Day 48, part II: Beyond the Horizon

Months ago, I promised to write another post– this one about what happened when the Fulp-Eickstaedts traveled to Finisterre.

A certain percentage of pilgrims, after they arrive in Santiago, continue walking on their way to Finisterre, a little Galician village on the coast of the Atlantic.  From the very beginning of the Camino’s history, peregrinos have gone on to that place which, in Latin, literally means “the end of the land.”  Early pilgrims came to the sea shore and regarded it as the place where the known world ended.  Who knew what lay beyond the horizon of that vast ocean?

Finisterre is a good three day walk beyond Santiago.  After 47 days of journeying, all four of the Fulp-Eickstaedts were ready for a respite from traveling by foot.  That being said, we felt that our experience wouldn’t be complete without at least seeing the ocean.  So late in the morning of Day 48, we hired a car and driver to take us to the sea.

Our driver didn’t speak much English and Judith and I still hadn’t (and haven’t) picked up much Spanish, so Rebecca and Martha served as our interpreters on the way.  He was talkative and after some time, they grew tired of the task.

We’d heard from a fellow pilgrim about a can’t miss seafood restaurant in Finisterre, so I was determined that we’d eat there.  My persistence (our driver kept suggesting another place) was rewarded with what ranks as one of the best meals of my life.  Barnacles, razor clams, another sort of clam, and a grilled fish as long as my arm–all perfectly cooked.  The fish white and flaky, the clams swimming in garlic butter, the barnacles a novel treat (the meat contained in them was a bit like a mix between calamari and clams).  We asked our driver to join us for the meal and he enjoyed it as much as we did.

Our sumptuous repast finished, he drove us up to the lot just below the lighthouse.  Beyond the lighthouse, you walk out onto rocks and there you behold what pilgrims who trek the extra three days or so have seen for centuries: an endless blue ocean.

As I gazed out upon the glittering water, I thought about how the rest of my life lay ahead of me.  I pondered what lay beyond the horizon of my sight.  I wondered a while about the ways I  would carry the experiences and lessons I’d had on the Camino forward.  Then I had my picture taken with my daughters.

My daughters and I in Finisterre

Now, months after that photo was taken, a new calendar year has begun.  One daughter is off to Malaysia to serve as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant for a year (and she is writing her own blog.)  The other is more than halfway through her undergraduate experience.  Judith and I just celebrated our 25th anniversary of marriage ten days ago.  And I have been back serving with my church since late August.

Beyond the horizon, life goes on.  The Camino is over for us, but the walk of life and faith continues.   With the beginning of a new year, look for me to write more about how the Camino continues to have a lasting impact in my life.

The journey continues….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 48, part I: Two Hugs for St. James, Gratitude and a Continued Journey

Seven weeks have passed since my family and I arrived in Santiago on July 14th.  More than six weeks have passed since I wrote the last of three posts about the vision I had at the beginning of that day’s walk.  I haven’t written anything about the Camino–at least not to share publicly–since then.

Now I feel the need to do so.  I feel the need to talk about what I actually experienced on arrival in Santiago.  I feel the need to speak of our day trip to Finisterre the day after and some of what we took in during the time we were in Barcelona.  More than anything, I feel the need to further reflect upon and integrate the lessons and insights I experienced on the Camino.

I found that writing this blog served as a helpful spiritual practice for me as I traveled the Camino.  I know, too, that my writing in this forum provided inspiration and sustenance for many of you who followed the Fulp-Eickstaedt’s journey. I am resolving to continue posting here, on a more occasional basis, for the foreseeable future. My focus will turn to looking at all of life–and not just the Camino–as a pilgrimage.

Before I go further, I must share what arriving at the Cathedral was really like.

Not surprisingly, the “reality” of arriving at the Cathedral in Santiago on Day 47 paled in comparison to the vision I had on the road.  I walked into the city with my daughter Rebecca.  When we finally came upon the Cathedral, we found we had approached it from the backside and not by way of the Plaza Obradoiro–the largest and most impressive of the four plazas.  Nevertheless, tears came to my eyes as I beheld the Cathedral  for the first time.  I was, however, less awed than I expected to be.

Before entering the Cathedral, Rebecca and I went straight to the Pilgirm’s Office to obtain our compostela, our certificate of completion of the walk.  The wait was not a short one, but I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to have that compostela in hand.  A couple of hours later, after Judith and Martha arrived, we all went to the Cathedral.

