Money and food. Part 1. Ruta de La Lana: Caudete – Almansa

Posted on October 22, 2013 by John

Money and food: living below the line.

A challenge on the Ruta de La Lana.

On solitary pilgrimages I become more aware of how fantastically rich I am. I walk in beautiful landscapes, I am happy and peaceful, indeed, I have all I want. In Spain there is food everywhere, the countryside is safe and the people are welcoming. Other pilgrims have commented on how, living out of a backpack day after day makes them aware of how little they need and of how much they have.

Also I was reading my newly found Gospel, had begun to understand compassion and was encountering generosity on the Camino every day. I wanted to connect my solitary time with the reality that many of us on the planet do not have enough income to buy food and the most hungry are the children.

So I had signed up for the Living Below the Line Campaign for 2013. Basically this is a committment to live a week on an average of one euro per day. On the 5th day of my Ruta de La Lana I decided that I would have a practice. I had walked on a very cold and windy day to Caudete where the Amigos del Camino welcomed me eagerly to their newly opened albergue. Indeed so few pilgrims had passed by that winter that I had three visits from various members of the local group of Amigos.

New Albergue, Caudete

The albergue is on the highest point in this town and the dormitory has fine views over the valley. From here I could watch the gathering storm. My plan fitted fine with the heavy weather conditions. I would live the next 24 hours on porridge.

Storms over Villena, from Caudete

That evening I ate 33o grams of porridge cooked into a lump. The next morning I ate 200 grams and pressed the remainder of the 1kg bag I had cooked into a plastic container and set off for Almansa. As the day wore on I began to feel weaker and weaker, with pains in almost every bone and muscle. In compenstion the skies cleared and the sun gave some warmth on this cold spring day. I sat down in a beautiful spot to eat some of the porridge.

On The Camino to Almansa

My rucksack was a bit lighter after that. However, my pains continued and I wondered how I would make the remaining 12 km. The copy of John’s Gospel which I found in my path two days before helped keep up my spirits. I felt reassured that it had been there as a confirmation that this is where I should be. Who was confirming me in my Camino? “God”, I assume. But, for all that I pray, my notion of God is very vague, a power beyond contemplation. So I am pleased to have Jesus as man, whom I can recognise, and the Holy Spirit which is that wonderful energising force of Love which fills and propells me sufficiently from time to time that I have no doubt that this God is Good, generous and caring. At this moment I had no sense of God in any of his persons, so the Gospel I had found was, as a sign, important for me.

I was delighted to see Almansa in the distance with its majestic castle beckoning.

Almansa in the distance: too much of a distance!

I arrived at the Convent in the town which accepts pilgrims for the night. They also give hospitality to others in need and this night all the rooms were taken except for one which had a bed which kept folding up when I lay on it. Fearing that I might get locked inside it I slept on the floor and had my best night’s sleep of the Camino. I had not eaten much but felt satisfied that my training for living below the line was underway. To celebrate I bought bread, fruit, yoghurts and some cold turkey. It cost as much as two week’s income for most people.

When I had started the Camino I was coming to the end of a course of antibiotics for a urinary infection which had lingered. My doctor in Madrid had told me to have a urine analysis several days after finishing the tablets. The next morning I had to pee fairly often in a short time and I noticed the symptoms of a rekindling infection in the burning aftermath. I had planned to visit the health centre in Almansa for the analysis as well as hoping to see the doctor who had cured my painful knee two years before. I was disapointed to learn that he was not working there that day and was directed to a woman doctor who ordered the analysis, gave me her phone number to get the results later and put me on a new course of antibiotics ( my third consecutive lot) which she assured me would work.

Not only was I aware of all the food I could buy with a fraction of my income, but here I had, in a town I didn’t live in, instant free access to a doctor, a laboratory and medicine. We don’t have wars either. Poverty in Spain is now more visible than it was six years ago, but everyone here is well off. My wealth feels like a weight but I don’t want to let go of it. Yet!

The route that day shared part of the Camino with the Camino de Levante which I had walked two years before. It branches off northwards to Alpera on the Ruta de La Lana. The half-built motorway had been finished as had the high speed rail link both of which had obstructed the Camino in 2011. I was grateful that there were no winding deviations since my physical difficulties of the previous day were becoming more inconvenient. I have a voice recording which captures how I was that day. It is fairly poor quality due to a fierce wind and a bit rambling. It refers to my enchantment with the Iona prayers.

The wilderness between Almansa and Alpera

I collapsed into bed that night in the reliable Hostal Stop in Alpera where I could afford to stay for 20 euros, which had heating, hot water and a television. But……..I began to doubt if I could complete the act of solidarity with the world’s poor to which I had made a committment…………….

Posted in Pilgrimage and Prayer, Ruta de La Lana, The Camino de Santiago | Tagged Holy Spirit, Hostal Stop, John Gospel, La Lana | Comments Off

Prayer: Camino de Levante: through Xativa to Almansa

Posted on October 21, 2013 by John

Prayer: “Pray all the time”

The Way to Almansa

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My first post on the Camino de Levante told of how, on the second day of this Camino from Valencia to Santiago de Compostella I became aware of the presence of St. Theresa of Lisieux while I was walking through the orange groves. I sensed that this child-saint, known as “The Little Flower” seemed to be telling me to pray all the time. On my two previous Caminos I had prayed regularly: prayers of thanksgiving, mantras, the naming of family and friends. I prayed for Peace in the world and I carried with me the prayers from the Iona Community, which includes some psalms. I prayed for people I met and, most of all, I had learned that God speaks in silence. Put in a list like this it seems to me a lot of prayer but it was far from praying all the time. Also I’d followed Sadhana by Tony de Mello: a”Way of Prayer”. Anthony de Mello was a Jesuit who, after his death, was investigated by the Vatican who found that his “positions are incompatible with the Catholic faith and can cause grave harm.” This condemnation was made by Joseph Razinger who later became Pope and signed by Cardinal Bertone. I include this detail for historical interest since Tony de Mello’s works are widely used in Catholic circles today. Sadhana had opened up new horizons on prayer for me but, nonetheless, I still felt I was a novice at prayer. Appropriately, the route to Santiago from Valencia heads off South for the first two or three days whereas Santiago is in exactly the opposite direction. My prayer experience is often like that: I head in one direction and find myself being led in another.

