On my mind...

My theme song...

Todo pasa y todo queda
Pero lo nuestro es pasar
Pasar haciendo camino
Camino sobre la mar

Nunca perseguí la gloria
Ni dejar la memoria
De los hombres mi canción
Yo amo los mundos sutiles
Ingrávidos y gentiles
Como pompas de jabón

Me gusta verlos pintarse
De Sol y grana volar
Bajo el cielo azul temblar
Subitamente y quebrarse
Nunca perseguí la gloria

Caminante son tus huellas el camino y nada más
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
Al andar, se hace camino, y al volver la vista atrás
Se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar
Caminante no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar

Hace algun tiempo en ese lugar
Donde hoy los bosques se visten de espinos
Se oyó la voz de un poeta gritar:
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso

Murió el poeta lejos del hogar
Le cubre el polvo de un país vecino
Al alejarse le vieron llorar
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso

Cuando el jilguero no puede cantar
Cuando el poeta es un peregrino
Cuando de nada nos sirve rezar
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso

Serrat Joan Manuel

Caminar es pensar

To walk is to think.

That is what I told the office staff of the Iglesia Anglicana Episcopal de El Salvador on my last day in El Salvador three weeks ago. I had not been able to go on any walks during my time there. I accepted having my wings clipped, given what had just transpired with the assassination attempt. But I so needed to walk to sort things out in my head that I finagled a walk on my last morning from where I was staying to the diocesan office, a 15 minute-walk, if that.

Caminar es pensar. Walking is where I can pound out thoughts, such as my frustration with the increasing power grab attempts on the part of the GAFCON (I keep typing GAGCON) primatial contingent and fatigue with repeated referrals to Lambeth 1998 I.10 as though it is holy writ.

And walking is where I pray... for Francis. Nearly four weeks later, he is healing somewhat. His stomach is fairly well healed. In his operation, the doctors put in six screws and plates in his elbow. He suffers a lot of pain from that injury. His soul, too, suffers. He understandably is afraid to venture out into public.

The folks of the IAES greatly appreciate everyone's prayers. Keep them coming. It makes a world of difference.

[photo: heading toward Acebo, Spain, Camino walk 2004]

The Feast of Pentecost

[candles representing the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit before the liturgy]

Two threads always leap out from the readings for me on the Feast of Pentecost: language and its diversity, and the Holy Spirit, its representation and the gifts we receive from the Holy Spirit.

The reading from the second chapter of the Book of Acts, typically read on the Feast of Pentecost, always lets the imagination run wild with its colourful description of languages and peoples. The lucky reader who manages to get through this list of names — Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamhylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, Rome, Jews, Cretans and finally Arabs — deserves a prize for tackling the unfamiliar. And yet that is how it must have seemed on that fiftieth morning after Easter, an out-of-control situation with the unfamiliar.

As a lover of language, and one who has been graced with the ability to listen and communicate in two other modern languages, I delight in this annual reminder of the complexity of human communication. My mind still remains amazed that humankind has found so many diverse ways to communicate. According to Wikkipeadia, not the most scientific source, there are 898 languages in the world.

Experiencing this diversity even on a small scale, such as I did three years ago about this time at a hostel in southern France, at the foot of the Pyrenees, was wondrous. Thirty-two tired pilgrims came together for dinner. The host of the evening, a Basque, alternately sang Basque songs for us and led us in song. Part of the evening also consisted in having people from different countries sing a song from their land… in English, French, German. It was a bit crazy at times, for some a bit of a shock after the solitude of the quiet day of solitary walking. But the activity underlined our diversity, at the same time that we engaged in a universal human (and creaturely) activity — eating.

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Isn’t it surprising that Christian iconography has depicted the Holy Spirit — that energising force that first created the world at the time of first beginnings and then at second beginnings turned the world upside-down — as a dove? This Spirit that sighs too deep for words, this Spirit that is the truth that guides us into all truth, this Spirit that endows us with manifold gifts is cast as something so gentle as a dove. Yet this icon is readily recognised right off as the Holy Spirit.

