The guard said, 'Kiss me': A Shavuot memory
The holiday of Shavuot is one of the three ancient pilgrimage festivals. It reflects the very essence of journey: In the trek from Egypt to Sinai; in the counted steps through the 49 days of the Omer; in Ruth's painful pilgrimage from Moab to Bethlehem, from alienation to belonging.
In 1980, I hitchhiked through Europe with a guitar, a change of clothes, a tent, and a sleeping bag. 
I set out to learn the "art of the road." I traveled without a set itinerary, determined to open to a new adventure each day. Daily I was forced to let go of expectations, making plans only to see them dissolve in the light of unforeseen encounters.
As I stood at the tip of the Greek mainland, I heard the call of Jerusalem. I decided to make my journey into a pilgrimage. I imagined standing before the Western Wall with so much love that all the walls between myself and God might be shattered.
In that moment of intention, my journey was transformed. I had become a pilgrim, granting each step of my journey the power to strip me bare, so that I might finally stand before God and know myself.
It was a wonderful and dangerous journey. Turkey, Syria, and Jordan were tense with political upheaval. I learned about the subtle arts of survival, bargaining, and bribery. I had, for the first time, stepped completely out of the Western worldview.
Meanwhile, I kept a meticulous journal of my inner life. I knew that each strange scene I confronted reflected back to me some aspect of my inner landscape that I had ignored until that moment. I was determined to use each step of my pilgrimage as a vehicle for self-discovery. I was determined to see each person I met as a messenger with an essential teaching for me.
I arrived at the Wall in Jerusalem in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. Although tired, I felt more alive than ever before. Each outward step toward Jerusalem had also been an inward step of uncovering the complexities of my own heart.
As I approached that ancient holy wall, I tried to keep my heart steady with compassion. Just then I heard a voice, calling me, "Hey baby, come here and kiss me!" I could not believe it. The voice issued from a guard booth, where a bored but insistent Israeli soldier beckoned me.
I sighed and thought, "I can't believe you're ruining this moment!"
I tried to compose myself. I attempted to focus my intention to be wholehearted before God. The whole time I stood there in the rain, the soldier kept yelling, "Kiss me, Kiss me!" And I couldn't help but laugh.
Many years later I studied the Song of Solomon. The opening line reads, "Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, for your sweet loving is better than wine."
Stunned, I was finally able to receive the hidden message of my earlier pilgrimage. That obnoxious Israeli guard who only knew a few words of English was my messenger, my angel, coming to tell me:
God is calling you to intimacy with the Reality before you. "Kiss me," Life says. "Open to the truth of God in this moment. Open to the fullness of pleasure and pain. Every time you turn away, I will call you back to me through a simple yet profound engagement with Life. Your sweet loving is better than wine, better than an abstract ideal, better than fame, better than sex, better than knowing a lot, better than success. Kiss me, Kiss me!"
To embark on a pilgrimage is to be willing to leave behind our familiar comforts, habits, addictions and self-definitions, and walk straight into the truth of who we were meant to be.
As we approach the festival of Shavuot, our time of pilgrimage, we can remember to make each day a journey toward revelation. Each day is an opportunity to open to the divine message written in the Torah of our lives.
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