63: WITHIN, Surprised by Pilgrimage with Joanna Penn

Host: Brandon Nappi
Guest: Joanna Penn
Production: Goodchild Media

Brandon:              Welcome to Within, a special episode of the Leaders Way podcast. I’m Brandon Nappi. It’s wonderful to have you here for our regular listeners. This is a new segment. If you’re new to the podcast, well then this is, uh, this is new anyway, but Within is a special segment of the Leaders Way that focuses on the creative process, the healing journey, the spiritual life, a place where we talk to creatives and artists and musicians and spiritual teachers and mental health professionals. Uh, as we ask all the big questions about what it means to be human, what it means to seek healing, what it means to, uh, to seek the divine. 

               You know, I just got back from, from Narragansett from the beach in Rhode Island, where we’ve, uh, we’ve spent vacation for years and years, about 25 years, this beautiful ritual of returning to the same spot, the same little cottage near the beach.

 And over the last few years, walking has become a really important part of my spiritual practice. I’ve always walked, but self-consciously these days, walking every day has become where I reflect, where I meditate and practice mindfulness, a place where I pray, a place where I discover the deepest questions that I’m asking, where I wrestle with the things that are unresolved in my life. Maybe this is true for you as well. And I’m thinking that I probably first discovered intentional walking as a kind of reflective or even spiritual practice when I was living abroad in Rome, which I was blessed to do for about a year, live right in the historical center, just a few blocks from the Pantheon. And in the evening I would go and I would sit on the steps of the fountain just in front of the Pantheon and I would watch as families, as friends, people at all stages of life, teenage boys, arm in arm, walking and talking. And so I embraced this practice and every evening, I would stop my homework and I’d go out and through the streets and I’d walk often by myself. 

            As I, reflected and prayed and meditated and, um, that practice has always been with me. As I enter my 50th year, this practice of walking has become even more important, so much so that I feel really called to go on a pilgrimage somewhere in the world to take a week or more and, and walk every day. And so I discovered a person who’s written a book about this, a person who’s also a writer, who’s a creative; this is Joanna Penn, who’s done exceptional work helping writers and creative people to find the book that’s within them. And she’s written a beautiful book on how to go on pilgrimage and the kinds of questions to ask yourself while being on pilgrimage. And I actually discovered Joanna Penn’s work through her podcast, Creative Penn podcast, because I started writing  the book of my heart, a book of daily meditations started out as a, um, as a book for my daughters, uh, to help them understand what I believe spiritually, um, in a, in a world to help them navigate a world that’s totally insane. That’s totally gone off the rails. And so I started listening to Joanna’s podcast because it’s a podcast for writers and I discovered her love for walking, um, and for pilgrimage. So I’m so excited that, that she’s joining us on the podcast. So if you’re a person interested in writing in the creative process, if you’re interested in theology, in history, in cathedrals, um, in adventure, if you’re interested in pilgrimage or maybe pondering walking the Camino or some of the other pilgrimage routes, I’d highly recommend that you listen to, uh, Joanna Penn’s podcast and you listen to her book. There’s this wonderful quote that she starts the book by from Augustine, “Solivitur ambulando:” “It is solved by walking.” Things have a way of resolving themselves, becoming clearer when we walk. I’ve certainly learned that. 

               So I hope you enjoy this episode and this conversation with Joanna Penn. She’s so gracious and, and wise. She’s a person of deep intellect, deep curiosity. And let me tell you a little bit more about her because she’s so humble. You’d never know about the sort of depth of accomplishment. So I’m going to read just a bit of her bio here. 

               She’s an award winning New York times and USA today, best-selling author. She’s an author in both fiction and nonfiction. She sold over a million books to readers in 176 countries. Her work has been translated into five languages. She’s an independent author and she’s been a real trailblazer in the world of indie publishing, self-publishing. In 2018, she was named a publishing commentator of the year by digital book world. She’s also the host of the Creative Penn podcast. Her podcast has been downloaded over 10 million times in over 200 countries. It’s just amazing. And it is one of these people you’re just so happy for her success because she’s so kind, so gracious. And she offers so much value and practical insight in service to this community of writers. She’s a, she’s based in Bath, England now. She’s lived in Australia and Zealand. And her notable works include an arcane action adventure thriller series. Today, we’re going to be looking at her book called Pilgrimage. I hope you enjoy this episode. Happy walking everyone.

               Welcome to Within, a contemplative segment within the Leaders Way podcast that explores the convergence of mental health, art, and spirituality through authentic conversations across wisdom traditions about personal and collective transformation.

We welcome artists, musicians, spiritual teachers, and healers to reflect on the sacred wisdom needed to heal the world’s deepest wounds. Within examines the inner path to wholeness, not through quick fixes or spiritual bypassing, but through courageous engagement with life’s profound challenges.

               Joanna Penn, welcome to Within and the Leaders Way podcast. It’s just a delight to have you here. 

Joanna:  Oh, thanks so much, Brandon. I’m excited to talk to you today. 

B:           I am actively controlling all of the fanboy urges. I know that your, that your downloads, I think just went over …  You say the number I’m astounded by. 

J:            10 million. 