Being warned–in an announcement from a security guard in the midst of worship–not to come forward for communion during the Mass cast a bit of a pall on the whole service for me.  However, what I found more meaningful was the opportunity to take part in the old tradition of “embracing the apostle.” I did that twice–once prior to Mass that evening and then again the next morning.

The main altarpiece at the Cathedral features a life-sized statue of Santiago himself.  Behind the altarpiece there are steps leading up to and then descending from the statue.  While I was there, a continuous flow of pilgrims and tourists ascended those steps.  The tradition is that when you come to the statue, you “hug his neck” from behind and tell him whatever you came to say.

The Statue from the Front

On my first approach, the evening we arrived, I was in line behind a young mother and her two year old son.  He was brimming with curiosity and not at all inclined to use his “inside” voice.  A priest who was there to monitor the flow of traffic gently tried to explain to the boy what all this fuss was about.  For my part, I was so interested in paying attention to the boy and the kindly priest that when my turn came to go in for the hug, I’d forgotten what–if anything–I had planned to say. So I quickly reached around his neck, squeezed, and then went on my way–aware that there were pilgrims behind me waiting their turn.

The Statue from behind

That’s the way such things frequently happen,isn’t it?  The big moments we’ve waited for come and then they pass.  Often they are less spectacular than we had imagined they would be. The wedding day, the graduation, the big game: they don’t live up to the expectations we’ve fashioned of them in our heads.  We find out we are coming at them from the backside, as it were.

On the morning of Day 48, I returned to the Cathedral before we found a car and driver to take us to Finisterre for the day.  I ascended the steps to embrace the apostle for a second time.  Having had a night to sleep on it, this time I knew what I wanted to say.  It had become clear that the meaning of the Camino for me wasn’t tied up in having a dramatic spiritual experience at the end, but in the journey itself and how I would carry its lessons forward.

I hugged the neck of good old Santiago again.  Then I whispered through my tears, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”  Leaving the statue behind, I went down to the crypt, where Saint James’ bones are supposedly interred in a silver and gold box, to pray some more.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”  That’s what I wanted to say then.  A month and a half later, I wouldn’t change a word.

Day 47, continued: Wisdom and the Reason for my Tears, Part III

** Note: This is the third in a series relating a scene I imagined as I  walked on the morning of the day I entered Santiago.  It is best to read this series in order.

Florian’s words took me back to the day we met his mother, Karin.  Rebecca and I were climbing up Alto del Perdon–The Height of Forgiveness–and that’s when we came upon her.  She told us that she was walking for her son and that she carried her son with her in heart.  The word for that day was healing.

The boy pointed me to another side chapel, where I found all four of my grandparents, including the two who died before I could meet them.  I’d lit candles in their memory in the church in San Juan de Ortega, inspired by Chris, the young man from Stuttgart who told me that he walked for his grandparents.  With them were so many others who had passed on whose lives I had recalled for some reason or another on the Camino.

I turned and looked for Chris.  I glimpsed him in a sea of the young people I’d encountered on the trail.  Brenna was there, now in an Air Force uniform, so full of idealism and a passion to serve her country, but more importantly, her God.  Landi was there, too, with a volume of Chaucer clutched in her hand.  It looked as if some pages had been torn out of the back of the book–to drive home the point that the story, each of our stories, remains unfinished.

Landi’s beau Adam stood beside her, chatting with Walt Whitman.  I overheard the sweaty-toothed madman, his pilgrim beard far bushier than mine, insisting to the young Cambridge student that grass is the handkerchief of the Lord and that the dead young men and women and old men and mothers and offspring taken soon out of their laps are alive and well somewhere and all goes onward and outward…and nothing collapses. And to die is different than anyone supposed, and luckier.

The older I become the more I appreciate Whitman.

Just then Santa and Haralds called out to me from the group of young people. The lovely Latvians possessed the same enthusiasm they had the day I met them coming out of Ponferrada.  Haralds nodded in the direction of a huge figure, well over 7 feet tall.  “He would be good for my basketball team, yes?  Two and a half metres high!”

Haralds was right.  Over there, dressed in a trucker’s cap with a red kerchief that read Fiesta de San Cristobal 2015, towered an enormous bearded man.  I recognized him immediately.  St. Christopher!  Of course he would be here in Santiago among all of these travelers.  When I met him in Melide, he taught me about what I could carry.  I carry him in my heart, too.

