PART III – From Tourists to Pilgrims

Diana Butler Bass uses the word pilgrim in this introduction to Part III in a way that isn't what I usually think when I hear the word.  I looked it up and found five definitions.  The first is what I thought of:

1.  a person who journeys, especially a long distance, to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion: pilgrims to the Holy Land.

But our author seems to be using the fifth meaning.

5. a newcomer to a region or place.

Here's what the book says (on page 216):

"Becoming a pilgrim means becoming a local, a year-round person, who adopts a new place and a new identity by learning a new language, rhythms, and practices.  Unlike being a tourist, we embark on a pilgrimage, not to escape life, but to embrace it more deeply, to be transformed wholly as a person with new ways of being in community and new hopes for the world.  Being a tourist means experiencing something new; being a pilgrim means becoming someone new.  Pilgrimages go somewhere — to a transformed life."