B:           10 million. It’s just astounding. And I’m responsible for like 25,000 of them. I’ll admit myself. So it’s just been a great adventure and I’ve learned so much listening to you. And in some way, welcome– welcoming you on the podcast is a challenge because you do so many things and you do so many things. Well, I don’t know where to start, but let’s, let’s dig in. And maybe it’s especially auspicious that we are starting this new episode of within this new journey. It’s a kind of brand new pilgrimage for us. And, um, and let’s start with, with your book. You’ve written the book on, on pilgrimage. I’m an aspiring walker. Um, tell me where this book came from in your heart and in your mind.

J:            My teenage years around the time that The Pilgrimage by Paolo Coelho came out, I started to hear about the Camino de Santiago. Uh, I’m obviously British. You can help tell where my accent. And so this is a sort of, uh, people don’t know a sort of famous European medieval pilgrimage that has sort of had a resurgence with secular walkers as well as, uh, Catholics, um, looking to get to walk hundreds, sometimes over a thousand kilometers, uh, to Santiago de Compostela, where the bones of the apostle James lie. And so I heard of this, you know, back in my teens, so we’re talking 30 plus, 35 plus years ago. And I went on to do theology at Oxford. I’ve always remained a seeker, someone who loves the spiritual side of things, fascinated by cathedrals and questions of faith. And I was always looking for that side of things. And basically the years went by as it challenges of life. And every time a challenge in my life came up, I thought, shall I walk the Camino now? But I did other things like I left the country, I traveled, I was … I moved to Australia and New Zealand and all did all these things. 

               And then back in England, this was now sort of fast forward to the pandemic. We can all remember those times. And I, when I finally sort of thought about if I died and we all thought about that at the time, am I going to die? Am I going to get what we’re all going to die? But if I get COVID and die, what will I be most annoyed about? And I was like, if I don’t walk the Camino, I will just be so annoyed on my deathbed going, it’s the one thing I like, I don’t have regrets really, but that was a regret. And so that’s really started me off again. I was sort of mid-forties, the questions of midlife, which again, I think we all wrestle with, so I was like, right, I’m going to walk it. I’m actually going to walk it. Uh, but then of course we couldn’t travel at the time. And so I started by walking a couple of other ones here in the UK, the Pilgrims Way from London to Canterbury, and then the St. Cuthbert’s way. And we can circle back to these obviously. And then I walked the Camino. So that was my third pilgrimage over three years. And then I wrote the book. 

               So it was a sort of a life change moment. It was a desperate need to find some meaning in a very difficult time in the world, and it was also a midlife necessity to get out there on my own and sort of walk off all of that stuff that we all, all had, I guess, but, um, yeah, I mean, I, I think pilgrimage is something that if you feel called to and people will know what that feels like, then at some point you have to make time for it. 

B:           How would you define that? Or maybe you actually already have, but this sense of calling? Um, I think, um, religious folks are, are accustomed to this language, but I think this is a, this is an experience that might be a transcendent of religious categories that we have this kind of pull, this kind of yearning. For you it was in the form of this sort of a question or yearning that wouldn’t go away. Am I hearing that right? 

J:            Yeah. But I think this is, as you said, it’s in other areas of life. So I’m a writer. I know you’re writing a book of your heart and I feel the call to write a book is similar. There’s this almost this thing within you that says, I really want to do this. Like, why is that the thing you’re choosing to do over something else? And I think it’s different to falling in love or something with a person. I think it is more like something where you’re, I must do this thing or learn this thing. Some people obviously have it with music.

               But I do think people have it around sense of place or this, some people look for their ancestry, you know, they might travel to a war graves where their grandfather died or something like that. I feel like we have some sense that there is something we need to complete. I don’t know. What do you think that the writing a book need fits with this same sense of calling? 

B:           Oh, I love. Thank you. Thank you for the question. It’s what happens when you invite a podcaster on a podcast. Right. We just have a, we actually have a, we have a, we have a, we have a, we have a, we actually have a real conversation. You know, the way I would name it for myself is that it’s the thing that I can’t not do, that it’s almost cellular and gravitational.

               And I noticed myself struggling and suffering to the extent that I don’t follow the prompting or the yearning or right. Um, is this what happened when, when I, when I started writing a year ago, but, but I have this sense in myself in, in terms of going on a pilgrimage and actually, uh, the pilgrimage to, um, Compostejo was the first one that I was tracking and then you taught me about these other littler Ways. And I wonder if you can, can lay out these other two for folks because they’re options and they’re probably different, uh, personalities. I presume that these paths bring, can you lay these out for us for, for someone who might be like myself, trying to discern, where do I start? Do I kind of go in for the whole enchilada and fly to France?

J:             Well, do you know, I am so grateful that I couldn’t just go and do the Camino because, uh, as has always been true throughout history, pilgrimage is an industry and, you know, religion is an industry, the great religious sites throughout the world, whatever the religion are, are places of tourism as well as religious meaning. So the Camino de Santiago, certainly Santiago de Como Stella, there’s a lot of tourism and pilgrimage tourism. If you want a wilderness, that walk is not it. So the St. Cuthbert’s way, really interesting. So if people don’t know St. Cuthbert was seventh century, he was a monk and he became the Bishop of this Northumberland, which is in the Northeast of England and on this island called Lindisfarne, there are places again, the spirit of place. This is a tidal island. It’s very powerful. Like I’m getting goosebumps again, the walk across the sands to Lindisfarne was one of probably one of the most spiritual moments of my life. Well, spiritual hour or two, because you’re walking across the sands to this island and it felt out of time. I felt like I could have been a thousand years ago. Uh, and that walk was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and the most meaningful, and I would say that wilderness and it comes from the south of Scotland across to Lindisfarne. And it really is much harder physically than the Camino where there’s a lot of support, like you can get coffee every five minutes on the Camino you can buy. 