The strains of Dona Nobis swelled in the space, with many voices joining the parts.  Then the music ever so gradually modulated into another familiar tune.  I saw our friend Dale, a San Francisco Giants hat covering his balding pate, pick up a bass.  His wife Janet started to sing, “When I find myself in times of trouble…”

I felt a tap on my shoulder.  Paul McCartney whispered in my ear, “That song was about my own mother, who died when I was 14.”

I looked at him and replied, “That’s what you thought when you were writing it.”

Rasmus and Jonas were tapping their toes, getting into the music, despite themselves.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez suggested a bit more of a Latin beat.  I could swear that I saw a roasted chicken come to life and crow in rhythm with the song.

In another side chapel, Father Kevin Codd was leading a group of the priests I’d seen throughout the Camino in a dance.  The one who put a cross around my neck in San Juan, the laughing one who blessed me in Fromista, the one who invited us all to share our stories and the Sacrament in Moratinos, all of them were there.  So were the ones that I, with my limited knowledge of Spanish, could sense were going through the motions.  My young seminarian friend from Indiana, Sam, was just learning the steps.  Joining them all were my Presbyterian pastor colleagues who I knew had come to Santiago ahead of me, weeks or years before.

St. Joseph and good old Santiago himself came over to me.  Joseph grabbed my shoulders, looked me in the eye and said, “Remember.  It is what it is, but God can work with what is. And God can and does work in you.”

Santiago, the friend of pilgrims who’d been my companion the whole way, added:  “You’ve learned a lot on the Way about acceptance and gratitude and meeting people where they are.  Don’t you forget this!”

Then Mother Mary herself took the lead from Janet, and the whole cathedral full of people–my Dad and Mom, my brother and sister-in-law, my congregation members, and all of my friends and family, including all of those I made on the Camino—all of the ones I carried and carry with me, joined as one in singing, “Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be, whisper words of wisdom, let it be.”

Martha on the last day going into Santiago

 

Day 47, continued: Wisdom and the Reason For My Tears, Part II

When we left Arca for the last leg of the Camino into Santiago, the Fulp-Eickstaedts were divided up as follows:  Rebecca, then me (about a kilometer behind), then Judith and Martha bringing up the rear.

For the first forty-five minutes or so, I ran into surprisingly little pilgrim traffic. This allowed my mind space to begin to process what had happened on the Camino thus far.  Faces, insights, events and encounters all began to emerge and merge, as did a sense of sadness that I would see few–if any–of those faces in Santiago (the other three members of my family excepted, of course).

That’s when I started to imagine all of those faces and insights being present when I arrived after all.  I had a rough idea of what the interior of the Cathedral looked like from photos I’d seen.  Visualizing that space would not be as important as the people my mind’s eye placed there.

When I entered the Cathedral I could tell that some sort of celebration was about to start.  People were crowding into pews and milling about in every corner.  A few seemed vaguely familiar.  I looked and looked, but at first didn’t see anyone I knew.  Then I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

Ah, yes… I could spot them now.  My Camino companions.

The first one I spotted was Hans, the stocky Bavarian whom Rebecca and I met coming out of Zubiri.  He had on the slate blue tank top and cooling towel we saw him wearing the day we met him.  Hans told me over lunch that noon that he’d seen his mother’s spirit slide into a pew to watch her own funeral.  His deceased father tried to beckon her to leave, but she told him, “It’s not over yet!”  Rebecca and I thought Hans was a little “different” that day, but maybe he really can see things most of us can’t.

Noelle, the woman who moved to Granada from New York City when she was twenty called out to me, “See, I told you the Spanish know how to throw a fiesta!  But if you really want to see a party, you should come visit the south of Spain.”

Peter was there, of course, red bandana on his head and sporting his Sin Dolor, No Hay Gloria t-shirt, the one with the bandaged feet on it. He had an Aussie rules football in the crook of his arm. “We were smashing it on the trail, weren’t we, mate?” he asked.  I nodded my agreement.  “And wasn’t the salmon tasty!” He thanked me for our conversations and my concern.  Peter made me laugh more and more heartily than anyone else on the trail.  I gave him a fistbump and looked down at Dina, his wife.

Dina’s eyes twinkled and she flashed that sly grin. “Isn’t that gorgeous?” she said to Jenny, her fellow Aussie.  Dina quickly sketched a drawing of the scene and then she, too, expressed gratitude for our good conversations.  “No, it is I who should be thanking you,” I replied.