On the same segment of our pilgrimage walk, on a day when we could find no church that offered a mass because there are so few Catholic priests, we stopped at a little church along the way. Many churches in France have their doors open, a lovely gesture of hospitality.

This church was very simple with relatively little adornment. What was so remarkable about it was its painting of the Holy Spirit in dove form over the altar. The dove, flying surrounded by clouds, in a blue, starry sky evoked peacefulness. Indeed, a pilgrim, who had passed through the church’s doors earlier on in the day, wrote in the little book that many churches have for pilgrims to note their prayers, how steadying it was to see the Spirit flying over the altar in the church. Its pictorial evocation underlined the Spirit that imbued that holy space. One could feel that this was a church that was loved and where God was loved.

Maybe iconographers instinctively knew that the Spirit needed to be depicted in calming imagery, rather than tongues of fire because of the sheer power and force of the Spirit when it is unleashed on the church and Jesus’ followers. The Spirit is still very active in our lives, lo these millennia later.

It is dangerous to ask for the gifts of the Holy Spirit but those gifts have already been given to us through baptism. And what are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? Strength, knowledge, piety, awe and wonder, counsel, understanding, and wisdom. They are represented by the seven candles burning by the font. Think of which gifts are your strongest today and which ones you would like to encourage. And then, as you return from communion, you are invited to light a candle.

Sharing in the gifts of the Holy Spirit — all the varieties and differences of gifts — ties everyone together in the work of God. Sharing in the gifts of the Holy Spirit unites us in the call to be children of the beatitudes, to imagine a life and community and actions filled with the spirit of Jesus with his simplicity, his humility, his prophetic courage, the will to serve and the witness he shared of his unique and intimate relationship with God.

All of us have been given individual and specific gifts. They are for us to use and decide whether we use them in a private or corporate way. Does the artist paint for the sheer enjoyment of it all, or does he or she design works that can bring healing to people? I think of the architects who designed the memorial at Oklahoma or the then-young Maya Ying Lin who created the Viet Nam memorial. Their talent could have been a private matter; they chose, instead, to create something for a greater cause.

In what way is the gift given each one of us used to serve the common good? For, as Paul says, the ‘manifestation of the Spirit is for the common good.’ How does the Spirit work in us for the rest?

Can we truly believe that everyone has a gift to share? Don Helder Camara said, perhaps speaking of monetary wealth, ‘None are so poor that they cannot give, none are so rich that they cannot receive,’ but surely his wisdom also applies to the gifts each one of us has received. Some of us think we don’t have much to give but the Holy Spirit surprises us into recognizing that we do have something to offer.

The Holy Spirit also helps us discern what those gifts might be. That process of discernment is life-long. What gifts you have today may be different tomorrow. It can change. The discernment can only take place if one’s heart is open, though. The Holy Spirit helps you keep your heart open.

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This morning, the feast on which we celebrate the power of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the priest will not be the only person invoking out loud the descent of the Holy Spirit. Together, as a congregation, with one voice, we will say the epiclesis as printed in the bulletin. Let the power of those words said in your own voice fill you. Receive the Holy Spirit and feel the Spirit entering into your soul.

Let your soul be open — as a person with open hands, palms up, as the celebrant’s outstretched arms — to receive the Holy Spirit and whatever gift comes with the Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit descend upon you and fill you. Do not be afraid, because if you are, the Holy Spirit cannot do anything in you. Trust. Feel God’s presence indwelling in you, helping you remember Christ’s teachings. Know that receiving the Holy Spirit, while life-changing and potentially chaotic, while turning your life upside-down and bringing new languages of heart to you, enables you to do far more than ever thought possible. As you receive that Spirit, give thanks for the Spirit working in us who is infinitely more powerful than we can possibly imagine.


Candles at the end of the service

Koan

Can someone please elucidate to me what this oft-used phrase, 'the faith once delivered to the saints,' means? I say this totally tongue-in-cheek. Compa spent days on the Alteplano of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela ruminating on this phrase. (This shot is what 30kms looked like: poplar trees every ten metres, straight, straight path right next to the road, no shade — absolute trudgery.)