B:           Tell me that’s not a Starbucks on the way. 

J:            Oh no, not Starbucks, but you know, you can get a one euro coffee, which you certainly can’t get at Starbucks. But, um, and then the Pilgrims Way is an again, another angle because it’s very historical. So you actually walk out of Southwark in London. So your first 50 kilometers are urban along roads with people going to work and supermarkets and, but it is the road that the Romans took, it’s the road that Thomas Beckett, um, took, uh, you know, uh, as he went to Canterbury where he was martyred and it, the where the Canterbury Tales … Um, so they’ve got, as you said, very different personalities. The main thing to say though, with a pilgrimage, whichever one you do, or I guess this is another lesson is that it may, one may not be enough, but whichever one you do, you’re going to find meaning along the way and it will probably surprise you. So it might not be what you were looking for, but though something will emerge, something will come. And, uh, before I hand it back to you, just the multi-day walking, I think is another really important thing. So people do one day pilgrimages, but I do think there’s something that breaks you down if you’re walking for multi-day, but the, um, the Pilgrims Way was like six days and the Cuthbert’s Way is, five days or something. And then I did a 15 day Camino on the Portuguese coastal route up from Porto. And some people do a sort of month or you can do six weeks or whatever. So you can make these longer. Um, but I would say certainly I walked alone as a woman and I found the five days was a real challenge, you know, to do in the more wilderness sense. 

B:           Wow. Oh, I’m so intrigued. I’m glad I asked. So, I mean, I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with the idea of pilgrimage but maybe we have some new listeners now that we’re beginning this within segment that casts a much more kind of universal net. And what are some of the themes that you’re bumping into as you’re walking? You said that, you know, sometimes that your expectations are, are smashed sometimes maybe in disappointing ways, others in delightfully surprising ways. Take us into your heart space in your head space as you’re, as you’re walking. And what are some of the themes that you’re, that you’re bumping into?

J:            Yeah. Well, I think one of the really important things about pilgrimage is that it is a spiritual experience. So again, let’s do, you know, walking across to the island of Lindisfarne. I am feeling a spiritual sense of the place. It’s, it’s like a bird sanctuary. The seals were singing that day, which just, I was like, what is that sound? And again, the feeling of being out of time. So on one sense, I’m kind of above my physical body and yet I am walking, uh, that the tide has gone out and I’m walking with, um, my walking shoes on. ‘Cause I had blisters. So I wasn’t going to do it barefoot through the sand, but my feet are wet and cold, I’m carrying this pack on my back. I’ve been in pain for days that– these pilgrimages are very physical experiences where you’re carrying weight. And also that particular one, I was carrying too much. And I feel like this is a real metaphor for life is that, you know, if you’re carrying too much physical stuff, uh, whatever that may be in emotional stuff, it will be heavy and you will be in more pain. And so one of the, one of the lessons, I guess, the pilgrimage is try and leave more stuff behind and travel, um, light. So I guess that’s one of the lessons and there’s a verse in Ecclesiastes, which is one of my favorite books of the Bible. And it’s something like, God tests us so that we may know we are animals.

               And I’m like, pilgrimage is walking for multi-days. You know, you’re smelling, you’re sweaty, you need food, you need water. And you’re like, Oh, I want to be so spiritual, but actually you’re just this physical body walking across the face of the world. And I guess that’s another part for me is this sense of perspective. Because if you, you’re reading a map, a physical map and you, you can just see how tiny you are on the face of the earth and it helps you put your life into perspective, your problems into perspective. Um, and for, I guess one of my things that I always focus on is memento mori, remember you will die. And that helps as well, I think. And at this particular moment where I was in a lot of pain one morning and I just thought, I don’t think I can carry on. I’m just, just, I’m just broken. And then I remembered that one day I will be truly broken and I will not be able to walk the Camino. And I hope that is many decades away, but I thought, you know, right now I can do this, I can pull myself together, take some painkillers and get on with it. Um, but certainly memento mori, I think came up a lot, on these walks. I mean, you, you do a lot of spiritual retreats and things like that is walking and physical practice part of those?

B:            Oh, it long has been, yeah. It has been even before I was conscious that it was a practice. Um, I’ve always been a walker and a mover. When I spent, you know, uh, long periods of time at, at, in monasteries, both Christian monasteries and Zen Buddhist monasteries, walking meditation became really, really important. But I think it was when I was living in Rome and I would, I would see in the evenings, these families or best friends come into the streets for their evening passagata and they would walk arm in arm. And I can remember seeing teenage boys, early teens, 14 year olds, arm in arm, walking and laughing, reflecting on their day, talking about life. And I thought, Oh, I always want to have a walking practice. And so every night I walk for, you know, about 90 minutes, sometimes alone, often alone, sometimes with my family members, it’s, it’s really, really sweet. 