Jenny carried her walking sticks and her store of knowledge and opinion with her.  I recalled how quickly she could motor down the path with those sticks.  You would never have guessed that she had slipped and broken her leg on the first day of her attempt at the Camino just a year before.  “Looks like we made it,” she winked at me.

Over there, near a statue of Mary, stood Michelle from Calgary.  She had on a blue rain poncho with hood and a white, wide-brimmed visor which made her look like the Blue Nun.  Her hiking shoes still had some of that red Riojan mud on them.  She produced a troll doll from her backpack.  “Give this one to your girls, too,” Michelle said.  “It’s a Santiago troll!” I thanked her for that, for her care for my family, and for her prayers.

Next to her was Carolyn, the food economist at NYU.  We first met her at the vegetarian meal  at an albuergue.  She truly became part of our Camino family after Ponferrada, where she had ridden in an ambulance with her friend Trina, from Denmark, the day of Trina’s bad fall.

“Where are Judith and the girls?” Carolyn asked.

I pointed over to one of the side chapels.  There they were!  My wife and daughters singing Dona Nobis Pacem along with Karin, and Reinhard, and the rest of the Germans. Hadn’t we said goodbye to them way back in Logrono?  Hadn’t they only traveled as far as Burgos?  But here the Germans were, at the culmination of our trip.  What was that about?

Andrea, Michelle’s German friend who taught me about Gelassenheit and flew home the day after we talked, was somehow with them.  I lifted a quick prayer for her and her ailing mom.  It is hard to “let go” when life thrusts such responsibility upon us.

Speaking of Germans, I picked gentle Wiebke out from the crowd, too.  Her burdens seemed lighter and her smile was broader than in Leon.  I sensed she had left something behind at La Cruz de Ferro whether or not she’d made it to Santiago.

I tapped Karin on the shoulder.  “You weren’t supposed to be here in Santiago until 2017. Warum jetzt?  Why now?”

Her smile fairly glowed.  “Let’s let Florian answer that question.”

The boy beside her was healthy, whole, and ablaze in light.  “Aaron, dear Aaron, don’t you see?  The people who are here with you this day, they are the ones you will carry in your hearts always.”

**Stay tuned as my vision on the way to Santiago continues, with Dale and Janet and Paul McCartney, Santa and Haralds, Adam and Landi, Brenna, Rasmus and Tina and others, including a few surprise guests and more.  More to come in a future post….

The rock the girls gave Karin.

Day 47, continued: Wisdom and the Reason for My Tears, Part I

*This post will be a little longer than the others, because I have so much to try to put into words.  So it will come in parts.  Also, there will be a post or two more, including at least one about Day 48 (Two Hugs for the Apostle).  So, for those of you who are interested, there is more to come!

At the end of one of all four Fulp-Eickstaedts favorite movies, Big Fish, viewers see a cinematic example of magical realism.  The main character, an aging teller of tall tales named Edward Bloom (played by Albert Finney), is on his deathbed.  His adult son, Will, has been frustrated and sometimes embarrassed throughout his life by his Dad’s penchant for telling wild and implausible stories about his own life.   One of his Dad’s favorites is about a giant catfish who swallowed his wedding ring on the day of Will’s birth.  But that’s just one among many, most involving characters Will has never met.

Again and again, Will had asked his dad to give him the real truth about his life’s events, not a story.  Now, after his father’s stroke, Will feels he won’t ever get it.  So he surrenders to storytelling.

In his father’s final minutes, Will creates a tale of his own.  In it, his father regains strength and the two of them engage in a daring escape from the hospital.  They commandeer a car and rush to the river, where all of their family, friends, and the outlandish characters from Edward’s tales, throw a party for him.  Then he walks into the water, transforms into a giant catfish, and swims away.  Right after Will finishes the story, his father dies.

At Edward’s funeral, Will is surprised and moved to see all of the characters from his Dad’s stories appear.  They are not quite as fanciful as they had been depicted in Edward’s tales, but they are recognizable.

Please forgive that long introduction into my experience of Day 47.

The day began with reading a comment quoting Let it Be and telling me that I was going into Santiago that day for a reason.  It continued with a powerful flight of imagination related to a service in the Cathedral during the first half of the morning’s walk.  This made the experience of the evening’s Pilgrim Mass a bit disappointing.  As did the fact that the transition to the Eucharist was prefaced by an actual security guard warning worshippers–in Spanish and then in English–that they should not come forward to receive if they weren’t good Catholics.

