Word: pilgrimate
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...country born of a pilgrim's dream, a country that exalts freedom of worship as a sacred right, perhaps none of that is surprising. What is surprising is that for most of the ensuing 200 years, Americans have not stopped arguing about God. In the past decade alone, the Supreme Court has decided more religion cases than ever before, and each day brings a fresh crusade...
...pilgrim in the forest of alternative cures can wander a long, strange way. Once you've set foot there -- if only to see a state-licensed acupuncturist upon your doctor's recommendation -- you may find yourself lost in the wild thicket on the fringe. Alternative medicine is a subculture. Its disparate practitioners know one another, attend the same holistic seminars, frequent the same bookshops. The acupuncturist will suggest that you see a shiatsu person he knows on the other side of town. The shiatsu masseuse will encourage you to buy certain herbs. Before you know it, you've suspended disbelief...
...might have been expected, the French, who tend to be connoisseurs of other nations' foibles, provided the most piquant blend of sneering and scolding. "Since the arrival of the pilgrim fathers," said Le Monde in a front-page editorial, "America has never truly settled its account with sin. The old Puritan heritage periodically surges forth from the collective memory, invading the national life and upsetting the political game. But over time, these resurgences of prudery have grown in cruelty, bordering today on the absurd...
...500th anniversary may also force a new awareness in school curriculums of the immense role played by Spaniards in early colonial America. Up to now they have been all but shunted out of view behind the screen of Anglo founder- images (the Pilgrim Fathers, Raleigh in Virginia). This can do good, not because it may pump up the "self-esteem" of Hispanic schoolchildren (the purpose of history is not to make people feel better), but because it accords with a large truth shrouded, at present, in omissions and lies. Columbus himself has been presented as Castilian, Catalan, Corsican, Majorcan, Portuguese...
British travel writer Jonathan Raban is at his amiable best when his narrative is adrift, even awash. It is easy to see why. Sooner or later a professional journeyer meets boring people in tedious circumstances. Here the land-based pilgrim must lie entertainingly, which is hard work, or tell the ghastly truth. The writer who travels by boat need only conjure a storm, or describe his great relief that the weather is fine. The reader, charmed or alarmed, follows wide-eyed. Raban weathered bores effectively in Coasting, a wry account of a voyage around England in a small sailboat...