               You’re reminding me, um, for, for listeners who, who may not be so, um, obsessed with classics as, as maybe we both are, that the, um, that the etymology of animal is anima in Latin, right? The word that can also mean soul. It can mean a few other things as well. Right. Um, and for so long, especially in the West, uh, in, in Christianity, we’ve moved, we’ve tried to transcend the body; to move past the body and actually your discovery of your, your creatureliness, your bodily-ness, I think it’s a wonderful spiritual discovery and for a person of faith like myself, I’m reminded that the spiritual life is found squarely in our physical experience, not to somehow transcend it or, or, or, or move beyond it, so it’s really helpful. And I have this, this quote from your book that like jumped off the page. I wonder if you can kind of tell the story of what was behind it. You said, “Only I can give up. Only I can walk on. The decision is mine.” And I hear some, some real challenge and hardship behind that. Can you take us back to the moment that that might’ve pointed to?

J:            Yeah. I think that was the morning on the St. Cuthbert’s way. And I had, I had eventually, like many of us got COVID and I was about, I was only a few months after, but I had at least six months of struggle. So my lungs weren’t up to everything. I put on weight, you know, there was all these things in my body that I was unhappy with and I was in pain with. And I, my bag was too big, as I said, and the first day I’d walked over 30 kilometers and my feet were blistered. I had bruised like almost down to my bone, my hip bones. And I looked at my phone at like three in the morning or something to try and figure out if I could get home. Cause I was still in England, so I could, you know, and I live in Bath in the Southwest; I could make it home that day with these buses and trains. So I knew I could get home to my husband and I was like, I should just do that. I should just go home. I can do it another day.

               And yet again, you know, it really was that moment of sort of, if I can pull myself out of this and just get going. Also, it was a storm that day. I mean, just to make it worse, I looked at the weather and it was like, yeah, it’s going to be stormy all day. And so walking in the pouring rain and all of this kind of thing. And this happens on every walk, to be fair. On the walk to Canterbury, I had a similar occasion where I sort of sat down by the side and I was crying. That was actually … I think that was 2020. That was the year of the pandemic. And we were all grieving. I mean, I know we like to somehow put it out of our mind now, like we’re past that. But we were grieving the end of what we thought life was really then. We didn’t know what was going to change at that point. And again, it was this moment of I could just leave. And what I don’t want to say to people is that sometimes, I mean, sometimes you do need to leave. Sometimes you do need to give up. There’s nothing wrong with that. And for example, on the Camino, it is very easy to get a taxi.

               You can just get a cab or, you know, you can have someone else take your bag. And this is another thing that you learn is this sort of your Camino, your way, your pilgrimage, your way, you get to choose the shape of the challenge. So I’m able-bodied, you know, but I saw people walking the Camino who were blind. They were disabled. They were in a wheelchair or they were on crutches or so. And I’m able bodied. And I was like, I can just do this. So I think we have to understand that we all have different challenges at different points in our life. And it’s … let’s say you’re walking the Camino and you’re let’s say you’re 75. I saw a lot of older walkers and they had their packs carried by taxis to the next place they would sleep. Nothing wrong with that. I chose the challenge of carrying my own pack every day and walking every kilometer of all three pilgrimages. That was the challenge I set to myself. And so that that decision to fulfill the promise I made to myself in order to honor that promise. 

               And like I said, you know, I’m not a Christian. I wasn’t necessarily honoring God, honoring Jesus. I was honoring a promise to myself in order to complete something. And I did write down a lot pain is temporary, but the, you know, guessing to the end and the sort of the pride in achieving this goal, even when hurting and in fact, because of hurting, because if it’s too easy, it’s not a pilgrimage. I don’t know. What do you think about that? 

B:           Well, I mean, I think it’s just an inevitable part of life, isn’t it, that we have to determine how we will work with pain. And in some moments it’s more intense than others, but it’s really, it’s one of the, it’s the primary question of life. Like what’s your, what’s your relationship with pain and how do you handle your pain?

               And gosh, if you zoom out and look at the world, I think it’s clear that we’re doing a very bad job of healing our pain, whether we’re religious folk or not, right. We have the evidence of unprocessed, unhealed wounds that are then multiplied out into the world.And so, you know, what’s really important for me as a person who does a lot of spiritual teaching inside Christian spaces and Buddhist spaces and secular spaces is that we get really honest about our relationship to pain because it’s not just about our own private well-being and inner peace, right. Our wounds get multiplied and radiate outward into the world. So this question of pilgrimage isn’t just sort of a private quest, I think. And I think it’s in some way a gift to yourself, but by extension to the world that you return maybe more integrated, maybe more whole, maybe a little less irritable.

Do you see the kind of personal and the collective connected in that same way? 

J:            Yeah, and I was thinking as you were saying that it’s not just our relationship to pain, it’s also our relationship to comfort, which is kind of on the other end. But I feel like sometimes we think life should be so comfortable. You know, in our houses we make the temperature nice and we have hot water all the time or whatever and we can get the specific coffee we like and the food that doesn’t upset our tummies and, you know, all this stuff we do to make everything comfortable. And even if you’re not in absolute pain when you’re doing a pilgrimage, you are certainly not comfortable. You’re sleeping in a different bed, even if you get a hotel or accommodation, you’re going to be eating different food.

               You know, if you’re a vegan, don’t walk the Camino through Spain. Like, you know, you end up eating stuff because you are hungry, although, you know, you’re just like I just need to eat. I’m hungry. And so you have to change your idea of what comfort is. And like I said, you on a multi-day walk, you are going to walk in weather, which is not comfortable. There were several days. Certainly I walked in the autumn in the in England, rain, cold, days and days of rain. And it’s not comfortable. 