This is the Cathedral’s prerogative, of course.  There is doctrinal purity to be upheld. So, after 500 miles of walking to Santiago and several profound moments of spiritual insight and ecumenical hospitality, I sadly honored their admonition.  No communion for me.  We do have a long way to go before the Reign of God–the Beloved Community–is fully realized.  I am more committed than ever to that project.

I like the vision of it that I saw enacted in a Pilgrim’s Mass in tiny Moratinos better.  All of us invited, even up onto the chancel.  All of us sharing our stories, ourselves, and the bread and the cup.  No demand for an I.D.  Just welcome.

In the next installment of this longer post, I’ll share with you what I imagined on the road.  It had me weeping for gratitude and joy.  For me, at least, it was a glimpse of heaven–a true moment of communion.

One portal into the Cathedral. Santiago himself is showing the way.

Day 47: We Are All Here!

As I write this, I am waiting to go to the 7:30 Mass at the Cathedral in Santiago.  Rebecca and I walked into Santiago together–Team Hormiga forever!–then sat a while in the shadow of the massive structure.  We went to the Pilgrim Office to get our compostelas, checked into our accommodations, and showered up.  Martha and Judith–Team Caracoles–arrived about an hour ago.

At the Pilgrim Office, they offer an opportunity called Camino Companions.  The posters describe this as a chance to debrief the experiences you have had on the Camino, in order to process what it has meant and will continue to mean for you.  I thank you readers for being Camino Companions for me already, as I thought out loud about what had happened each day.  In the next month or so, I will continue to think and pray through these things.

I don’t know what will happen to me when I go into the Cathedral in the next hour. I do know that I spent the first few kilometers of today’s final walk to Santiago in tears.  I will write more about what brought that on, and about my experience of tonight’s Mass, in a later post.

Off to the Cathedral!

Day 46: Tomorrow We Arrive! And Some Thoughts on Honesty

I’ve written quite a bit today.  This will be my third post of the day, in fact.

Why so prolific?

In all honesty, it feels like there is not much else to do in this tiny hamlet of Arca. I’m so ready to get to Santiago I’m chomping at the bit.  46 days is a long time to be on the trail. But we’re booked here for the night.  I felt I could have walked the whole way today.

The slower pace is good, I keep telling myself.  It has given us more time to absorb what we are seeing, more time to really see.  Yes, of course. Even today, I had rich conversations on the trail that I would have missed had we finished sooner, including one with a young man, Sam, who is entering a Catholic seminary.  Plus, we’re pre-booked all the way, which certainly has its benefits.  But the truth is, that comes at a cost in terms of flexibility. So many Camino friends have arrived in Santiago before us and are now on their way elsewhere.

There are things to learn from that, too.

Honesty was the word of the day today.  Honesty is important, no question.

I suppose there are times when you can be too honest.  Perhaps not everything we think and feel has to be expressed out loud.  I like my Mom’s adage when it comes to honesty: Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don’t be mean when you say it.  

Honesty, kindly spoken, builds trust. It’s about telling the truth.  It’s about not cheating.  It’s about saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

I mean to tell you I can’t wait to get to Santiago!

Good old Saint James, friend of pilgrims, leading us on from Arzua to Arca today. And tomorrow to Santiago!

Day 45, Part II: Loving Self, Self-Care, and an Anniversary

This pilgrim journey–and this larger time of sabbatical which does not end until August 25th–has been, is, and will be an amazing opportunity to rest and rejuvenate.  It is so good for my soul.  I truly believe it will be a blessing to my ministry.

Day 45, July 12th, was the 23rd anniversary of the day Judith and I were ordained at two little churches in upstate New York. At the beginning of the Camino, I’m not sure why, I had imagined we would be arriving in Santiago on the 12th.

Math was never my strongest suit.

Being in Santiago on the anniversary of our ordinations would have been very special. To be honest, trekking across Galicia felt a little less awe-inspiring and celebratory. Yet it seems fitting. So much of ordained ministry, so much of life period for anyone, happens on the way. It never feels quite finished.  There is always more to do, right?  Always something that seems left undone.

It is also true that, as those who write about the Camino say, it is not the arrival that matters so much as the journey.  Though it will be so good to reach Santiago tomorrow–Day 47, if you are keeping score at home–it will be bittersweet, too.  It’s been quite a Camino.  We will get to the Cathedral by noon, then head off to Barcelona on Day 49, then on to the coast of North Carolina for the remainder of the sabbatical, but it is the whole Camino journey that we’ll remember.  Not just the end of it.