Heading South to go North. Santiago 1,204km

The Camino de Levante offers fairly good stops for the pilgrim but these are not usually in albergues as on the Camino Francés. Generally, I had to go to the local police station where the key for a sports pavillion, community centre or doctor’s surgery was made available to those walking the Camino. It was important to have a sleeping mat as well as a sleeping bag. There was always a loo and a shower with hot water. I was moved by the generosity of the people on many occasions who seemed to accept that making a visitor as comfortable as possible was their only task for the day.

“Teach me how to pray”

I took this advice to pray all the time seriously and, in spite of Sadhana, I had to admit that I really didn’t have much idea about prayer. We are taught prayers as children and the Mass is a prayer. I had tried meditation and contemplating Gospel scenes using my imagination and senses. All this seemed fine, but I was faced with praying all the time, which suggested to me I needed more resources. So I simply prayed, “Teach me how to pray.” I added this as one of my prayers which I repeated over and over again. At this time, too, on my third day, the knee injury with which I had set off from Valencia began to give me pain. I remember taking this picture in the evening as I neared Xativa as the sun was about to set. I was in a good deal of pain when moving.

Evening approaching Xativa.

My knee had seized and I was walking at less than 1km/hour. I calculated I had 2 more hours of walking ahead. The day’s walking had given me plenty of beauty to delight in but now I had something “real” to pray about. The words, “Father, this is hurting me. I would very much like to do this pilgrimage but I can’t go on with this pain. Let it be your will not mine, in the end” echoed the prayer given to us by Jesus in Gethsemene. To make these words my own I needed detachment, genuine detachment from my desire to make this pilgrimage. So I hobbled into Xativa detached. I must have been very tired indeed because I remember being told that there was no lodging available and I have no recollection of where I slept that night. I recall taking this photo while leaving in the morning.

Xativa

The rest is a blank including where I got hold of bread and sardines. I do know that my knee was not painful and I cautiously gave thanks for this and began seriously to try to pray all the time. It didn’t take too long to see that an awareness of God in everything I sense and everything I do is part of this prayer, at least in theory. I needed that to become a habit and indeed that day was so beautiful I didn’t feel too challenged. The orange groves were giving way to orchards and the sun was shining heating up the February morning.

On the road to Moixent

At midday my knee began to hurt. I felt a thud of disappointment and alarm. I still had 10km to go to Moixent. So I again prayed the prayer of detachment and stopped for a hearty lunch of bread, fruit and sardines. My knee was none the better after the pause and, once again, I was notching up about a kilometre in an hour. I began to repeat, “Jesús, en tí confío.” It has a perfect rhythm to it, fitting in with a stab of pain as I weighed down on my knee, followed by a moment of relief with weight on the other foot. I began to speed up slightly and reached Moixent by nightfall. I was filled with gratitude and joy until the local policeman on duty told me that the lodging was in the Red Cross shelter over a kilometer away, uphill. I was tempted to sleep in the park but, having been entrusted with the key, I dragged myself there. This pattern of pain free mornings repeated itself for the next few days. I learned that the first 15 km were a gift, then would come the agony which was possible to survive by repeating my mantra. Meanwhile I was trying to pray all the time. As is common on the Caminos in Spain, all the churches are shut, so I used one to hang out my washing. Washing clothes is a contemplative task, I now know. Indeed, everything can be.

Hand(y) rails for drying clothes.

So I practised praying all the time. The essence of continuous prayer, seemed to me then, and seems to me now, to lie in Awareness (which is the title of another book by Tony de Mello Awareness pdf ). It is being aware of self, of others,of the surroundings and of God in all things. It is an attitude, a way of being. “Peace is every Step” is a Zen Buddhist approach to mindfulness which decribes what I was beginning to discover. This disposition was growing within me throughout the pilgrimage and still is. I can recall nearly all the places I slept after Xativa!!

Goats crossing the Camino

There is much more I hope to write about praying all the time. I was beginning to change in the way I felt one with all my surroundings, the dusty camino, the herds of goats, the shadows and sombres, the wind…….everything. Being outside from early morning and all day helped me, together with this attitude of prayer which I was hoping to make part of me.

Gerald Manley Hopkins, another Jesuit, was steeped in Awareness and I recalled his famous poem:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.

G.M. Hopkins

Seeing God in all Things.

I couldn’t walk but I was free: I could pray as I liked in a million ways, through the stars and the fields and a million of things, with words, without words, walking, sitting and talking and a thesaurus of verbs: to be who I am, and to be with the other who is; to yell out in agony or shout the “Glory be to the Father” at the top of my voice. And listen to God in silence.

Posted in Camino de Levante, GPS, Pilgrimage and Prayer, The Camino de Santiago | Tagged Gerald Manley Hopkins, Mello Awareness, Pied Beauty, Red Cross | Comments Off

Hospitality on the Camino de Santiago.

Posted on October 19, 2013 by John

Hospitality.

On the Caminos de Santiago there are many forms of hospitality, usually albergues or hostels run by volunteers, or by a local authority. The work of the hospitalero is to welcome pilgrims and assure safe and cared-for shelter.

Miguel Angel, hospitalero magnifico, Alatoz

The work of the Friends of the Camino is based on the ancient Benedictine rule of welcoming the stranger as if he/she were Christ himself. Today these lay people, not necessarily with any religious convictions, put into practice this act of charity. They welcome whoever turns up as a genuine pilgrim. All sorts of people turn up for the nights in the albergues, from all parts of the world and of all ages.

I really admire the Friends of the Camino whom I have met and am very grateful to them for all their help.

My night as Hospitalero.

I had the opportunity one night to be hospitalero in the small village of Calzada de Valdunciel.