               But you learn things in those situations. I remember once I had you have to get food where you can and kind of put it in your pack. And I was huddling actually in a church sort of doorway trying to eat my sandwich in the rain. And I was like, but I remember it as a sort of a happy moment because it was just funny, you know, sitting in this churchyard in the rain trying to eat a bit of sandwich. And, you know, the weather is part of it. 

               So I feel like that’s also something to consider when you come home from pilgrimage, you are suddenly grateful for the comforts that you have at home, which again, gratitude, as we all know, is so important. And the wonderful gifts we do have in our daily lives and that you perhaps forget. And then when you go away, for example, having a hot shower again, sometimes this doesn’t happen. And you just think, wow, I really love a hot shower and a nice coffee. And that is a simple life. And I think pilgrimage can teach you that is that you can be happy with a simpler life. And we need to get back to that too. 

B:           Oh my gosh. Absolutely. And this other theme, maybe I don’t suppose a theme, but a phrase that I think you coined, at least I’d never heard it anywhere else that’s really resonating right with me right now, as I’m sort of in the last quarter of my journey with this particular book that I’m writing. It’s a book of daily meditations to help folks find peace amid a world that’s gone off the rails. It’s finding how hard it is to finish something. I actually thought the challenge would be starting. And then when actually starting felt easy, I thought, oh, the middle part is going to be the slog. And gosh, the last 20 pages feels almost unwritable. 

               And you coined this phrase around finishing energy, that you had to find the finishing energy. Talk about this, where you discovered or how you created these words and any encouragement for folks, whether writing, being creative, you know, you have any sort of project, the energy to finish. I think a lot of people struggle with that. 

J:            Yeah, it is interesting. I think we did come up with these sort of, you know, starting energy, pushing through energy and finishing energy, because there are different feelings at different points in the journey. So, you know, with a pilgrimage, for example, you decide you’re going to do it and you do all the organization. So you can and then day one, it’s easy to start. And then pushing through is all is all the effort along the way. I actually on the interesting way you are with writing, because I don’t even think you’re in finishing energy. 

B:           Yeah, right. I’m in the middle. 

J:            To me, you’re still in pushing through energy. Pushing through energy is super hard, because it does take you to the end of that draft. To me, finishing energy with a book is the editing, the publishing, the marketing, the getting into people’s hands. And if we then take that into pilgrimage side to me, the pushing through energy gets you to your destination. 

               So I got to Santiago de Compostela, I finished the three pilgrimages. For me, the finishing energy around that was actually doing the book, the amount of processing along the way. And it’s really the integration of finding the lessons learned and then not just leaving them aside, just actually trying to integrate them into your life. So coming back to your question and around the book, I do think that the ending of a book is hard to write. And often it can be related to the beginning of the book. So that might be a tip for you is that many books are circular. So I would go back if you have, I often write the introduction last, so I don’t know if, have you written the introduction yet? 

B:           I have, but I’m quite sure … I just reread it not too long ago and thought, oh wow, yeah, I was a whole different human at that point. It was just a year ago.

J:            What you just said there, I was a whole different human at that point. That may help you with the ending. Because also my book, Pilgrimage too is an arc from who I was before I did any pilgrimages to who I was after I had done the three. And so maybe yours might have a similar reflection. So sometimes for the end, you need to look at the beginning and then vice versa. So that might be some way through. But for people to just think about finishing energy–for a book like yours, it serves no purpose on your laptop. It doesn’t help anyone on your laptop. So you’ll still have to go through the editing process where it will change again. And then the publishing process and the marketing process of getting it out there. 

               So I think sometimes we think like with a pilgrimage, we think, oh, it stops when I reach, you know, Santiago de Compostela. I’m done. But you really are not. And it’s that time–I’m really glad and a recommendation for people on pilgrimages is to make sure you schedule at least a day in the place where you finish, preferably, you know, a couple of nights so that it’s not just have a shower, get some food and then go home the next day. Like you actually almost need to settle. And just coming back to the theme of Memento Mori, the day I finished my Camino was the day of the of the Queen of England’s funeral. And she had died during my pilgrimage and her funeral was that after I arrived. And what was so crazy is that three years before that in Canterbury, I had seen her statue, which had been added to the wall of Canterbury Cathedral. And she had been alive then. And I remember looking at the statue going, I’m alive in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

               And then she died during, you know, my pilgrimages. But when you look at Canterbury Cathedral, there are kings there from a thousand years ago. And again, I got this visceral sense of –I am standing in history. And this is part of the wonderful thing. Obviously, I am a European. The wonderful thing about Europe is you are walking through history all the time. And that just gives you a real sense. I don’t know, coming back to your book, does that help at all? 

B:           Oh, my gosh, it definitely does, Professor Penn. I mean, and you reminded me because the students, when they’re just about ready to graduate, they come to me with this panicked look on their face like, I’m at the end. What do I do? Yeah. And often with them, as you might remember, with a degree in theology, they might not be as marketable as they initially thought, even with even with a degree from Yale or Oxford. Right. Like, what do I do with this thing? And so I remind them, oh, you’re not at you’re not at the end. You’re not at the beginning. You’re somewhere in the middle.

