In our town Silkeborg, Denmark, we have – like other places in Denmark – taken up the old (but for Lutherans new) idea of pilgrimage. Here in Silkeborg we organise our pilgrimage ecumenically and conceive it as a service or devotion 'in motion', of 'praying with the feet'. The model we use in Silkeborg includes a short starting service in a church room. During the walk we go through four devotions. 1. The Almighty/ Omnipotence. 2. Father/ Creator. 3. Son/ Saviour/ Word. 4. Spirit/ power/ force/ energy. Finally there is a short service in a (another) church room. We walk about 7-11 kilometres mainly through woods, hills, lakes, ponds, and the only (real) river in Denmark. We find it beautiful.
Spirit above Spirit: come down from the height!
Come down over us as you descended over Jesus,
as he got up from the water.
Descend so that we can ascend!
Life giving Holy Spirit!
Connect and combine with the water.
Twine in it like a pigtail,
Like a unifying thread of life,
coiling round our inner man or woman
and out in life, out in every encounter with the world.
You spirit of love,
knowing the silver wire work, the riddle of life*
from before we came into being: Love us!
so that your image takes shape in us in every look, in every gaze,
every touch, every sound reaching our ears,
and is received in you, Spirit of Love!
Spirit of Truth,
be you always our mediator, interpreter, and speaker,
you who dwells between the eyelid and the eye,
let us perceive the world with your eye!
Be you the glove on our hand,
When we pound and hammer on the cloud of unknowing
that surrounds us.
Like you placed yourself between Moses and the rock,
when he struck water from it **,
Place yourself between us and everything on which we strike and hammer,
so that the water running in the soil and in our bodies
wells forth like a spring springing
with water to eternal life.
Amen.
* 'The silver wire work' is a metaphor for the complexity and beauty of creation. Like other phrases in this prayer it is an implied reference to one of the hymns of the great Danish hymn writer N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783-1872). ** or 'out of it'. Another translation: 'When he raised water from it'.
Martin Ishoy, Denmark, 2002