Albergue, Calzada de Valdunciel

My appointment in the post for the night arose by default because I had arrived early at this little village in the Province of Salamanca. The Via de La Plata in April (2010) was very quiet after a busy Easter spell. The woman who looks after the Albergue had asked me to book in anyone else who arrived.

The one person who did turn up was Miguel whom I had already met. Miguel was homeless and had walked from Cadiz to Santiago and back through Portugal to Faro and then was heading North again in the spring. He had told me of his troubles in some albergues where they didn’t want him to stay because he smelled of drink. He did have the Credencial, the official document everyone needs to stay in an albergue. He seemed pleased to see me.

I asked him if he minded staying in the hostel for a while while I went for a walk, just in case anyone else turned up. My absence was much longer than I had imagined it would be because the bells rung for Mass soon after I left. I decided to go to it.

Calzada de Valdunciel.

When I returned towards the albergue a car stopped and the woman, the real hospitalera, called me over. She said she had been passing the albergue on her way back from Zamora and had called in to see if I needed anything. “But”, she said, “I have met him and I am not too sure about him. ” There was a tinge of disapproval that I should have let Miguel install himself. “But the other one, “she said, “He is not to stay. I have told him to get on a bus to Zamora. He has no credencials and he definitely must not stay here.”

Miguel was alone in the albergue when I returned and told me that the woman had passed just as the other person a young Czech boy had arrived. There had been an argument and the boy had gone off. “Just as well,”said Miguel, “He’s on drugs.” It was siesta time so we both lay down to snooze. I was awakened by a loud knock on the door. I got up and opened it to a dishevelled young man who said in perfectly good English that he wished to stay the night. It was obviously “the other one.” He was smoking, smiling and insistent “Please,” he said, “Can I just come in and have a cup of tea?”

So Zdenik came in and we boiled some water. Zdenik produced some tea bags – Green tea. He was alone and had walked from Salamanca, but his story was confused. He was very polite most of the time but would suddenly say angrily such things as, “She was driving a car. DESTROYING THE PLANET!”

After a very long teatime we walked out to the roman milestones collected beside the albergue. It was becoming cold. April can be very cold at night in Salamanca.

Roman milestones

Zdenìk kept pleading to be allowed to stay and Miguel said he had no objections: it was up to me. I explained that it wasn’t really up to me and that the person in charge had said he was not to stay. The hospitalera was no longer in the village and I wondered whom I should consult. It was by now dark and the temperature was well bellow zero. Zdenik and Miguel had decided to head for the bar when I said, “Look, I’m going to bed, but before I do I’ll phone the Guardia Civil and explain the problem.” I knew that the Guardia Civil do not leave people to freeze at night. Throughout this Camino both the Guardia Civil and the local police usually knew where to stay at night for free. “Fine,” said Zdenik, “See you later then.”

Zdenìk was indeed charming although it did seem he was on a happy substance and he did have his outbursts. All I wanted to do was sleep. I phoned the Guardia who turned up very promptly and asked me simply, “Do you mind him staying?” “Of course not,” I said. “My problem is the hospitalera said he must not stay.” They paused and said they had to check with the mayor. I got into my sleeping bag and had just fallen asleep when they returned. “We’ve spoken to the Mayor who says that on no account can this boy stay.” “However, if you are willing to have him here, that will be fine.” This is the sort of thing I really like about Spain, flexibility. They had been to the bar and chatted to Miguel and Zdenìk and felt there would be no problem. They left and at last I got off to sleep.

Zdenìk

It must have been about midnight when my two companions returned, Zdenìk dropping off instantly asleep in his clothes next to me and Miguel in a sofa in the lounge. “At last,” I sighed, “some peace.”

Perhaps an hour later, I was awakened again: a car had screeched to a halt outside. I heard footsteps approaching, quickly and heavily. The front door opened and there was a clatter. The door banged shut, footsteps running and a car roaring off with tyres spinning. Calzada de Valdunciel is a village in which nothing ever happens, according to the Guardia Civil.

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Neither of my room-mates stirred but I, somewhat alarmed, got up noting the cold. Inside the front door was a plate on the floor and on the plate a lettuce sandwich, with a serviette neatly folded beside it. Exhausted, I just left it there and snuggled once more into my sleeping bag.

The following morning I found Miguel awake. I told him about the car and pointed to the sandwich, still on the floor. He looked very puzzled. Zdenìk slept on. Then Miguel said, “Zdenìk did have an argument in the bar.” It turned out that he had wanted food and was offered the normal Spanish fare, jamon, chorizo etc.. He had reacted angrily saying he did not eat dead animals, thumping the table. He had stood up and cursed the bar for murdering fellow mammals. He had left without paying for his drinks. Apart from that Miguel had no idea why we now had a lettuce sandwich! It was clearly a creative symbolic act of revenge by the bar staff!!

I do love Spain. What a fantastic reply to Zdenìk’s rant.

I was delighted to have met Zdenìk who did get on a bus to Zamora and Miguel who stayed around a few days more with me on this Camino.

The thing about welcoming people you don’t know and wouldn’t normally select into your home is that you open yourself to life itself in whatever colour, hue, taste and key it brings.

St Benedict knew this.

Posted in The Camino de Santiago, Via de La Plata | Tagged Guardia Civil, La Plata, Portugal, Spain, St Benedict | Comments Off

An Angel.

Posted on October 18, 2013 by John

I live with Angels.

Angels galore

Angels have not been central to my faith, always seeming to me flights of fancy. However, as I begin to grow in my understanding of the range of ways in which people find symbols, narratives, music and images to express the richness of the relationship between man and God, I enjoy rather than dismiss them. Logic is a dead end in the spiritual life.

Angel Tolondrado

Also I live in Madrid in an appartment full of angels. These are sculptures and paintings created by Pilar.

Angel Maternal

They appeal a lot to her grandchildren and nearly all angel-lovers. Some express desires:

Angel of Abundance

The abundance is in the flowers. Others are surprising and amusing like the angel who tripped up – not a fallen angel!

The Angel who tripped up

Angels, everywhere!!

Angels on Bayonne Cathedral.