The word of the day for Day 45 was self-love.  Not long after I pulled it from the bag, I started thinking: What does it mean to really love yourself?  Not in an egotistical way, not the overblown braggadocio that stems from insecurity, but the kind of love you would hope to extend to another person for whom you care deeply.  How would you talk to that person?  What sort of grace would you show him or her?  Loving parents both cherish and challenge their children.  They also try to make sure they get enough rest, food, and exercise.  How can you have that kind of love and care for self?  The kind that helps you be even more caring for others?  Good questions with which to sit.

Day 45, Part I: Magical Realism, Marquez, Religion, and the Professor

Near the beginning of this day’s walk from Melide to Arzua, I came upon Rasmus and Tina, a Danish man and woman journeying together.  They’d started their Camino, the Camino Primitivo, in Oviedo.  That particular path to Santiago joins our more-traveled path just prior to Melide.  It is shorter, but features some “rough sledding” through the mountains.

We struck up a conversation as we walked. I am so glad we did.  I really enjoyed these two.

Rasmus is a literature professor at a university in Denmark.  His specialty is medieval literature.  Tina, his companion, teaches in a high school.

The kilometers melted away as we walked and talked about religion and literature and life. Some time before we addressed the, “So, what do you ‘do’ back home?” stage, I asked them both why they were doing the Camino.

An aside: Unlike in the Washington D.C. area, where “What do you do?” is often one of the first things people who are just meeting ask each other, here we tend to get to that later.  Often much later.  This means responses about motives for walking are not colored by people knowing my vocation.  Unless they have a sixth sense.  Or I somehow give off a certain vibe I am not aware of…

At any rate, Rasmus told me he was just out for a good walk.  He didn’t expect to “meet Jesus” or see God or have any big epiphanies when he ànd Tina reached Santiago.  Raw honesty there.  

Later, when I disclosed my profession to them in answering how it was that I have the time to do this, Rasmus was somewhat apologetic for his frank reply to my query. I waved it off.  “That’s fine. People come at this in different ways. It’s all good.  I appreciate your honesty.”

That open response created space for a discussion of religion in general, the theology of John Calvin, Karl Barth’s approach to the doctrine of double predestination, the work of Mircea Eliade on the sacred and the profane and rites of passage, and the very notion of experiencing epiphanies.  Quite intellectually stimulating.

More than once, Rasmus joked that he was carrying a heavy burden of sin to Santiago. He might have to walk the Camino twice, he snarked.  I suggested that he could avoid that if he walked the last 25 kilometers on his knees. Rasmus did say that he appreciated the Roman Catholic practice of personal confession.  That, and the emphasis on acts of contrition.  I sensed there was more to say.  Perhaps I should have followed up on that.

When I asked Rasmus what authors he most enjoyed, he mentioned Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O’Connor, and John Milton.  Now he really had me.

Marquez, who died in April of 2014, was known for a literary style called magical realism.  Perhaps best exemplified in his work One Hundred Years of Solitude, magical realism is a genre where the supernatural is described as something quite ordinary and the ordinary as something quite supernatural. A piece lauding Marquez in The Guardian said of the genre that it employs the magical as a form of resistance to the harsh and totalizing logic of imperial rationality. It seeks the freedom to think outside the box of established wisdom: that is, by rubbing away the line between the real and the fantastic, it frees the imagination from the constraints of how things are. It is revolutionary stuff.

My Danish professor friend scoffs at romanticizing the Camino experience, particularly the arrival in Santiago.  He is skeptical about religion, too.  I get that.

However, I think the Camino–while it is not an exercise in magical realism–really is sort of an otherworldly experience.  The relationships formed here–across international borders, ethnic and religious differences, and other potential divides–do constitute a resistance to imperial rationality. From my point of view, the Camino is helping me and others to think outside the box of established wisdom by engaging our imaginations on the way.

Good literature does that.  So does good religion.  And even, at least occasionally, a good long walk.

One of thousands of cows in Galicia. The smell takes me back to my Great Uncle Roy’s farm

On the Way to Arzua

July 12th, the 23rd anniversary of our ordinations, was also the day they crowned Mr. and Miss Galicia in Melide. We had arrived just in time to be eligible!

