in Lisieux to Bernadette in Lourdes to James the brother of John whom legend places in Santiago before he was summoned back to Jerusalem to be beheaded by Herod Agrippa.
If
you would enjoy sharing Ms. Lash's company and her thoughts and making
the journey with her, you might enjoy this book.
-------------Pat Layne