Obviously it's a favourite phrase of the folks who are leaving TEC and they fling it at those of who remain, the apostate, because we haven't received whatever this exclusive faith is.

Here a little French is appropriate: Bigre.

Additions

Even though my move here in November told me loud and clear that I don't need anything more ever, I have recently acquired two new items as gifts.


The first is a cross that someone brought me back from Haiti as a gift for our new season of ministry at church. The heart in the middle says it all. It is made out of metal that is hand-scored into a design. The cross hangs between an etching that I call the 'Wandering Pilgrim' and my prized Compostela I received in May 2004 for having walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I can't do anything about the wood panelling; it is a pain to nail things up so I have hung things up on existing hooks and I have yet to put up my seminary diploma and a painting by my sister of Winter Park, Colorado. Some day.....


The other is the fireplace fender that was in my maternal grandmother's living room. My sister had it out in Colorado but the housing code laws are such (if I understand it properly) that any fireplace has to be raised off the floor. A brass fender like this wouldn't fit on the hearth. So last week my sister asked if I would like it and I said sure. She shipped it across the country and it arrived this morning. I am glad I didn't open it up until tonight because the box has more styrofoam peanuts than I have ever seen. What a mess. Young Guy has to investigate everything so there he is.

Photos from my new toy

So here's what I captured with my iPhone this week. I drove down to my parents in Connecticut, spent the night, took MetroNorth into New York City, went to a meeting at 815, landed on a meeting of the CSW with the US delegation, took the train back out and then drove back up to Vermont. It was a whirlwind trip. And then last night, I took some sillies of Young Guy because I couldn't find my regular camera. Lastly, there is a photo of my office.


My father's cat now sits in front of the fireplace, waiting for him to make a fire. Then she settles down on her Iranian carpet and enjoys the fire. She will turn 19 this week.


She is thin but actually in better health than a year ago at this time.


After my meeting (which was very helpful), I went to the noonday eucharist that is held every day in the Chapel of Christ the Lord. It has been completely redone since 2006 when I last really stuck my nose in there. It now is oriented toward the stained glass windows on Second Avenue (facing due east) rather than facing the south wall. The cross behind the table/altar is one that has been used at General Convention, made at Cooke's Forge in Weare, NH. Likewise, the stoop at the entrance is the one we use at General Convention, made at Simon Pearce, Quichee, Vermont.


The credence table is to the right of the altar. The icons come from Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold's time.


I like the juxtaposition between the Ethiopian processional cross and the replica of a Romaneseque Madonna and Child from Chartres, France. My candle burns in sand that resides in a bowl from Ethiopia.


Back at my parents', I had to take this photo of one of their stone walls, covered in wonderfully goopy snow.


Back in Vermont, I took this photo of a mandela of peace, Saint Francis and Tigger, just given to me by a parishioner.


I was trying out a borrowed LED projector. When the image of a vista from the Camino de Santiago went up on the wall, Young Guy just couldn't figure out what it was so he had to investigate by jumping up on the antique French secretary (verboten).


He momentarily stopped trying to figure it out.

Demain dès l'aube... je partirai

[with apologies to Victor Hugo]

It's that time of year when my heart turns toward the Camino (unlike the kings whose hearts turned to war in the spring per I and II Kings). Sadly, there is no Camino walk on the horizon this year — a move, new job, General Convention, Executive Council cause me to forfeit that trip; instead, we'll walk the Long Trail this year because we won't have to spend two days getting to and from the starting and end points.

Maybe in 2010 we can go back and do the Camino en entier all at once in one fell swoop... and perhaps we can tack on Finistere. We know that it took us about 30 days to walk the Camino in Spain so I could save up my unpaid days and tack them onto vacation. Walking the Camino all at once would use up all the vacation days but it would be worth it.