               And of course, I encourage them to continue learning. Right. There’s just so much more to learn. Go learn something else. Go start a new journey, but keep moving. So thank you. I appreciate hearing that, that lesson, that reorientation that I that I try to offer my own students. 

               I wonder when you were at Canterbury, did you bump into our dear friend Robert Willis, who was the dean there at the Cathedral? 

J:            No, no, I think what was really funny, again, recommendation for people stay at the Canterbury Cathedral Lodge, which is inside the grounds so–and you can go to Song Evensong, which was one of the highlights of finishing the Pilgrim’s Way. And you’re right, you can go and ask for a blessing. But again, it was it was Covid times. And so I went to Evensong and they were all the chairs were single, single chairs spaced out more than two metres. So there was … it was very strange because there was no sense of community like you would normally feel in a church. But also this is a cathedral. So I mean, it’s very big. But then the choir came out and again, they were distanced. And that was very, very strange. But again, I remember it so clearly because the spiritual power of sung Evensong after you’ve just walked all that way and you’re exhausted. And so I actually did not seek a blessing as a pilgrim. I took my blessing as sung Evensong, which is the spiritual moment. And then the funny human moment was when I went to check in at the lodge and the woman on the desk there, I was– I had a massive backpack and everything. I was like, Oh, I’ve I’ve just finished the Pilgrims Way from London. And she’s like, oh, what time did you start this morning? And I’m like, because of course she got the train, which takes like an hour. 

               And I’m like, no, no, no, six days. Nobody cares about your pilgrimage. Nobody cares except you. And this is also true of your family, your friends, you know, maybe your pastor or your professor. Actually, nobody cares. You are the one who cares and you are the one who needs to process it for your own growth. And I’ll say this for your book and for anyone’s book, if you’re writing a book or the degree that people are worried about, you’re actually doing this for your own processing, your own growth. And what is so wonderful, like the fact that we’re having this conversation about my book Pilgrimage is I mean, seriously, it’s pretty niche.

               And I was like, oh, no one’s ever going to read this, but it didn’t matter because it meant it means a lot to me. And I’m so glad it touched you. And this is what we have to do is put our lessons into the world and somebody hopefully will find it and resonate with it. And it may help them, too. 

B:           Well, and what’s one person’s niche is a whole person’s entire universe. Right. And so it’s really none of your business if it’s niche or not, you have to do the work that you’re called to do. I was just sharing a little video teaching on Instagram yesterday, just about this, like your spiritual life is none of your business. This is Thomas Keating, the wonderful Trappist monk. He’s like, you have to follow your calling and the results, who it touches, the ripple effects… It’s really none of your business. You have to create and follow your heart here. So I’m thankful that you create so much and I’m thankful for this wisdom around, this reminder that no one else cares. 

               This is actually what I tell folks at the end of every single retreat, right? They’ve had this big epiphany and an enlightenment or they’re just peaceful and on cloud nine. And often they’re so excited to share this and they want everyone else to be as excited. And you’re right in the best possible way, right? No one cares. And to be really, um, thoughtful about how you reenter the world after, after a retreat. So I mean, thank you for sharing all the fruit of your, of your pilgrimages and I hope you’ll go on more and keep writing. I wonder, can we talk about some of your other writing as well? 

J:            Yes, of course. 

B:           I wonder how, um, how you feel like pilgrimage is connected to the other writing and work you do, especially work, your fiction work. Um, I’m thinking about your arcane action adventure series. Talk a little bit about that. So folks can know about that dimension of your creativity if they don’t know about it already. 

J:            Yeah, sure. Well, just to encourage people who have degrees in theology, I did become an IT consultant for 13 years. So yeah, just get a normal job. Um, but I have found that my theology degree, uh, is the basis to my fiction as well. So my arcane series is based on Christian history, Christian places. So the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela is in the first novel, Stone of Fire. Lindisfarne is in Day of the Vikings. Um, you know, you talked about Rome there, which is in a number of my arcane thrillers. So when I, and I travel a lot to research these things, so I will travel different places. And then I’ll write about them. So Canterbury cathedral is in Tomb of Relics. Um, so I love to travel and then I, I sort of almost turn ideas into fiction, but as much of it is true as possible. So my recent arcane thriller, Spear of Destiny is based on the actual, well, I say the actual, the supposed Spear of Longinus that pierced the side of Christ, which there is a sword like that in Vienna. And it is the one that Hitler took at the beginning of the second world war. Yeah. It’s so fascinating because the myth is that whoever holds the Spear of Destiny controls the world. He actually lost it just before he killed himself. Uh, and people are like, well, and the Americans, uh, got it. So think of that as you, as you will. But, um, and so I kind of tied that into the current political environment, this kind of thing. 

               But I take my curiosity and my interest in theology, and then I turn that into a thriller and you could, like … hopefully most thrillers and fiction, you can read it as a story, but you can also, I feel it’s for curious people who like to know more about places. And I always do an author’s note. So there’s an author’s note in the back of every book of mine, which essentially tells you what’s true and where it comes from. Um, much, you know, like Valley of Dry Bones, again, inspired by a verse from Ezekiel. Um, you know, sort of thinking about where these, I know some people say it’s all truth, but there’s a seed of truth and some fiction and some myth and some history and a lot of culture. And so, yeah, I think, um, I think that probably helps. And so Pilgrimage was my first memoir and also helped me write deeper nonfiction. So I’ve also written a book called Writing the Shadow, which is a Jungian psychology sort of idea about going deeper into ourselves. And so that’s also what I encourage people to do. And I know you’ll be doing in your book, which is really mining that deeper side of yourself that you might be hiding a lot of the time. But if you bring that out, it’s surprising how much that will touch other people.