Less than a month after I finished the Camino de Levante in 2011 I began a Pilgrimage of Reconciliation. My relationships with my family and some others had broken down in various pieces over many years. Although, at this stage, I didn’t acknowledge much responsibility for these ruptures, I wanted to do what I could to empty myself of any remaining resentments. Pilgrimage can be a wonderful way of emptying all sorts of contaminants from within us and I’d already been given the opportunity to clean out quite a lot on my Caminos to Santiago. However, some thoughts that the other person was at fault lingered within me, and I had one big resentment which kept returning.

I began the Camino on May 3rd, in Loyola the birthplace of St. Ignatius, in the Basque Country. Only a few days into the pilgrimage I passed Bayonne where the 19th C spires of its great Gothic Cathedral stand above the town. They signal its presence to anyone who looks towards the Atlantic while roaring down the Autoroute while passing the city. I was walking at 3 km per hour so I had time to notice some angels high up on its roof.

Angels on Bayonne Cathedral

I took this photograph for Pilar. It is less well defined, well composed or informative than I would have liked, but it would do. I had no wish to pause in Bayonne other than for a bit of a prayer inside the Cathedral. The most refreshing places on a pilgrimage are churches.

That night I slept in a house for pilgrims in Soustons, a holiday village on this flat low-lying plain in the SW of France. My route northwards was along the Chemin St. Jacques which follows the coast and joins the Camino del Norte in Irun. This meant that I had an infrastructure of lodgings for most of my journey through France. Before falling off to sleep I looked through the day’s photos and when I came to the angels I thought, “And I don’t even believe in angels.”

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My morning reading was about the stoning of St. Stephen (Acts 6.8 – 8.1). I was really struck by his looking up to heaven and seeing the Father with the son at his right hand. For some reason, this looking upwards and seeing the Father with arms open and welcoming seemed comforting and I could disolve into it at that moment. The image stayed with me as I walked around the large lake of Soustons, to the little village of Azur. I was hungry and looking forward to finding a Boulangerie, which I did.

Boulangerie, Azur. No daily bread.

It was doubly shut, being both Monday and the annual holiday for the baker. I was without food and the next town was Castets at 16 km. Part of any Pilgrimage is trusting and accepting. I began to work on accepting that I would have no food for most of the day when I spotted what seemed to be a market in a square ahead on my route. As I approached, I saw a church with an electricity cable coming out of it, going to a white parked van which I imagined sold charcuterie. A few yards from the steps to the church, a well-dressed young man emerged and I approached him, wondering if he had been inside to connect the cable.

The strange stranger.

This man smiled warmly and I asked him if he was connecting the cable because I hoped this was a market. I as yet didn’t know what was going on because there were few people about and the van was blocking my view of the square. “No,” he said, “I’ve just been looking at this church.”

“Oh!,” I replied,” But is this a market?”

“Yes, it’s a small market, just a couple of stalls. But the church is worth a visit. It is most unusual to see the Father right up there over the altar, the Son, and with them the Holy Spirit.”

I was very surprised when he said this since his decription of the Father had been the very centre of my meditation that morning. I was keen to go in and see for myself. I have rarely met a stranger who begins speaking to me this way without first sounding out that I am on the same wavelength. Then, more normally, he asked, “Where are you going?” “I’m on a pilgrimage to Iona, in Scotland,” I said. I explained where it was and that it is a sacred isle.

He inquired if I had a special reason and I explained about my desire for reconciliation. “I’m Michael”, he said offering me my hand. “John,” I replied.

Then he lifted his arms high and began praying for me and my family and friends out loud inpublic. He ending with a blessing. I was very moved indeed and asked him if he was a priest. No, he assured me, nothing of the sort. “I’ve come today from Lourdes and I’ve really got to get back now.” Lourdes has very special significance for me and is a long way from Azur, about 200 kms.

He embraced me strongly, smiled and went off. I have no idea where he went because I turned to enter the church, looked back and he was gone.

The church in Azur.

The market did not have bread, nor a charcuterie. I bought a few apples (about 2kg) from the one person selling food, local produce. That had to do and was welcome. As I walked on that day, the meeting with this young man felt inspiring, as if I had been launched on the pilgrimage with a proper blessing. Then I recalled how the night before I had been so sure angels didn’t exist.

Maybe there are some and they don’t all have wings. I, anyway, can believe I met one.

Peace on my way to Castets,

Posted in Pilgrimage and Prayer, Pilgrimage to Iona from Loyola. | Tagged Chemin St, France, Lourdes, Stephen Acts | Comments Off

A Miracle?? Ruta de La Lana : Still Day 3

Posted on October 16, 2013 by John

I hesitate to say, “Miracle”.

Skip this next section if you want to get on with the story about the “miracle”.

There are several problems for me in writing this blog about a spiritual journey and talking about things like miracles. A diary is different since it may or may not be read by others. A blog is public and I have chosen mine to be open to all. There are four main difficulties

Even though I am writing it for and to myself I am aware, now that I have written about 20 posts, that the story I tell does not emerge as faithful to my experience. Each post has themes, like the post on “Thanksgiving”. These tie up and package, more or less neatly, an idea, making it presentable. However, walking a lot and praying are not neat. The reality has no packaging. I can tell you of distractions, pre-occupations, mindless moments, resentments ( one later post will package these as if the theme were wrapped up and dealt with), angers, despairs and sore shoulders. This post will be fitted into a category. I will resist naming it “Miracles”.
Each day on the Camino is full of ordinariness and is the same, only in a different place. The ordinariness makes little things important and rightly so. This post is about a miracle, but something very ordinary. On the Camino pilgrims notice the mundane and are sensitive to tiny shifts in moods or appetites. I fear that the blog can make these everyday experiences appear dramatic. They are wonderful, like this miracle, but not dramatic.
Life on the Camino has plenty of chaos because the pilgrim lives close to himself/herself. Our inner lives, mine at least, just are; subject to thousands of influences, complexities and movements at any one moment. Moreover, on a long walk many of our culture’s rules, laws and conventions fall away and we are more exposed, more naked, less protected. My belief systems become equivalent, merge and lose relevance.

