Following God's will as a Tin Can Pilgrim

We share a baptismal call to bring Christ to others, but we do so in many different ways and in different places: churches, schools, hospitals, offices, soup kitchens or, in the case of Lynda Rozell, on the road as a self-proclaimed Tin Can Pilgrim.

“I discovered this vocation in my retirement because God basically inspired me to sell my house, quit my job, buy an Airstream and a truck, and just hit the road with my Chihuahua,” Rozell says.

Rozell’s travels have taken her across the United States, including to the Diocese of Portland, where she will lead an Advent mission at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Westbrook at the end of November and where participation in a Corpus Christi procession at the Portland Peninsula & Island Parishes inspired her to embrace the National Eucharistic Revival by writing a book on tabernacles.

“The real intention is to draw people to Jesus’ real presence so they can receive the graces that come from just sitting in front of Him,” she says. “He finds ways to reach people, and I think this book will be a part of reaching them. That is just a beautiful thing.”

Rozell says she often feels drawn to tabernacles and has spent a lot of time before them since she began her nomadic life in 2018. That was the year that she decided to place her life in God’s hands.

“I decided to pray that rather dangerous prayer that, whatever you want, God, I will do. Just let me know what it is,” she says.

It was a radical change for a woman who at one point struggled to find time for God in her life. A graduate of the University of Virginia, she worked as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., first in private practice and then for the Federal Trade Commission.

She says she had felt the Holy Spirit prompting her to return to church for a number of years, but she didn’t listen. Then, when she was in her thirties, the death of a close friend led her back to God.

“I was so upset about it and angry. I started praying. I didn’t know I was praying. I thought I was just ranting at God because it was like, ‘If you exist, how could you do this to this wonderful person?’ And I really felt almost a voice in my heart saying to me, ‘Go to church and pray for him.’ And I did, and the rest is history,” she says.

Rozell started to attend Mass again and went to confession for the first time in 18 years.

“I was scared. It was hard to do, but in retrospect, it was just so wonderful,” she says. “It’s amazing because God never gives up on you. Everyone who has children who are away from the Church can take comfort in that idea: as much as you love them, God loves them a hundred zillion times more, and He will never give up. He finds ways to reach people.”

In 2010, Rozell began working for the Tepeyac Family Center in Fairfax, Virginia, a pro-life medical practice.

“I helped them get their financial aid program and some health-care regulatory stuff in place and was able to help in finding them a new building to move the practice into,” she says.

But by 2018, she says the center didn’t need her help much any longer, and with her children grown, she began discerning what to do with her life.

“I prayed more. I talked with my pastor. I talked with my spiritual director. I just kept getting the same message in the Mass readings and Scriptures of just total surrender, total trust in God,” she says. “I decided to place all the possibilities in God’s hands.”

She says it was during a business trip to Richmond, Virginia, that she believes God gave her the first sign of what He wanted her to do.

“I saw something shiny at the side of the road. It was an Airstream travel trailer dealership. I must have passed it a million times, but just on this particular day, the sun was shining on those Airstreams, and I thought it was a spaceship convention. So, on my way back, I stopped,” she says.

 She says she had no intention of buying an RV, but when the salesperson showed her around and she looked inside one of the Airstreams, she had what she describes as an epiphany moment.

“I realized this is like a small luxury apartment on wheels. I could downsize from my 2,500-square-foot townhome. I could live in this, and then I don’t need to know what I’m going to do. I could just be completely open to going anywhere that God wants me to. And I felt such peace about the idea,” she says.

She remembers receiving affirmation in the form of a bouquet of roses and a card from her neighbors, who were fellow Catholics.

“There’s this lovely card in it from my neighbors, and it had a picture of the open road and a sky and a mountain, and they wrote, ‘We prayed about this last night, Lynda, and we really think you should go now,’” she says. “I went over, and I talked to them, and they were like, ‘We really feel like you would be awesome doing this kind of thing, just going and just living your faith wherever God puts you.’”

All the pieces fell into place, and within months, Rozell had bought an Airstream, sold her house, and was ready to hit the road.

“Within four months of making this offer to God that He could have the rest of my life and that I was His, this is what happened. I still didn’t know exactly what it was going to involve, but it basically just involves quietly witnessing to His love for the people that I meet through friendship, and being kind and doing volunteer work,” she says. “It’s very easy to get to know people, and I have an outgoing personality, so that really helped. I also felt that this was a mission. This is what God wanted me to do because it was totally, totally different from anything I’d ever done. There were no metrics. It wasn’t something that I could plan. It was all in His hands.”

She says she soon found that interacting with fellow campers came easily to her.

“I don’t have to try. God brings the people to me that He wants me to interact with. And it’s all really small stuff. It’s not anything dramatic. It’s really not any different than what any Catholic does in their ordinary life, where you’re just trying to be faithful in what you do on a daily basis, whether it’s maybe paying for someone’s groceries when they don’t have enough cash in the line in front of you or whether it’s just smiling at somebody.”

In the foreword to her tabernacle book, which is entitled Return to Me: Visits to the Tabernacle, well-known Catholic author George Weigel describes Rozell as having embraced St. John Paul II’s New Evangelization.

“Lynda Rozell has lived the New Evangelization in a unique way, bringing the Gospel to perhaps unexpecting people in certainly unexpected places – and doing so with a grace, compassion, and fervor that mirrors that of the Polish pope,” he wrote.

In addition to her personal interactions, Rozell started a blog, www.tincanpilgrim.com, as a way to keep in touch with people. In it, she shares RV tips, stories about the places she has visited, and spiritual reflections.

“It’s a way to stay in touch, but it’s not the same as a personal interaction, and really, that’s what draws people. The personal relationship is what helps people understand that Jesus wants a personal relationship with them,” she says. “That’s what it is about. It’s about drawing people to Him.”

Her blog led to a spiritual travel memoir, Journeys with a Tin Can Pilgrim. The book describes how she went from corporate lawyer to Airstream nomad, how she finds joy in everyday life, and how she sees God’s hand in it all. Each chapter concludes with what she calls “signposts” — points of reflection and guidance for readers to consider.

“My whole goal was to reach nomads with it and introduce them, as an extension of my apostolate, to the idea that there is a God who loves you and who wants your happiness. It’s that simple. Then, depending on where somebody is in their faith journey, you can go a little further with them,” she says.

Rozell also wrote a religious poetry book and created an Airstream Travels coloring book, before the Corpus Christi procession in Portland piqued her interest in the National Eucharistic Revival, leading to the book on tabernacles.

“I really felt like, wow, this Eucharistic Revival is so needed and so important. And I wondered, what could I do, Lord, to support it. And I realized that I had so many pictures of tabernacles from all over the country because I have a devotion to praying before the tabernacle,” she says. “It’s actually a very catechetical book in a sense because I’m looking at the themes that emerge from these photographs of nourishment, sacrifice, Jesus, Spirit, Church, and mission. For instance, within sacrifice, I talk about the scriptural and theological roots in Catholic history of symbols like the pelican and the lamb and the cross.”

The book features photographs of tabernacles from across the United States, including Maine. She dedicated it to the parishioners, staff, and pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Windham because of the welcome she received there while writing it, including the use of office space with access to Internet.

Rozell says she never expected to be where she is now but says she continues to leave it in God’s hands.

“It’s very peaceful to live life basically feeling like I’ll do whatever you want, Lord. Just tell me,” she says. “I mean, this is a gift.”

Return to Me: Visits to the Tabernacle can be ordered at enroutebooksandmedia.com/returntome or on Amazon.