B:            What I love about, um, about your path is you began in theology, you know, you went into corporate space, you dove into creativity and you’ve been so entrepreneurial. And even the word entrepreneurial is one that I was often hesitant to apply to myself. I thought it was the, um, the antithesis of being spiritual or being heart-based. Can you talk a little bit about this? Because I think of some of the themes that I would offer back to you as a great listener and digester of your creativity is a kind of permission, not only to be creative, but to find ways of supporting the creativity that’s sustainable over a lifetime. And I’m thinking right now of so many of our students, again, who are wondering, gosh, what do I do with this? And who might have had this baggage around the entrepreneurial spirit, right? Because folks often come to divinity school, not because they’re entrepreneurs, because they have these profound questions about life and God and the mystery of what it means to be human. Um, but you’ve crafted a whole career of creativity and service for yourself. And can you talk a little bit about how you dipped your toe into the entrepreneurial space and any, maybe any shadows or stories that you had around that? 

J:            This could be a whole other discussion. And I have a big chapter on the shadow in money in writing the shadow. And many writers also have a shadow around money. And I feel like that is what also many religious and spiritual people have too, because of all the things, all the baggage around money and the root of all evil and all of that. But it’s the love of money, obviously, that’s the root of all evil, not money itself. So I feel like that my number one value, I guess, is freedom. And freedom to create is something that you really only have if you have time freedom.

               And therefore some kind of money freedom, and I’m not talking about great riches, I’m talking about a living wage or better than a living wage. You know, I live in Bath, which is a very nice city in the southwest of England. But I feel like I was driven out of the corporate life to write to become a writer, because I was so desperately spiritually creatively dead, killed by corporate life. I used to implement accounts payable into corporate. I mean, come on. And I didn’t believe I was creative. I just basically been crushed down. But boy, they paid me a lot of money.

B:           My heart hurts just to imagine you in that space, because it’s so not where you are now. 

J:            Yeah. And I was crying a lot and I was sick and I just couldn’t see the point. And so I chose poverty at that point. We sold everything, got rid of everything, downsized.

               But I also believe that there is value in our creative work and there is value in our service. And there is no, you don’t have to choose poverty to be of service to people. Obviously, you don’t want to swing too far into the kind of health, wealth, prosperity, movement kind of thing. There is a balance. But for me, I think what freed me was I want to have this freedom to create, to write the book. If I’ve got on my wall here, I want to write the books I want when I want. And so when I had a day job, that was pretty impossible. I did used to get up really early. I wrote my first three books while I still had a day job and then I left. But also I have multiple streams of income. And I think you must do as well, where you’re paid for some speaking, you’re paid to teach. At some point, you’ll be paid for your book. I’m also paid for my podcast.

               So to me, the creativity in entrepreneurship is designing a lifestyle that is true to your values, that is of service to others, that is of service to your creative drive. It’s still work. This is a really important thing. I work. It’s not all just sitting here channeling some creative spirit or God or whatever. It is work. But it is fulfilling work. And I think that’s really important. 

               But yeah, I think the design of your life, and I think this fits with modern life. It’s not just one job forever. It’s more of a portfolio life that you put together from various things that fulfill your creative spirit. Again, that book Pilgrimage, it’s not like it’s going to pay my bills every day. But between my various books, between my speaking, my podcast, teaching, different my patrons, I can make a living. So I hope that encourages people. The other thing is, I haven’t designed where I am now. It’s just since 2008, I have consistently shared my journey. And over that time, I attracted people who were interested in that journey too, like how we’ve connected is you found something in my words that resonated with you. And so here we are connecting. And that’s basically how it’s happened. So start with the creation, as you mentioned. Start with the creativity. Put things into the world that resonate with your values and you will find your way.

B:           Oh, thank you for that encouragement. And I think what I’ve always appreciated about you is your real willingness to tell the story of what’s happening in your life and in your world, because it will touch someone’s heart. And so I wonder, maybe before we move on to our rapid fire closing questions, tell us the story of what’s emerging in your life. What are the next things? What’s the hot project that you’re working on? I see all these great cathedral pictures on social media. What’s happening in your world in terms of ongoing and future projects? 

J:            Yeah, so I am working on a book on English Gothic cathedrals. And it’s so interesting because the word Gothic in people’s minds, they think darkness and things like that. But the Gothic architecture was actually about all about light. It’s when light, you know, these pointed arches, huge stained glass windows, huge vaulted ceilings and cathedrals became these wonderful light filled places, which changes the nature of architecture from the sort of Norman/Romanesque. And anyway, English Gothic cathedrals, I feel a sense of spirituality in them. And I’m obsessed with the beauty of place and how that affects us spiritually. But also, I’m pretty obsessed with stone masonry and how we, you know, stone is obviously–there’s a lot of resonance with spiritual metaphor. But I thought that these cathedrals represented longevity and how things last. And as I’ve gone into it more and more, I’ve discovered that the job of a stone mason is replacing stones in these ancient cathedrals. So it might be this cathedral might be 800 years old, you know, and yet a lot of the stones have been replaced over and over again. So what does that mean? So I’m really fascinated by these questions. I want it to be a photo book. It will be on Kickstarter at some point, which is another entrepreneurial thing. But so that’s something I’m obsessed with. 

