Chapter 09: Fiona Koefoed-Jespersen: An Ordinary Pilgrim
“Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking.”
I met Fiona at a retreat for women writers, activists and dreamers in the fall of 2017. I was a founding Board Member for my brilliant friend’s non-profit, SheLoves Media Society, and we had decided to gather women together for 3 days from far away places like the UK, Scotland, Burundi, and all across the USA and Canada to see what would happen. It was mind-shifting, and full of kindness and kinship… remarkable women doing everyday extraordinary things with deep courage and holy tenacity. It was magical.
Fiona Koefoed-Jepsersen was one of the speakers. While our time together at the retreat was brief, I have come to know her more personally the last 6 months as I have participated in her online retreats for Winter Solstice and Ash Wednesday.
Fiona is a Spiritual Director, a contemplative and fine human being. Her remarkable gift of holding spaces sacred for others to encounter the Divine has been a balm to my soul. She is the founder of Ordinary Pilgrim and leads women and men individually and collectively with spiritual direction and pilgrimages, through her writing, speaking, mentoring and events.
I wanted to interview Fiona as I was curious about her work, why she called herself an ordinary pilgrim and hear her journey of seeking and finding as she leaned into the work her Creator was calling her into. It was a gorgeous 90-minute Zoom call on Saturday, March 20, 2021 full of thoughtful musings, evolving wisdom and open-ended questions. Deciding what to share in this very limited space was extrememly difficult. So here are just two of the themes that impacted me during and since our time together.
A Posture and Presence of Generosity
Fiona shared her growing up years in the UK and her heritage of faith passed down from her parents and grandparents. She was exposed to diverse faith communities (high liturgy as well as evangelical baptist) so the idea that there are several expressions of one’s faith and one’s faith community is, I believe, a posture of being open to people’s difference and how they uniquely experience the Divine. This struck me as incredibly freeing and theologically generous against my own very narrow North American Baptist-centric growing up and adulthood into my early 40’s. I was so insulated in Baptist theology and practice that my spiritual imagination was very small. It wasn’t until I left that church that I encountered the richness of diversity in interpretation and application across faith traditions and the quenching of my parched soul that was thirsty for so much more.
I also found out Fiona studied anthropology in university and this made perfect sense to me. I feel like anthropologist show up as curious observers, not inserting themselves in the lives or cultures of their subjects but in paying attention, activating deep listening, making keen observations in order to share their reflections in service to others. And that is what spiritual directors and pilgrim guides do. Creating space for others make their own discoveries along the pathways of their own choosing for their own flourishing.
I think this is an incredibly generous thing to do when one’s work is completely others centered…where we don’t give advice, or create meaning, we don’t give the answers, but we patiently walk alongside someone on their terms, their agenda, their journey.
When people undertake a pilgrimage, they rely on the kindness and generosity of strangers to help them along the way. Remember the travellers in Genesis 18? Abram didn’t ask what their reiligion was or who they were related to. He extended to them unquestioning generosity — food, shelter, and comfort to help them along their way.
“For centuries, the devout pilgrims who slowly circled the island of Shikoku in honour of the Japanese saint Kobo Daishi stayed in simple inns along the road. Besides food and shelter, the pilgrims’ were given a traveler’s lamp. The pathway around the mountain villages were often treacherously wet and unstable. The portable lantern lit the way through the dark toward the warmth of the pilgrim’s inn.” (1)
I think the same is true of our spiritual journeys.
We need generous theology to explore ideas and make divine connections ourselves and with the gentle kinship of trusted companions around us. We need generous grace to get things wrong and generous encouragement to get back up and try again.
We could all do with a little more generosity along our way, couldn’t we?
Just Take the First Step…and Then the Second…and Then Another…
Fiona shared with me highlights from her 2019 solo 3 day pilgrimage to Canterbury (about 75 kms). She was training as a spiritual director, and longed to embark on a pilgrimage of her own. She recalled distinctly hearing God tell her to go but as a young mum of two young kids, leaving them for any great length of time was not possible. But what was possible? Three days was possible.
Reading other’s pilgrimage accounts, I often felt like they needed to be a massive undertaking that completely disrupted one’s life in order to be legitimate. What I love about Fiona’s story is that she longed in her heart for spiritual renewal via actually going outside of her door, and God gently responded by answering, “my child, what is possible here and now?” Yes — it is still a disruption. Yes — planning and preparations are still required. What I’ve come to appreciate is that journeys of transformation can take many months…or 72 hours. It can take place on a familiar road we have travelled before or in a place on the other side of the world, or the city. You see, when we truly desire to experience the Divine, the length of the journey does not matter. The destination does not necessrily matter either. Only the will to take the first step, and then the second, and to keep going until the we reach the end.
I so identify with the questions that entered her mind while she walked the road to Canterbury…”am I doing this right? Why does this not feel very spritual? God are you here?” I asked myself these questions repeatedly throughout my time in Seminary, often praying sincerely for some kind of sign that I was in the right place doing the right thing depsite the nagging doubts that surfaced from time to time.
I also loved that her dad joined her for the last 1/2 day of her journey. And they entered into that magnificent medieval cathedral together to experience Evensong with all the other people who gathered there on that particular evening. And as pilgrims, after the service was finished, they were ushered into the very special part of the cathedral, to look back from where they came as a reminder of arriving and also returning back. As they received a beautiful blessing from the priest, the next journey, one of reflecting back in order to more forward, would soon begin.
I was reminded that our sacred journeys are both individual and collective experiences. Much of the inner work we do is on our own, but we are inextricably connected to those from our past and present that mentor us, encourage us, shape us, walk with us and usher us along in ordinary and extraordinary ways. And, if only for a brief time, there are those who greet and welcome us into community and kinship and offer us unexpected blessings, so that when we reach our destination and turn around to see from where we came, we are reminded that we never actually walked alone.
There is so much more to this rich conversation we shared that would spill over into dozens of pages of wisdom. Suffice to say, I encourage you to connect with Fiona through her online presence and if you have an opportunity to participate as an ordinary pilgrim with her as your guide, your countenance will shift and your soul will be lighter.
Fiona Koefoed-Jespersen is a Spiritual Director and Pilgrim Guide. She is the founder of Ordinary Pilgrim, as well as being a tutor on the Encounter course at the London Centre for Spiritual Direction. She is passionate about seeking the sacred in the ordinary and, through her work, hopes to facilitate ever-deeper connection with God, our most authentic selves, and all of creation. She currently lives in East London with her Danish husband and their two young children.
www.fionalynne.com www.ordinarypilgrim.co.uk