I would like to do the Camino to know if my body can sustain that type of walking beyond 17 days which I think is the longest slog we ever did. I read last night about people doing pain pyramids: days of 30-40-50-40-30 kms. That would only work on the Alteplano but I suppose if one got up early enough and were in shape enough, it would be possible... and yes, painful.

Having moved, I am not eligible for sabbatical for several years, even though it has been exactly five years since my last one (I walked out of GOE reading to enter into sabbatical). I have to hold onto that possibility for even longer.

So tonight I just dream about the Camino, thinking of all those people who currently are getting ready to start in a month or two.

So close to the Camino

The Camino de Santiago takes the pilgrim across a tenth-century bridge into the old city of Pamplona, Spain (here is Compa in 2004 about to go across it on day two of walking from Roncesvalles), up by the cathedral and then across a huge park to the south side where one eventually climbs up the side of a ridge covered with wind turbines. From on high, one can look back one last time to the Pyrenees before descending into a valley. Pamplona, known for the running of the bulls, is a pretty city. But evidently, it's also a battleground on occasion.

Today ETA [the Basque separationist group] set off a car bomb in a parking lot at the Universidad de Navarra in Pamplona. The explosion left 30 hospitalised with light injuries. Pamplona, in Basque, Iruñea or Iruña, is the capitol of Navarra and is about 30km from the French-Spanish border. It seems nutty for ETA to attack so close to its own but who knows. Maybe it's because the Universidad was founded as an Opus Dei university? (See below* for the Wiki entry on the university.)

According to the BBC, the attack followed the arrest on Tuesday of four suspected ETA members - three of them in Pamplona. Guns and a large quantity of explosives were also seized in the raids.

Unfortunately, all my Camino books and maps are downstream but judging from a satellite photo, I think the Camino goes in the general area of the Universidad. So, whatever pilgrims might have been out walking this late in the season, they surely were surprised by plumes of black smoke.

The whole ETA-Basque situation in Spain and France has been going on for so long. The Navarra region is separate from the Basque Country, but nationalists argue that it should also form part of an independent Basque homeland. ETA's four-decade separatist campaign to set up a state straddling northern Spain and south-western France has led to more than 800 deaths.

Pray for peace... along with all those other places in the world where people separate themselves into small groups of insiders-outsiders and the only way they know to do so is to kill and maim others. What is it with us human beings sometimes?

*[The University of Navarra is a private pontifical university based at the southeast border of Pamplona, Spain. It was founded in 1952 by St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei as a corporate work of the apostolate of Opus Dei. It is widely considered Spain's top private university, and is also ranked among the most distinguished institutions of higher education in Europe.

The University confers 27 official degrees and administers more than 300 postgraduate programs (including 33 doctoral programs and 13 master's programs) through 10 schools, 2 superior colleges, 2 university schools, its world-renowned graduate business school, IESE ("Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa"; in English: "International Graduate School of Management" or "Institute of Higher Business Studies"), ISSA ("Instituto Superior de Secretariado y Administracion"; engl.: Superior Institute of Secretarial and Administrative Studies), and other centers and institutions. The university also runs one of Spain's most distinguished teaching hospitals and the largest medical research center in Spain called CIMA in addition to various community outreach and volunteer initiatives.

It's huge with over 10000 undergrads and another 4500 plus grad students. (Wiki)]

A photo for your thoughts

The brain is too tired tonight to whip up anything constructive or worth reading so I will leave you with a photo for your thoughts.



[Camino de Santiago, outside of Estella, taken almost a year ago at this time... the pilgrims are walking, walking....]

Un peu de sagesse

de Georges Moustaki...

A little bit of wisdom from the French singer. As I was rowing this morning, a song of his came up on the playlist (shuffle) — I didn't want to stop and see which one (though I should know) and one line caught my ear:

On s'enivre d'amertume.

One gets/We get drunk on bitterness.

I know I do. I suspect there are a lot who do. This whole fracaso over the Anglican Communion, border crossings, people lobbing labels at one another, people looking for any mite to criticise the presiding bishop or the General Convention or whomever, people on all sides picking up their marbles and leaving and on and on and on... there are a lot of us getting drunk on bitterness.

