A Pilgrim's Digress: My Perilous, Fumbling Quest for the Celestial City

by John D. Spalding

It’s a long, strange journey to paradise, and often hilarious one, if you bravely follow the road less traveled—wherever it leads. John D. Spalding certainly has. In this smart and insightful collection, Spalding, Beliefnet.com’s popular offbeat humorist, wanders America as a modern-day “pilgrim” seeking the Celestial City.

Loosely organizing his comic misadventures according to John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, Spalding describes how he spent three days as a street preacher in Times Square (“Excuse me, sir, did you know you’re going to hell?”); went to the mat (conversationally) with Omega and Apocalypse, two mainstays of the Christian Wrestling Federation; and visited a man who, practicing the art of trepanation, drilled a hole in his head to make himself permanently happy. He also experienced his own funeral, courtesy of the Dying-to-Get-In Company.

Like Christian, Bunyan’s beleaguered pilgrim, Spalding never knows who is waiting around the next bend. On his journey, he finds himself at the mercy of rebirthing therapists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormon missionaries, and in the company of a psychic “ghost counselor,” America’s luckiest (and perhaps divinely blessed) lottery winner, and a mysterious, barefoot holy man named Whatsyourname. Finally, he makes an ancient, five-hundred-mile pilgrimage across Spain, during which he learns what it truly means to be a pilgrim.

Funny, wry, and revealing, the stories in A Pilgrim’s Digress describe Spalding’s satirical quest for the righteous path and what he discovers about the spiritual zeitgeist along the way.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 4, 2003

About the author

JOHN D. SPALDING is the author of A Pilgrim's Digress: My Perilous, Fumbling Quest for the Celestial City (Harmony Books; 2003), which Elle magazine calls "a quirky, comic postmillennial trek through some of America's more exotic embodiments of faith." Spalding writes “The Sick Soul” column for Beliefnet.com, and he has written for The Los Angeles Times, Maxim, The Week, The Christian Century, Books & Culture, Commonweal, KillingtheBuddha.com and Science & Spirit, among other publications. His writing is included in The Best Christian Writing 2004, published by Jossey-Bass. A former magazine editor and book publishing professional, he has a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a master's degree from Harvard Divinity School. He lives in Connecticut.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly not enough, sometimes too much. These short articles, I guess generally meant to be humorous, involve Spaulding in religious adventures but all dwell entirely on the surface. The author is careful to never reveal too much of himself (beyond he is a lapsed evangelical) and he never digs too deeply into the stories he is telling. It feels like fairly elementary journalism. Some of the stories are potentially fascinating (how can you make make walking the five hundred miles of the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela seem perfunctory?), but he always flits on to other topics. The structure around Pilgrim's Progress is entirely forced and adds nothing to the little stories he tells. I expected a little more effort.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A random collection of short stories about where the author saw a story about faith. Some are good. The subtitle implies a quest, but no thread continues throughout the book.

[Sarah Romero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though I found some of the anecdotes that make up the chapters of the book humorous, the book didn't seem to have a smooth flow. It was more of a collection of essays by Spalding than it was a book. This would be fine, if that had been explained in the title. Also, some chapters, especially at the end, were without heart. They seemed to be more cynical, superficial gripes about religion than anything else.

[Frank R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light, somewhat amusing anecdotes--some more interesting than others. A handful of chapters were very good and left me wanting more.

[Virginia Pulver · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2009 I solo-walked the 500-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella, so I am inclined to read most anything I discover that related to the Camino, the Way of St James. I bought this quirky book because the last chapter outlines the author's walk across northern Spain. The rest of the book was light and addressed some unusual approaches to find God in daily life. The book is light reading. The author is an experienced columnist who has a degree in divinity from Harvard so I imagine it wold be fun to have a conversation with him about his Camino experiences. I wish the chapter on the Camino included a more personal narrative. For those not familiar with this now very popular pilgrimage, the book does provide a good overview on many aspects of it.