At day’s end I had this deeply grateful feeling. “Now I am on a pilgrimage,” I thought.

In the fall of 2014 I flew to Rome for a pilgrimage that I titled “From Rome to Rumi: A Pilgrimage from the Head of the Church to the Heart of Mysticism.”

I dug deep to match the steeper grade. Then a funny thing happened: my breathing deepened and my body relaxed. I felt a sense of relief—I was coming home.

How could I authentically say I’d gone down into the belly of the whale on this mythic journey if I bypassed the desert?

The line between observer and observed dissolves. I was no longer looking at a mountain: I was part of the mountain.

At the time, my thoughts unnerved me a little. Did I have a death wish? Was my longing about wanting to die?

About halfway between the summit and the town of Wisdom, I arrived at the Big Hole National Battlefield. I was inclined to ride on by…

Afterwards, I felt clean again. But more than that, I felt alive. Really alive. More alive than I had in a long time.

I was almost laughing by this point. “Warmshowers, Chris. You just described Warmshowers. I’ve already stayed five nights with their hosts on this trip.”

I have noticed in recent years that more and more people are replacing their one word titles with a long list of descriptors to let their readers know “what they are.”

Guns may provide the fatal bullet, but a lack of trust is actually what is killing us. Pilgrim Hostels are one small attempt to create a culture and a community of trust.