Naomi said, 'Do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me,' but her bitterness is of a different sort. 'I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has afflicted me and the Almighty has brought calamity on me? (Ruth 2.20-21).

I don't know how else to say it but the bitterness that is being sown these days is created and maintained by a bunch of power-hungry male clerics who want to maintain a non-inclusive status quo. It's about money, power and fear.

On s'enivre d'amertume.
One gets/We get drunk on bitterness.

On all sides. All people. Myself first most.

So how do we reach a sense of reconciliation such as that of my dear friend whose life was threatened by gang members, who could say that he didn't hate them; while they are not saints, poverty makes people do a lot of awful things. Instead of hating them, he prayed for them.

Señor, haznos instrumentos de tu paz...
Seigneur, fais de nous des instruments de ta paix...
Lord, make us instruments of your peace....


[photo: a non-drunken scene of tapas on the Plaza Mayor in Segovia, Spain, at the end of our pilgrimage, June 2007. If you look carefully, you can see a little bird perched on the back of the chair on the other side of the table. Note the newspaper, El Pais — finally after two plus weeks of not reading the paper, I splurged.]

Epiphany 2A

One day, about halfway through this year’s trek on the Camino we came across a covered well on top of which was an assortment of goodies left for the weary pilgrim — what people walking the Appalachian Trail would call, ‘Trail Magic.’ In this case, there was a styrofoam chest with goodies inside, a tin of tea, a thermos of hot water, some oranges, artichokes under a little Turkish-looking net cover (that absolutely fascinated me), some biscuits and crackers in wooden boxes, and even some chocolate. On the ground and in the trees were some votives as well as on the lid of the well. Someone had written, ‘¡Hola Peregrinos! Hay café’ and instructions on how to make it. The entire scene was astounding and restful and even looking at my photograph nine months later, I am moved by the generosity of the souls who shared themselves with the hungry pilgrim.


We later found out that the people behind this little oasis were an English couple who had walked the Camino. They were so moved by their journey that they dropped everything and moved to Spain so that they could accompany pilgrims. Somehow their hearts were touched so deeply that they up and moved, in their way to follow God, or Jesus, or the pilgrim spirit — I don’t know which for sure but something holy moved them.

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If Jesus were to call you to follow him, could you do it?

That is what this morning’s gospel is all about when we hear Jesus say to the disciples: What are you looking for? Come and see.

These two sentences — ‘What do you seek? Come and see’ — frame the Gospel of John and they also frame our meditation this morning about seeking and proclaiming Jesus Christ.

In the Fourth Gospel, we learn the question we are to ask, and what we are to seek; we learn that we are both witnesses to Jesus’ coming and to Jesus’ resurrection. In this particular gospel reading, we learn the question about seeking, the identification of Jesus as teacher, the question of where Jesus is staying or going, and we receive an invitation to discipleship.

Most important, Jesus’ question, which introduces these important ideas, shows that Jesus is starting to do the work for which he has been sent. Jesus’ first words in this gospel are a question that he addresses everyone who will follow him, ‘What are you looking for?’ By this the Gospel writer implies more than an ordinary request for walking after Jesus.

This question touches on the basic need of humanity that causes us to turn to God, and the answer of the disciples must be interpreted on the same level. When they ask, ‘Where are you staying?,’ they are really asking, ‘Where is God?’ And the answer is that where Jesus abides, so there is God the Father. Jesus is where we are to abide — he in us and we in him. We wish to stay or dwell with God; we seek constantly to escape time, change, and death, we seek to find something that is lasting. Jesus answers our question with the all-embracing challenge to faith: ‘Come and see.’ By answering thusly, Jesus is really saying, ‘Follow me. Come and know who I am.’

So from the Gospel of John, we are given this morning a question and an answer that we are to take with us in life:
What do you seek?

God’s glory above all; Jesus Christ above all…. Through Christ, we are led to God’s glory.

