I think we unwittingly identify ourselves as Tourists in this life rather than Pilgrims. 

I've been on many exotic holidays as a tourist.  The tourist prep, mindset and experience is always the same:  make a well-ordered checklist, pack everything you might need, structure your trip to avoid as many inconveniences as possible, and mostly strive to enjoy yourself thoroughly.  The tourist is not tolerant of botched reservations, lousy expensive food, poor room service and lax service.  Tourists by definition are self-focused.

But not so with a pilgrim.  After we dismiss the caricatures of the word pilgrim (ye ole guys with buckles on their hats, blunder-busts, names like Cotton, Zeke and Oder... turkeys and pumpkins, OR religious folk on their way to Mecca OR some monk on their way to the highest mountain cave to sit at the feet of the Lama) -- we find the title of pilgrim our best description of what means to follow in the way of Jesus these days. 

A pilgrim sets his or her heart on the pilgrimage, the journey.  There is a deliberate determination, a strong forceful will.  They choose to go.  They are sojourners, travelers perhaps vagabonds who carry a short ,flexible, incomplete itinerary, head off toward unknown surroundings, drinks from fresh rain pools and found springs - rain that has fallen from the goodness of god. Pilgrims are dependent upon god alone.  Pilgrims travel light and lightly, notice everything around them, hear the voice of god speaking through everything around them:  pagan, religious or spiritual.  Pilgrims pack one or two sacred texts rather than clothes.  Pilgrims go very slow.  Pilgrims take what is set before them, eat what is provided or do not eat if nothing is offered.  Pilgrims voluntarily place themselves in god's provision.  Even distractions of glitz and wonder (Las Vegas strip for instance) are not left uninterpreted.  Even a routine trip to Stuffmart is a chance to hear god.

Isn't this an identity issue?  How do we perceive ourselves: consumer tourist or follower of a homeless itinerant prophet named Jesus?  Suburbia is designed to provide safety and comfort.  That's fine - as long as it doesn't get in the way of our following Jesus.  It does.  Then we cry out to god, "Oh Lord, I want to be close to you!" but everything in our life is designed not  to be dependent upon god, yes?  Not until poverty, illness, tragedy, or perhaps birth and celebration comes do we NEED or recognize god genuinely. 

So we must retrain our basic identity into one of pilgrims. And that means we will have to let go of so much... empty the bucket so it can be filled with treasures of heaven: justice, activism, proclamation, sharing, love for un-nice, laughter in the face of imposition, art and beauty, playground recess or sport, unhurriedness and time.

I propose we should be pilgrims in our own backyards.  Tourists want to landscape.  Pilgrims want to sketch and sit quietly - notice and listen for god.  Who is up for such a re-write of one's soul?  No doubt god must draw them forcefully.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,

who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

...They go from strength to strength

till each appears before God...

-- 84th Psalm