Day 3, outside of Elda.

The blog as it is unfolding is putting an order into that chaos. When I tell myself (and others) my life story, I select the bits I believe will be most flattering, which most justify my bad decisions, which glorify my achievements and failures alike, which hide my weaknesses, gloss over my victims and round off as a good story. So, too, the blog presents a simple visual, verbal and ordered picture of an inner journey which, in reality, at every moment is born of the chaos I know is the true story of my life. The miracle I describe here is not, to my mind supernatural: it is an exceptional moment of order in this chaos.

4. Caminantes often say to me that they feel the Camino is about finding themselves. What is this self that we find? I came across a lovely book by a Frenchman, Georges Brière, in the private albergue in Sta. Irène, about 25 kms from Santiago on the Camino Francés.

From Geo. Brière’s account of his Camino from Annecy to Santiago 1987.

Basically, in this account he says that the ego gets worn away like the soles on our shoes wear down as we walk leaving a void, like the Virgin’s womb or the Nave of Notre Dame. Writing the blog fills that void with another structured, ordered photograph which I want to erase as soon as I press “publish”. I don’t know that miracles help in the battle to keep the ego in place. I often wonder what life was like for Lazarus after Jesus raised him from the dead. “Tell nobody”, Jesus often said after a miracle. Who was this to protect? Was it “the Messianic secret” or a caution about boasting about the miracle?

The “Miracle in Elda”

Previously on Day 3 I had been boosted by meeting a fellow pilgrim and this helped me with my fatigue to keep going on a beautifully sunny morning. Around Mid-day I arrived in the rather faceless town of Elda which was at least capped by a castle.

Castle in Elda

When I was travelling by train to Alicante to begin this Camino I was regretting not having packed a New Testament. On my first Caminos I had read Mark’s Gospel, a bit every day and on the Camino de Levante, I read Luke’s. Before leaving Madrid I had placed each of my New Testaments on the kitchen scales (The Jerusalem Bible NT and the fantastic recent Translation by Nicholas King.) I discarded both as too heavy. Now, on the train, I really felt a strong desire to tackle John’s Gospel which I had not yet read right through. I had always found John too completed, too rounded off, maybe too spiritual and insufficiently earthy. But now I began to feel that perhaps I was ready for it. I looked around when I arrived in Alicante for book shops but there were none on my route, so I left it at that.

As I entered Elda the Camino banked down into a little park. I had walked only 10 metres into this park when I saw a paper on the ground by a bench. When I looked closely it was a dirty, wet copy of the gospel of St. John.

The Gospel of John found in a park in Elda: my companion on the Ruta de La Lana.

My first reaction was delight. Here is a voice recording, a note I was making for myself shortly after finding the gospel. http://www.the-raft-of-corks.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/VN860080.mp3 It captures my reaction soon after finding the booklet. Yes! : it was a light copy of that one gospel which slipped easily into a pocket of my rucksack.

Was this a miracle? Whether or not it was, the gospel was important to me on this Camino for, on many occasions in a state of emptiness, I only kept going because of it. This was because finding it did seem a confirmation that I should be on this Camino. I often questioned why I was doing it. I can’t say that my reading of it each day, which I did, gave me any insight or enlightenment. I can’t recall any. The text didn’t especially speak to me.

As I said in the introduction to this post, finding the Gospel was an ordinary event. I think that pilgrims become more aware of ordinary events and “tune in” to miracles as the Camino progresses. These are all the meetings, discoveries, moments of awe, serendipities, communions of all kinds and consolations to which the pilgrim develops a sensitivity and in which he/she finds a profound joy. Miracles give us a boost to keep going, but why should we keep going? If I answered that here I would be rounding off a story, filling a void and presenting “Miracle” neatly packaged.!!

Posted in Pilgrimage and Prayer, Ruta de La Lana, The Camino de Santiago | Tagged John Gospel, Mark Gospel, miracles, New Testaments | Comments Off

Thanksgiving. Via de La Plata: Tierra de Barros

Posted on October 14, 2013 by John

Thanksgiving: Genuine Gratitude in Awful Times.

The Land of Mud

Having spent two nights in the luxury of the Hostels in Fuente de Cantos and Pueblo de Sancho Perez, I lost all sense of comfort very rapidly as I set off into constant rain. The Camino passes through Zafra, which also has its excellent hostel (still open) of San Francisco.

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I left Zafra without exploring this historic town because of the torrential rain. Indeed I usually had a reason for not exploring historic towns. However my stay in Zafra was prolonged by losing sight of the yellow arrows marking the Camino. I ended up on the outskirts, soaking wet, faced with a defensive fence running along the railway line and no way across. In the misty distance I made out a bridge and headed for it along an abandoned path. Once across the bridge, I guessed my way and with sheer delight discovered a yellow arrow. My spirits soared and I gave thanks for being back on my Camino which rose steeply over a ridge which separates Zafra from Los Santos de Maimones. Genuine gratitude flowed from my relief. I’m not sure whom I was grateful to, but that didn’t matter. Thanksgiving.

Looking down on Los Santos de Maimones in the rain.

Once again, I had not met any other pilgrims. When I had stayed in the village before Zafra they had all opted for the famous Convent Hostel in Zafra for the night and had several hours start on me. I could see that they had passed where I was walking because the Camino after Los Santos was turning muddy. Their footsteps had erased the few footholds that there might have been earlier on. This is La Tierra de Barros. “Barro” is the Spanish for “clay”.

With the rain, my rucksack had become heavier as I learned the limitations of wet-weather protective clothing and bag covers. With every step I sank into the mud and risked slipping. Often I skidded and only stayed upright thanks to my walking pole. The path had no stones, just clay and puddles. My sandals began to pick up clumps of clay on the soles and lifting my foot was difficult. Every few steps I had to scrape huge chunks of mud off my sandals. It was exhausting and I was making very slow progress so I sat down on a mojon – the cubic, metal sign posts which mark the Camino in Extremadura.

Mojon in the mud, a picnic stool.