God’s glory in Jesus Christ, as found in our brothers and sisters who are made in the image of God. As those who have been baptised as Jesus Christ’s own, we are called to love and serve one another as Christ loves us.

But even before we can begin to find those truths, we must live up to Jesus’ answer to our question, ‘Come and see.’ If we do not ourselves come and see where Christ abides, if we do not ourselves follow Christ wherever that might lead us, then we cannot speak to the glory of God.

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So, back to the original question: if Jesus were to call you to follow him, could you do it?

Could you drop everything? Could you leave behind the phone messages, the work; leave your spouse — write a note and leave it on the table saying, ‘I’ve gone walking with Jesus?’, leave behind your grandmother’s dinner plates, the cats!, the comforts of your favourite easy chair?

Could you follow Jesus, or would you try to bargain saying, ‘Can’t I put some of this stuff in storage just in case it turns out not to be so much fun following Jesus?’?

How can you follow Jesus, when it seems he has nothing to offer you? — no multi-million dollar contract, why, he doesn’t even have a halo or trail glory after him!

If Jesus were to call you, could you hear it and know it is really Jesus?

How do you know when it is Jesus calling anyway? When you have a longing desire to know and to hear God’s call and follow it without thinking, then it is true.

How do you know it is Jesus calling? By trust. We trust Christ to find the truth, and to learn what it means to live in Christ’s hope, promise and light. And we know if the call is from God when it comprises the following four characteristics.

First, following Christ costs something. There is a sense of loss that can come with following Christ. Following Christ involves giving up our lives, giving them over to God’s desire, realising that sometimes God’s desire is not always our desire. Following Christ costs something of ourselves, a giving up of our selves, our souls, and bodies. But it does not end there.

Second, we follow Christ on behalf of others. Following Christ is not just a personal event; it is something that takes place in community with others. Our Christian pilgrimage is one that is shared. We have land-marks along the way to encourage one another such as reaffirmation of baptismal vows or confirmation; we have our regular weekly gathering of the eucharist to help one another. In our Christian pilgrimage, we promise we will seek and serve Christ in one another, loving our neighbours as our selves. So our faith journey involves others. Maybe that also is a cost, but it can be a joy, too.

Third and fourth, when we follow Christ with all our heart, soul and mind, our life becomes more full and our community becomes stronger.

•Both are enriched by participation in a communion of companion believers.

•Both are enriched by hope, by promise and by trust.

•Both are enriched because Christ asks us to stretch ourselves a little more, a little harder than we might otherwise.

•Both are enriched, precisely because we are asked to give of ourselves, yes — to sacrifice our selves for one another.

What a radical idea for this day and age! Saint Francis hit this idea right on the nail when he wrote, ‘For it is in giving that we receive; it is pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.’
It is costly to follow Christ, make no doubt about it, but in that following come ineffable joys.

The 17th century poet, George Herbert, put into words most exquisite what it means to follow Christ.

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
such a way as gives us breath;
such a truth as ends all strife;
such a life as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
such a light as shows a feast;
such a feast as mends in length;
such a strength as makes his guest.

Come my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
such a joy as none can move;
such a love as none can part;
such a heart as joys in love.
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So the question remains…

When Jesus invites us to ‘come and see,’ will we follow?

When Jesus invites us to ‘come and see,’ will we go without second thoughts?

If Jesus is our Way, our Truth, our Life, our Light, our Feast, our Strength, our Joy, our Love and our Heart, why, then, count the costs? Let’s go.

Yearning

How am I going to survive this year without walking the Camino or the Chemin? For the past four springs I have walked a segment of it. Getting the pack all geared up, and hitting the Camino has become a way of life. So it seems unimaginable not to be doing it this year.

But the dollar against the euro is so bad that it would cost even more than it already has. And perhaps my poor foot needs time off.

At some point, I would like to walk the entire Camino from St Jean Pied de Port/Roncesvalles (i.e., cross the Pyrenees) all the way to Santiago... yes, even redo the meseta.