               I’m also got a short story series, The Buried and the Drowned, which is sort of dark. And in fact, the very first story is about is set at the Black Church in Boudia in Iceland, which is the latest thing I’ve written and is about a man who goes to question his faith at the ends of the earth basically, and is about the theme of deep time. And what about the elements that existed before humans, before faith, before the questions of why we’re here. And that place in Iceland is super ancient. And there is there is something else I thought I would tell you this. I haven’t really talked about it yet, but I’m starting another degree. So to encourage people, I’m doing this Masters in Death religion and culture at the University of Winchester. So that’s going to be interesting. 

B:           Oh my gosh, I’m so excited for you. Sign me up. A Masters in Death. I mean, just to be able to say that you’re your Master’s degree in death. Oh, I can’t wait to see the creativity and the learning that emerges from that. Because so much of our culture wants to look away from death. 

J:            Exactly. Yeah. 

B:           And so this was a great courage to lean into it. So, well, we’ll be cheering you on and please keep the cat pictures coming too. We’d love seeing the cats. 

J:            My cat’s been snoring next to me, so I hope that doesn’t come out. But again, I guess I just want to encourage your listeners and anyone. I felt a need to lean into this and again, this kind of calling to go deeper into something that most people turn away from, as you said. And I don’t know what will come of it. I think that’s the important thing. It’s not like I’m going to get a job in this area or whatever. It’s that I don’t know what will come, but I am curious. And I feel like at this point in history, our curiosity means so much. So yeah, that let’s lean into that wherever that may lead. And we’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. 

B:           We’ll figure it out. It’s none of our business. Right. We always on the Leader’s Way podcast, we close with some rapid fire questions so that we give the people what they want, things about you that perhaps you haven’t yet revealed. So here are our five closing questions.

What do people most misunderstand about you or what you do?

J:            Yeah, I think people think the job of a writer is just kind of swanning around writing in cafes and the money just rains down on you. But the reality is it is a job. You still have to do all the publishing side, the marketing, the email, the business admin. So, you know, again, if you work in a like a church or something, it’s the same thing. I mean, there’s all this life admin. So yeah, being a writer is wonderful, but it is also a job. Hmm.

B:           So what’s your go-to comfort food after a long day of writing or wrestling with, you know, the back end of Kindle?

J:            Can I say not necessarily food, but a gin and tonic? I do like a gin and tonic. Hendrix or tankaret. There you go. 

B:           I love it. What’s a bad habit you’re willing to share with the people?

J:            I would love to say I don’t, but I do scroll sometimes on X. So I’ve been on X, Twitter as it was since 2009. I don’t want another social network. So I do still find myself sometimes doom scrolling and I know I shouldn’t. So let’s all stop that, but still everyone guiltily scrolls, don’t they? 

B:           Oh my gosh. Oh, we do. Yeah. What life lesson are you still learning and finding yourself even relearning after all these years? 

J:            Well, what was funny is in preparation for this, I was looking at Pilgrimage again and I realized that I had told myself that life is seasonal and that seasons are important and that seasons of life and seasons of creativity. And I still have not learned that because I still think I can go, go, go, go, go 12 months of the year, every week of the year. And that’s not true. And so I need, I still need to schedule more time in the winter, for example, to step, you know, have more contemplative time, more quiet time, which is when I get very, very tired, the light and all that kind of thing. But yeah, seasonal, living seasonal creativity, not just all on, I think. 

B:           Oh, thank you for that reminder. Can’t be spring all the time. Yeah.

               And finally, what keeps you going when your inner critic tells you all sorts of terrible things, and especially that you have to stop. There’s just no, no use in, why bother doing what you’re doing?

J:            Yeah. Do you know, I, I have discovered the power of naps and sleeping. I mean, basically, if I feel, because I’m default positive person, if I feel like super negative, everything’s really bad, what is the point? Like this work is terrible, blah, blah, blah, the world is going to hell. Then I tend to find that if I go to bed for a few hours, that actually really helps. And obviously, sometimes it’s more, more rest and walking and everything. But literally, sometimes for me, just going to bed for a few hours makes such a difference. And I do think that a lot of people probably do need to leave, look at their sleep hygiene and their rest. And it’s amazing how much better you feel.

B:           Oh my gosh, when in doubt, take a nap. Take a nap. Yeah. Oh, Joanna, you’ve brought so much light and wisdom and insight and, and humor into my life. It’s just an honor to be able to, to say thank you. I know that’s been the case for so many millions, literally millions of people. So thank you for what you do. We hope that you’ll keep doing it. Let us know if we can be supportive to you and your important work in some way. Everyone go out and listen to the podcast, the creative pen, read all the books, and just thank you for you. Thanks for joining us on Within. 

J:            Thanks so much for having me, Brandon. And I actually, I have another podcast called Books and Travel that people might be interested in. And I have quite a lot of episodes on pilgrimage, both my own and also interviewing other people. So that’s Books and Travel.

B:           Great. We’ll see you on the interwebs. Thank you.

               Thank you for listening to Within, the contemplative segment of the Leaders Way podcast. We trust this conversation has provided nourishment for your own growing and healing. Until next time, may you find deep peace and courage in all you do.