Day 44: Trust, Truckers, Boiled Octopus and the Beatles

Each day on the Camino has delivered something uniquely noteworthy.  Now that we’re so close to the end, I should be used to this by now.  Day 44, the gorgeous day we walked from Lestedo to Melide, will stand out as the day of trust, truckers, boiled octopus, and a Beatles’ song.

Let me explain.

At breakfast in Lestedo–where we stayed in the fabulous Casa Rectoral–I drew the word trust from the bag.  All four of us decided it was a great word for reflection.  Then off we went.

I was first out of the gate.  Rebecca wanted to walk by herself a while.  Judith and Martha would be Team Caracoles again, moving at their customary snail’s pace.

Determined to stay focused on trust, I made a plan to go into every open church on the day’s path and to pray for a different specific matter that I feel I need to entrust into God’s hands.  A nightmare surrounding a few of those matters had jolted me awake the previous night, so this seemed quite fitting.

The first open church I came to, I entered, had my credenciale stamped, lit a candle and knelt to pray.  This was a process I would repeat in each sanctuary.  Adding this sort of bodily ritual to the prayer of trust helps, I think.  I may carry that idea home with me.

Coming out of the church in Palas del Rei, I ran into Rebecca.  We walked a while and the conversation turned to how well-marked this Camino way is.  My older daughter lamented that life’s decisions are rarely as clearly signposted.  They don’t tend to come with the Camino’s ubiquitous yellow arrows pointing you in the right direction.  More discernment is required; more leaps of faith must be taken. Oh, to have those clear yellow arrows!

We were both turning that over in our minds when Rebecca and I came to a yellow arrow that I now wish we had photographed. Scrawled on the arrow, in ballpoint pen, were the words to the Beatles’ song, Let It Be:  Let it be, let it be, let it be, !et it be, there will be an answer, let it be. 

I am a Protestant through and through, but I think Mother Mary might just have come to me right then, speaking words of wisdom.  Let it be.  Let it be to me according to your word.  Trust and acceptance rolled into one.

Yes, but wouldn’t it be nice to have clearer, more direct signs–and on a regular basis?  A bit more specific?  Is that too much to ask?

Alas, we can never quite escape some element of trust.  Unless, of course, we choose to approach life from a posture of anxiety and fear, always plagued with doubt about our choices, ever waiting for the other shoe to drop, anticipating betrayal at every turn. Most decisions require a leap of faith.  Trust.

When I made it to Melide, I stopped for lunch at the Pulperia Garnacha.  Pulpo is octopus and the Galician way of preparing it is to boil it and then slather it in olive oil, paprika, and coarse sea salt.  I liked it so much I ate it for dinner, too.  The suction cups on the tentacles take some getting used to, but pulpo Gallego style is good eating and Melide is especially known for this dish.

It turns out that Melide was also the site of a big San Cristobal celebration on Day 44.  As I was eating my lunch, I kept hearing big eighteen-wheeler trucks coming down the hill from the city center, blowing their horns all the while.  Quite a noisy racket.  Some of the trucks were festooned in balloons as they blew by.

When I asked the man who runs the place where we stayed whether trucks did this every day in Melide, he told me no.  This, he informed me, was the day they celebrated St. Christopher, who is the patron saint of truckers.  So all of those truckers flying through town were on their way from a special mass to a great big fiesta down at the river at the far end of town.  You never know what you’ll encounter on the Camino.

Meanwhile, Judith and Martha–who had not yet arrived in Melide–were joking about the word of the day being trucks, rather than trust.  “How do you feel about trucks?” they asked each other, being silly.  Little did they know.

I just had to do a little research on the legend of St. Christopher, the patron saint of all travelers, not just truckers.  It seems he was a bearded giant who once carried an infant across a river.  The weight of the baby boy was so heavy, he almost couldn’t bear it.

“It feels as if I carried the weight of the whole world on my shoulders when I bore you to this far bank,” the hulk of a man said to the baby.  The baby replied, “That is because I, the Christ-child, created that world and carry it with me.” Christopher was converted on the spot.

Maybe part of what it means to trust is to stop carrying the weight of the world on one’s shoulders.  That’s Someone else’s job, as Christopher learned.  To rest in the assurance that God has that and to say ” Let it be,” to your own part of the work of Christ-bearing/love sharing in the world, that’s trust. Take it from another bearded giant who is still trying to learn that lesson.

 

Face-palming angel on the way from Lestedo to Melide. My guardian angel?