There are so many more people walking the Camino now even to the point that one can no longer put one's hand in the fingerprints in the column of Glory at the cathedral in Santiago — I guess they have stopped allowing that for fear of further erosion. With each year, will it be harder to find places to stay and even the sense of peace I get from walking?

One pilgrim walks for love. Another walks because it is there. I walk for a myriad of reasons.

Rory Stewart, who walked across Afghanistan, writes:

I thought about evolutionary historians who argued that walking was a central part of what it meant to be human. Our two-legged motion was what first differentiated us from the apes. It freed our hands for tools and carried us on the long marches out of Africa. As a species, we colonized the world on foot. Most of human history was created through contacts conducted at a walking pace, even when some rode horses. I thought of the pilgrimages to Compostela in Spain; to Mecca; to the source of the Ganges; and of wandering dervishes, sadhus, and friars who approached God on foot. The Buddha meditated by walking and Wordsworth composed sonnets while striding beside the lakes.

Bruce Chatwin concluded from all this that we would think and live better and be closer to our purposes as humans if we moved continually on foot across the surface of the earth. I was not sure I was living or thinking any better.

[...]

In the center of Nepal, I began to count my breaths and my steps, and to recite phrases to myself, pushing thoughts away. This is the way some people meditate. I could only feel that calm for at most an hour a day. It was, however, a serenity I had not felt before. It was what I most valued about walking. [Rory Stewart, The Places In Between, Orlando, FL: Harcourt Harvest, 2006, 75-76.]

Molly Malone Cook says quite simply: 'People travel to keep from crying in place.' [Mary Oliver, text, Molly Malone Cook, photos, Our World, Boston, Beacon Press, 2007, 81.]

To butcher Descartes: Je me promène, donc je suis. I walk, therefore I am.

It's a Camino day

... at least in thought. Maybe it's because I collected up all the various guidebooks and travel narratives about it last night. I have to do a presentation on the the camino in January to the local ladies' reading group so it has been on my mind. It also has been on my mind because this coming spring for the first time in four years, I won't have the rhythm of the camino to look forward to. It's partly because we have finished it, there's little enthusiasm to redo parts of it right now and mostly because the dollar against the euro is so low that we couldn't afford it (1E = $.145).

I ran across this paragraph the other night in an online essay, A Pilgrim, but a Tourist Too by Denise Fainburg:

None of the guidebooks tells you that walking the Camino is something of an extreme sport. It lacks the cachet of, say, sky-diving, but everyone has a tale to tell of pinched nerves, fractures, tendonitis, or the more prosaic blisters. Each evening in the refugios you will see walkers tenderly anointing and disinfecting their feet.

Gee, I have been engaging in an extreme sport all these springs and I didn't even know it!

My feet sure say so. I have lasting effects from walking all those kms and miles. My left foot shows no inclination of completely healing from the plantars fibramatosis; the lump in the arch remains. And the tendon around my ankle that goes to the arch still cramps up. Even with orthotics and switching my exercise activity to rowing which doesn't use the foot in the same way, it's still funky.

But, oh, how I want to walk. How I miss it. The big question is: with what walk in a place that uses the dollar can I satiate that need? I still need to have a long walk to look forward to.

Perhaps I want the walk to know that I am still mentally able to meet such a challenge, to keep on going when it would be so easy to get on the bus and knock off 50 kms in an hour rather than in a day and a half. (In so many of the books I have read of other people's experience, the authors talk about bailing out and taking the bus or train... usually for health reasons, like being too sick to walk from ingesting bad water.) I am glad that I have walked every since inch of that camino, including bonus miles. So I want another like challege as a way of proving to myself that, yes, I am capable of rising to a challenge and finishing it.

[feet, day 2, May 2006 29.5 kms outside of Moissac, France, in Saint Antoine]

Santiago

Happy and blessed feast of Santiago. It has got to be a zoo today in Santiago de Compostela, what with all the pilgrims arriving today. It's not a jubilee year (when the feast day of Saint James lands on a Sunday, as in 2004) but I am sure the city is crazy. So, in spirit with all the pilgrims, a blessed feast day.

