{"id":6778,"date":"2006-07-17T10:34:37","date_gmt":"2006-07-17T10:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/pilgrimage-to-goa.html"},"modified":"2006-07-17T10:34:37","modified_gmt":"2006-07-17T10:34:37","slug":"pilgrimage-to-goa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/pilgrimage-to-goa.html","title":{"rendered":"Pilgrimage to Goa"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new generation of pilgrims hits Goa’s hippie trail – from the NYTimes.<\/a><\/p>\n

The first part of the article focuses on the decades-long hold of the place on alternative types, but then takes another turn:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

But Goa’s most authentic spiritual experiences require a taxi ride into the past.<\/p>\n

Snaking south into the lush Goan countryside, the cracked asphalt roads out of Anjuna pass scenes of daily Indian life that seem a world away from the Birkenstock-trod paths behind: fires burning amid roadside shanties; little boys playing cricket in an overgrown field; elderly Hindu women walking barefoot with baskets on their heads; ancient peepul and banyan trees. The succession flickers quickly past the half-lowered window like film images carried by the warm breeze.<\/p>\n

The heads seem to bow especially low upon entering the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, the ghost town of Baroque edifices that was once the splendid seat of Portugal’s Indian trade colony. The reason for their reverence lies in a deep alcove, where a fabulously wrought silver casket holds the remains of the most famous Western spiritual seeker ever to reach Goa’s shores: St. Francis Xavier.<\/p>\n

Dispatched on a missionary voyage to the East in 1541, St. Francis, a Spanish-born Jesuit, stepped off a ship the next year and found himself in a prosperous international metropolis larger than London. As one French traveler observed, Goa’s boulevards were lined with "goldsmiths and bankers, as well as the richest and best merchants and artisans."<\/p>\n

St. Francis journeyed all over the East, returning frequently to Goa before his death in China<\/span><\/a> in 1552. His body was taken to Goa two years later. Today, Baroque churches, convents and cathedrals testify to the former splendor. Whitewashed, the spectral relics stand out against the green grassy expanses and encroaching jungle like a Catholic version of the Angkor temple complex.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Various photos of churches in Goa.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new generation of pilgrims hits Goa’s hippie trail – from the NYTimes. The first part of the article focuses on the decades-long hold of the place on alternative types, but then takes another turn: But Goa’s most authentic spiritual experiences require a taxi ride into the past. Snaking south into the lush Goan countryside,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nPilgrimage to Goa - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/pilgrimage-to-goa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pilgrimage to Goa - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A new generation of pilgrims hits Goa’s hippie trail – from the NYTimes. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}