How good a bit of bread with an apple tasted!! How good not to be skating in mud!!! What a relief I felt in my leg muscles! Once again my spirits soared and I was full of gratitude for all the wonderful joys we have in this life. Thanksgiving.

The physical conditions did not improve much but I was managing better after this and arrived in good form in Villafranco de los Barros, a town in the middle of a huge plain covered in vineyards. I was tired and wet and it was nightfall. After a search I found the Hostel, which had no room being full with the pilgrims who had stayed in Zafra the night before. Nobody could suggest an alternative. I had no desire to sleep out this night. Then I asked in a bar and one person suggested that he knew someone who put up pilgrims. This turned out to be a frail elderly woman in her dressing gown and slippers who asked me for 15 euros which she said included breakfast. She pointed to a door in the first floor of her patio which must once have been pretty but was now decrepit with rainwater gushing from above and below wherever I walked. The door to the room didn’t shut leaving a good gap for rain to enter. I lay on the bed elated to be horizontal. The rain sounded a melody in my resting muscles. I was so happy with this squeaky bed and the bare room, the shower with a drip of hot water. My gratitude stayed with me as I left the next morning thanking the old woman for the room and saying, no, it didn’t matter at all that she had not prepared the promised breakfast. More thanksgiving.

I set off among the vineyards in a day without rain, finding the path offering parts without mud. Another little bit of thanksgiving was in order.

Flat plain of vineyards in Tierra de Barros.

As I relaxed into a steady pace I began to notice a tightening in my calf muscles. The Camino stretched ahead over the plain bypassing the important town of Almendralejo, heading for Merida, a VERY historic city with superb Roman remains. My plan was to stop just before Merida. My legs, though, were becoming more and more painful. As an inexperienced walker, I did not know what was wrong. They had worked well for a week and I wondered if this tightening of the muscles would halt my Camino. The big muscles in my calf were solid and aching. I decided to divert to Almendralejo where I found a room in a Pension. It was as far as I could go. Having rested an hour, the pain in my legs was just as bad but I began to walk to the hospital for some advice. At least I had shed my rucksack. People I asked directed me accurately but I didn’t ever seem to arrive. I looked for taxis or buses but there were none. Indeed, the hospital was four kilometres away and when I arrived I was hobbling in agony.

Thanksgiving for the doctor who lay on the floor.

Very quickly I was seen by a doctor who explained that it is a common problem for Pilgrims who, gaining confidence after a week on the Camino, walk further and faster. He saw them regularly. “What you need to do is this, “he said. He then lay on the floor with his feet raised up, pressed against the wall. He then wiggled them loosely, the feet staying firmly in place: the movement sending ripples through his calf muscles. The position was quite undignified. We both laughed and he told me to take a hospital bus back to town and practice the “ripple”. This man would have been enough, I imagine, to cure me, without any advice or demonstration on the floor. Without knowing if the exercise would work, I was filled, once again, with gratitude. I was grateful to this doctor and felt complicit with him in the joy of just being who we are. And I was grateful in a bigger less precise way. (Grateful to whom?).

But the advice was excellent (it works and is preventative,too) and many times since this, I have been grateful to this doctor. The next day my legs were much better and I walked more slowly and a shorter distance. Bliss!! I felt very grateful to this doctor.

Undulating – harmony and gratitude in face of difficulties.

My mother-in-law’s thanksgiving

As the route became more undulating and the little Sierra Grande came into view, the sun came out. In my well-being I thought of the past two days and recalled a visit from my mother-in-law many years ago. We lived in Hartlepool and she in Coventry. Although over 70 the desire to see her grandchildren led her to take a bus to visit them in mid-winter. Changing buses in Leeds she slipped in the ice. When I picked her up in Darlington in the dark she was in obvious pain, with her wrist swollen. As soon as I got her home, I gave her a cup of tea and a glass of sherry. She said she felt better but she seemed very white. My wife agreed she should have her wrist examined, so I drove her off to A&E where they diagnosed a broken wrist and decided to operate at once. But it was not possible because of the sherry. Margaret did not once complain as she was told to come back for re-setting and pinning at 9am the next day.

What I recalled above all was that en route to the hospital the next morning, the sun came out. Margaret immediately said, “Glory be to God. Now isn’t that bit of sunshine just a gift!” At the time I wondered how, in her circumstances, she could be grateful or joyful about anything. Now, at last, I understood. We can be grateful even in awful circumstances. Thanksgiving is within us like a breath waiting to be relesed. That began my prayers of thanksgiving while walking – but that is another post.

Posted in GPS, Pilgrimage and Prayer, The Camino de Santiago, Via de La Plata | Tagged Convent Hostel, La Plata, La Tierra, Los Santos, Sierra Grande | Comments Off

The Sigh. Compassion. Pilgrimage Spirituality.

Posted on October 10, 2013 by John

A Long Time Sighing.

My first Camino, the Via de La Plata was a great adventure and praying was easy; my second, the Camino de Levante was about learning to pray at all times and led into my Pilgrimage from Loyola (in the Basque country to Iona in Scotland) during which I encountered the “sigh”. This year the Ruta de La Lana was not even a “sigh”. It was an encounter with desolation.

Walking in desolation. Almansa to Alatoz

Walking in desolation. Almansa to Alpera.

The mysterious sigh

The sigh began as I walked up through England from Newhaven in the mediocre summer of 2011, I noticed that sometimes I had a huge sigh in my heart. It might escape as noise and nearly always I had a powerful physical heave from my chest as air filled and then left my lungs. To me this was a new experience and I would like to know if anyone else has this. There were some key times when this would happen, often at night before going to sleep or on awakening in the morning. I even had a sigh or two which awoke me at night. The feeling was not uncomfortable either physically or psychologically but seemed to come from a numbness within me and a profound inner emptiness.

Even when I reached Iona and might have expected a moment of elation after completing a double pilgrimage of over 3000km, all I had was my sigh. Often I wondered what it meant.

nightfall in Iona with a sigh

This was the pilgrimage which had begun with Theresa of Lisieux’s presence saying to me to “pray all the time”. Some five months later I was doing just that. Walking through France had been full of wonderful and grace-filled experiences. Now, in mid-England the going was hard and the sigh accompanied me.