On this feast day, they will swing the botifumeiro, a humungous incense pot, that goes in a 180 degree-arc way over people's heads. It swings in the north-south transept of the church. It's an impressive thing, taking eight men to yank the thick rope on which the incense thurible hangs. I was utterly mesmerised when I saw it three years ago.

Miserere mei

Lord, have mercy on me.

I have sooooooo much left to do before I leave for El Salvador tomorrow at 4.00 in the morning.

I don't normally have three major trips back-to-back like this; it wasn't really poor planning on my part, they just piled up like this. But I feel like the quintessential road warrior who comes home, dumps one suitcase on the floor to pack up the next (because each trip demands a different set of clothes and luggage), barely touch the mail and emails and see the cats in passing. Not my cuppa.

My goal is to print out everything I am able and pray that whatever else I write on my computer, a good USB clave (thumb drive) will communicate with the PCs in the diocesan office in El Salvador and I can print out things there.

It's off to do an overnight continuing education/retreat for the clergy on vocation, and an overnight (truly) conference for young adults (18-25) on discernment of ordained ministry and for a wider group vocation. Then, there are always the surprises that are not on the calendar yet.

So, once again, it's bye to the kitties and to blogland, too. Hasta luego en una semana.

[The photo comes from the absolutely amazing cathedral in Burgos, Spain. The guidebooks refer to it as diaphonous and it is true: I have never seen such lacy gothic vaults and buttresses.]

Simple prayer

Para los que leen español...

Invocation
Jesus, my Lord, my friend,
you, icon of God,
you, font of communion,
of liberty and love,
you who are my servant,
you always walk with me.

Translation of the prayer to come another time.
It's time for bed.

I couldn't resist

On Saturday 26 May, in Belorado, Spain, as we were walking down the street to visit the local church (that actually was open), we passed this albergue (hostel). I saw the sign and couldn't resist... knowing that with a little bit of tinkering in Photoshop, I could simply get the word, 'Caminante.' Et voilà!

This past Friday, just two days ago, we walked down a side street off the major plaza in Segovia, to find that on it was the small boarding house where Antonio Machado, the writer of the poem from whom I have taken my byline, lived from 1919-1933. It was after dark and I didn't have my camera anyway, but it was neat to look through the fence to the garden where the poet must have spent time among the peonies. It is a small world.

para Padre Mickey

I saw this in a huge park outside of Logroño, Spain and knew I had to take a photo of it with Padre Mickey in mind. (How long ago was it that he posted a photo of the caged Madonna that he passes every day to church?)

There were a few other closed up statues but this one was the best example I saw along the way.

So, enjoy.

Home again

No sooner had I put my pack down on the kitchen floor than Orange Boy decided he was going to claim it as his own. He chose a rather salty surface on which to park himself.

Cats followed me around the house last night and are still ever present wherever I am. Little do they realise I am about to leave in three hours to turn around and go back to the airport, back to Newark (where I spent three hours yesterday in layover) and to Executive Council.

Crazy schedule but I know there are a lot of people out there who travel like this all the time.

A new twist

This is what my left foot looked like last year less than a week before leaving for the Chemin de Saint Jacques. I had broken the pinky and fourth toe exactly a week before our departure and ended up walking the 400+ kms with a gimpy gait. It was doable but not terribly fun.

So this year I find out I have plantars fasciatis in my left foot (which was a pre-existing condition, just not diagnosed). There's some sort of a bump on the arch of my foot that is going to be a blister spot (it already has gotten red from my brief walks this past week). So it's time to get out the tincture of benzoin and get going on slathering it all over my feet. Then it's figuring out how to tape the foot, and take lots of myoflex (a muscle relaxant cream) and do the ibuprofen/advil routine. If I can walk with what I had last year, I certainly can this year.

It's just a wrinkle in my sock that will need to be straightened out. Between now and then, I need to do some walking just to get myself stretched out.

I am beginning to think about the Camino because our departure is four weeks from today!