Pilgrimage Aotearoa
Husband and wife team Jenny Boyack and John Hornblow spent 12 years researching the content for their new book, Pilgrimage Aotearoa. In just two months, the guidebook sold over 1000 copies—impressive in the domestic publishing market. So, what’s it all about and why are people describing it as ‘a book for our time’? Jules Badger spoke with the Palmerston North couple to find out.
Many readers will recall life before GPS. An almost forgotten, now iconic era, when stopping to ask for directions was a last resort, and wits and instinct ruled. Until, of course, they didn’t, and you conceded you were lost and resorted to the trusty map-book! A hardy piece of gear, the map-book belonged in the glovebox
of the car but was often found under a seat smeared with food stains or mud. Thankfully the pages were thick, laminated, and held together by a sturdy wire binder.
This was the look and feel Jenny and John wanted the physical copy of their guidebook to have. ‘We wanted it to be robust; covered in coffee stains with folded back pages! It’s not designed to just sit on the shelf’, says Jenny. ‘We wanted it to feel good and solid in the hand and last a long time’, adds John.
Unexpected pilgrims
Around 12 years ago, the dynamic duo set out on several pilgrimages to Israel and Palestine, as well as Greece, Turkey, Italy and other sites sacred to Christianity in England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Before long, people were asking to tag along! As they led various groups, the couple discovered excellent guidebooks, highlighting the lack
of a similar resource back home.
‘That was the beginning of 12 years of very hard work, as we travelled from the Far North to the Chatham Islands, and everywhere in between’, explains John.
‘The whole pilgrimage journey, which seeded the book, was not something we ever set out to do. Which is interesting,’ reflects Jenny. ‘You look back on something that has unexpectedly eventuated, and you think, God was so deeply in this, and yet we had no idea!’
Pilgrimage explained
‘A pilgrimage can be defined as a journey with a purpose, often to a sacred site, with the hope of transformation,’ explains John.
Like Abraham and Sarah, Moses and others in the Christian tradition, Jesus made many pilgrimages during his lifetime and ministry.
‘Pilgrimages have a deeply biblical agenda,’ continues John. ‘Easter week itself is an amazing pilgrimage—from Gethsemane to the cross, to the tomb and the resurrection. One extremely moving experience for Jenny and I was to walk the Via Dolorosa—the Stations of the Cross—in Jerusalem, twice.’
John shares a personal experience of transformation while on pilgrimage in Ireland, tracing the footsteps of St Patrick.
‘I had been going through a rough time, and when I got to the top of Croagh Patrick mountain there was a huge cairn where everyone had dropped stones. I had carried a stone up, so I put mine down and with it the burden I’d been carrying. I felt a great relief as I went back down. Pilgrimage helps us get past denial, repression, suppression and become open to encountering God.’
Pilgrimage is as much an internal, spiritual journey as it is an external, physical one.
Jenny says, ‘Walking stretches out time in a way that the world has forgotten in our lifestyle of rushing about. But we also wanted people who can’t walk, and there are many, to be able to take a [driving] pilgrimage around Aotearoa’s sacred sites.’
Pilgrim partnerships
John explains that the guidebook is based around three questions.
‘Firstly, what happened here? In other words, what did God do at this site? Secondly, what’s happening here today? What is God doing here now? And finally, what can I do as a result of being here? That’s the transformative question.’
A reflection accompanies each of the 100 sites in the guidebook.
‘Wherever possible, we prayerfully selected somebody who was in the story by ancestry or event to write the reflection,’ explains Jenny.
While doing research on Dame Whina Cooper, they bumped into an Anglican priest. ‘She just happened to be Dame Whina’s granddaughter and was very happy to write the reflection! These God moments happened frequently,’ says John.
The project has been a special collaboration with tangata whenua and local iwi, as both site and story guardians. Various denominations are also key partners, and two special Salvation Army sites feature—Rotoroa Island and Cargill’s Monument in Dunedin, where the movement ‘opened fire’ in 1883—with reflections written by Lt-Colonel Ian Hutson.
Jenny and John are astounded by how much New Zealand has changed in the past decade.
‘We could never have imagined where New Zealand would be politically when we started this journey 12 years ago. With so much discussion and debate, people have repeatedly told us that this is a book for our time. It helps explain the “why” behind traumatic events in our history and celebrates stories of peace and reconciliation. We want people to understand and explore the roots of all this as they take a sacred pilgrimage to each site.’
Retailing at $49.50, Pilgrimage Aotearoa is a quality product—a guidebook
to be passed down the generations. Purchase the book at the website: www.pilgrimagenz.nz or Manna Bookstores (www.manna.nz).
