Seminarian directs Urban Pilgrimage in Austin

Jessie Smith, Seminary of the Southwest MDiv middler student is heading up the Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) Peace and Justice Urban Pilgrimage in Austin, Texas, planned for March 11-16.

Across the Borders and onto the Streets: Engaging Homelessness and Immigration is the theme for the Austin event with similar events set in New York City and Los Angeles/Oxnard, CA. Cost is only $150, plus transportation to Austin, thanks to generous support from the Diocese of Texas and the Diocese of Olympia. Pilgrims will be housed at Seminary of the Southwest and will join the seminary community for Evening Prayer on Friday, followed by a potluck. SSW students are invited to help with organization during the event. For information, contact Jessie at Jessica.smith@ssw.edu.

The event goal is to get people thinking about social justice issues in a spiritual context, Jessie explained, and to relate social justice to the mission of the Church.

Participants will meet with individuals from Grassroots Leadership, an organization that works to abolish for-profit prisons, jails and detention centers. According to the organization's Web site, Texas has more than 70 such for-profit institutions. The pilgrims will journey to the ICE Detention Center in Tyler, Texas, where Grassroots members have succeeded in changing the population of that center, which had housed undocumented women and minors. The center now only houses women.

On Saturday afternoon, Urban Pilgrimage participants will lead a worship service at the Trinity Center in Austin, a ministry of St. David's Episcopal Church, which addresses a variety of the community's needs. They will also journey to El Buen Samaritano Episcopal Mission, Casa Marianella, and Caritas to meet with their directors. Other stops on the journey will be the Catholic Worker in South Austin and a discussion with workers from the Workers Defense Project.

There will be a strong emphasis on reflection and writing, Jessie said. Blogs will be posted on the Internet from Austin, New York, and Los Angeles offering reflections during the pilgrimages. Those attending will be receiving a book of background articles and reflections being put together by EPF directors like Jessie to prepare them for their experiences.

The culmination of the pilgrimage will be a day-long retreat focusing on reflection and steps for moving forward, Jessie said. The idea is to connect young adults, in particular those for whom this is their first exposure to social justice concerns, with the issues from a spiritual angle and prepare possible future EPF leaders.

The events are also helping EPF in establishing a working partnership with the Episcopal Service Corps, which now has 12 sites throughout the nation. The Austin and Los Angeles Urban Pilgrimages are centering around two of those sites, in hopes of fostering growing interest in the Episcopal Service Corps as well as EPF.