When I finished the pilgrimage the sigh stayed with me in a much more “normal” life. For a year and a half it became my companion. That was until December 2012. Then in the morning meditation which I do every day with my partner (we listen together to Rezandovoy) I understood and embraced “the sigh”. It was all to do with Compassion.

Compassion

Before the pilgrimage my partner had told me that I lacked compassion. I didn’t like being told this and even doubted its accuracy. Yet one thing I have learned is not to rely on my own description of myself, so I decided to add “compassion” to a prayer I often repeated as I walked, “Lord give me Faith, humility and trust”. I asked thousands of times, as I repeated this prayer, for Compassion.

One day during this long Camino I was reading an article, “Lessons in love and anger: Rima two weeks in May.” (an Article in Coracle, Iona Community, Spring 2011) and I was filled with Compassion. I noticed a completely new experience for me and knew right away that it was Compassion: it was pure.

Before that I did not know what compassion was! (I was 63 at the time.) I know about empathy and sympathy and sadness and capturing someone else’s sorry state as a sadness of my own, but I had no idea about compassion. This was passion, pure and simple, without any anger or ego: it was an outpouring of love. Compassion and love go together because compassion is always a prelude to love. (Love has many preludes.) It was at this point that I had caught “the sigh” but I didn’t make the connexion.

A beautiful morning on the Kilmarnock – Irvine cycleway accompanied by “The sigh”

This gift of compassion has changed me deeply and enabled me to to go back to people I have hurt and ask for forgiveness without defensiveness or being full of justifications for what I did. Compassion has let me see and, in a very special way, be one with the suffering of the other, even though I do not have that suffering. It is communion. Compassion has been an essential grace for me in reconciliation, especially with some of my family.

Understanding “the Sigh”.

During that December morning meditation I was full of compassion. I expect it began with a gospel reading: I can’t recall. “The Sigh” rose up in me and my outgoing breath joined, it seemed, with the last sigh let out by Jesus at his crucifixion and with all the sighs of suffering humanity. The sigh came out of emptiness, through Compassion and into total communion with all who are brought down with suffering,

I sighed.

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.” Rom 8.26

Posted in Pilgrimage and Prayer | Tagged England, France, Kilmarnock Irvine, Long Time Sighing, Pilgrimage Spirituality, Scotland | Comments Off

Meeting Prejudice. Via de La Plata, Fuente de Cantos to Pueblo de Sancho Perez

Posted on October 9, 2013 by John

Stereotyping the French.

My last post on the Via de La Plata, describes an early morning when I walked a few kilometres to Fuente de Cantos. Having slept out for two nights I was wondering about a shower. The Albergue was in a former Franciscan convent part of which is a museum dedicated to the famous and local painter Francisco Zurbarán. I was greeted by a smiling hospitalera who asked me if I wanted clothes washing. She was just about to wash the sheets from the previous night, took all my dirty laundry and showed me to the dormitory.

well-furbished, spacious dormitory in Fuente de Cantos.

At this point I was no expert on Hostels on the Camino, but I guessed that wardrobes, desks, a mirror and sheets, as well as only four beds in a large room would be unusual (and so it proved). The shower was perfect and there was a salon with sofas and books to read. I sunk into a comfortable chair believing that this was luxury itself. It was a Parador of a hostel. One of the books on the table was a guest book. It was full of superlative comments on this ancient convent, now hostel. However, the most recent was signed by a group of French pilgrims. Theirs was a positive assessment followed by a series of criticisms only some of which I still recall. “It is a shame that the chairs to the desks in the dormitories are a bit too high to fit legs under the table comfortably while writing”. “The arrangement of the sofas in the Salon could be much better designed to break up the space most of which is taken up at present as a passageway.” The final one was, “While we acknowledge that the beds are provided with sheets, this is not altogether necessary and does not justify the 10 euro cost for a night here.” (2010).

Me? Prejudiced?

Now I have nothing against the French, I lived there for eight years and found treasures beneath the surface. Yet this, I thought at the time, is typical. They think that their language is the world’s finest and are offended when we speak it badly; they keep to themselves and don’t share much……………Well, I was half aware that I was voicing my prejudices to myself and read the French comments again, just to check. Yes, it was typical. Then a group of Germans arrived, just five of them but it could have been an artillery battalion from the noise they made. I guessed they were snorers. These were followed by a couple of cyclists who bagged the last two beds, they usually do, leaving us walkers to sleep on the floor.

Albergue, Fuente de Cantos

I didn’t ever catch up with the French who had written the cutting comments but I did meet the Germans again from time to time who turned out to be witty, polite, charming and well-informed. Later on when stretches of the Camino were very boggy I learned to follow their trail which always picked out the driest, most firm path. They knew what they were up to on a Camino. I really had no clue.

Recognising my prejudices.

Over a year later and with two thousand kilometres of Camino experience I was starting to notice my prejudices: I, of course, had considered myself free of any distortions in my judgement, being a liberal, tolerant sort. I began to observe that I certainly preferred some people I met to others. Some I really preferred not to sleep too closely to, especially side by side, as was occasionally inevitable. Smell, noise or dirt often came into my reckoning as I calculated the desirability of company. I noticed, though, that less obvious traits affected my willingness to approach or welcome approaches from other pilgrims: how they chose their bed, or washed up (or not) after a snack; whether they were “know it alls”; or if they were cyclists or tourists whom I regarded as second class pilgrims. It became clear to me that I was prejudiced and that I carried a lot of judgements in me of which I had not ever been aware. At the same time, as a result of reading Mark’s gospel during the Via de La Plata and the Gospel of Luke on the Camino de Levante, I felt uncomfortable with uncovering my prejudices and not knowing the extent of the deposits I was beginning to expose seam by seam. The gospels are inclusive, not exclusive and those around Jesus a rabble of all sorts. Also, prayer had become an established part, even a continuous part of my day. One of my prayers of repetition was ,”Lord, let me know you more clearly, follow you more nearly and love you more dearly.” This led to an important insight for me, even though I have heard words describe it all my life.

