In the past few months, we’ve seen massacres of Muslims in New Zealand, Christians in Sri Lanka, and Jews in the United States.

We appear unable to allow men and women to practice chosen spiritual disciplines to guide them through complicated and difficult times.

Ours is an age shot through with the worship of wealth and power. Ordinary people struggle against oppression and war and famine. You would think we would welcome a little spiritual comfort and insight for them.

A spiritual pilgrimage is an acknowledgment of our weakness. If we seek help beyond the human, we are going against the dictates of the age. We are saying people matter more than things. We are saying justice matters more than wealth. We are saying humility matters more than power.

Unless we have some spiritual answers, death ends it all—everything we seek vanishes. Against this reality, you would think we would encourage spiritual seeking, not try to kill its practitioners.