After finishing the Camino de Levante in 2011, I continued my pilgrimage North through France, heading for Iona, a sacred Isle off the West Coast of Scotland. Much had happened to me in these previous two years in my spiritual development, a development full of discontinuities. The route from Irun to Dieppe took nearly two months and I felt I was being trained with a curriculum which only revealed itself in unexpected ways and unlikely places.

St Catherine de Fierbois.

On the Way to the little village of St. Catherine de Fierbois, just south of Tours, while repeating the prayer about knowing, loving and following Jesus, I added, “and it would help me if I met you.” I was, I suppose addressing Jesus, but I’m never quite sure with God.

I had some trouble finding the lodging for tourists and arrived ready for bed. There was already a pilgrim established in the house who looked more like a tramp than I did. He invited me to sit with him in the garden while he smoked, so I do so out of politeness. He began to tell me about his caminos. He was, indeed, a permanent pilgrim, constantly on the move. While he told me about the loss of his wife I noticed that he seemed to be very peaceful in an infectious way. He explained how the Camino left him free to do nothing but enjoy being alive. He was in his late sixties, older than I was, and I could identify with all he was saying about detachment, letting his children be, so they could be who they are, enjoying his grandchildren and the way that, while walking, he became one with nature. I don’t know if I said anything, or certainly very little but by the end I felt we were deep friends. This sort of conversation and instant friendship is pretty common on the Camino so I welcomed it. We said goodnight and goodbye, for he would be leaving earlier than me. Also everyone I met was going in the opposite direction so I didn’t ever see them again.

When I awoke the following day, I remembered the conversation. What then came to my mind was the meeting of the disciples with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. I recalled my prayer of the previous day and I realised, “Of course, I met you last night”.

Transforming Prejudice.

I still have my prejudices, many of which are instinctive, primitive reactions, olfactory probably. That I have them doesn’t bother me now but I try to be alert to any recoil I have from people. When I am able, I act against my inclination, welcoming those whom I would once have avoided, moving towards an embrace if appropriate. These moments of friendship are charged with good energy. They nourish the whole person. It is about “Seeing Christ in the other person”, as I had realised that morning I had seen Christ in the smoking pilgrim. Love is present. It is actually very simple. I can understand how Ignatius and other saints would kiss people’s wounds. (Ignatian principle of Agere Contra) This is not masochism, quite the opposite: it is intimacy in the fulfilment of self as one in body with Christ.

I sometimes wonder if my children would understand anything I write in this blog – or the French for that matter.

Footnote: there is great uncertainly about the hostel’s future in Fuente de Cantos and others which were run by the Regional Authority of Extremadura. As part of budget cuts, some of the hostels and camp-sites are closed for the moment. This may affect the next hostel on the route which was in a hermitage attached to a bullring in Pueblo de Sancho Perez. It would be a tragedy to lose this one which was also very classy inside.

Bullring and hermitage, an albergue in Pueblo de Sancho Perez, Badajoz.

Posted in Pilgrimage and Prayer, The Camino de Santiago, Via de La Plata | Tagged La Plata, Sancho Perez, Seeing Christ, Transforming Prejudice | Comments Off

Lourdes, a sign pointing to a miracle.

Posted on October 7, 2013 by John

A sign – not a miracle in Lourdes.

There is a difference between signs and miracles although one can be the other. I recount here what happened to me twelve years ago when my life was terribly confused. I had no job, no place to live and my marriage of 25 years was breaking up.

At the end of the summer I had driven to Spain to see if I could find a cheap place to live. I wasn’t looking with any focus, nor was I happy to be on my own. I looked around some places I had known in my student days and found everything too costly, so I headed back up north. At Bayonne, I stopped by the beach because I love the big waves there and fancied a swim but, even before I had got out of the car, I thought, “Why not go to Lourdes?” I had not been in Lourdes for decades and I was surprised by the idea. I drove there directly, arriving at nightfall.

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As a child our family had visited Lourdes on several occasions and I recall saying the rosary in the car. My parents regarded the summer holiday as half-pilgrimage half-holiday and my memories of Lourdes were happy ones of processions, holy shops, crowds and lots of walking.

The evening I arrived I walked down to the Basilica and headed for the grotto. Just before I reached the arches which separate the grotto area from the esplanade, I was filled with a crippling sadness. It was difficult to breath and I was crying. I managed to go to the taps which deliver water fom the spring and drink a little. I was beginning to remember an afternoon when I was standing beside my mother at the very spot where my sadness had overcome me. It was 1957 and I was 8 years old. She was crying.

I remember holding her hand and looking up and asking, “Why are you crying?” “It’s seeing all these little children, “she said, “Just like the wee baby.” The “wee baby” was a brother who had been born the previous year and who had died in her arms just four days old. I had only been allowed to look at him once because, “something was wrong with him.”

Lourdes, blessing of the sick.

This terrible sadness in me which was surging up from the depths of my being came from the little boy I was in 1957 who had captured all the distress of a mother who has lost her son. The incident happened on a hot afternoon during the blessing of the sick. We were standing under the plane trees just behind all the sick children in their three-wheeled chairs who were lined up for the blessing. Most of them were Downs’s syndrome. This sadness must have been locked away in my subconscious for all those years.

I walked into the town and bought a postcard with a picture of St. Christopher from one of the brightly lit shops and wrote on it, “Mum, I have returned to the very spot in Lourdes where I saw you crying because of the wee baby. I have been carrying in me your sadness all these years: it is yours. I return it to you.” At the time my mum had Altheimer’s in an advanced stage so there was not much point in sending it to her so I left it beside the statue of Mary where people often leave prayer requests and which is only a few steps from the spot where we had been standing so many years before.

The statue of Mary in Lourdes, in front of the Basilica.

At once the sadness left me and has not ever returned. This, though, was only the beginning of a very important lesson about Love which I am still learning.

Perhaps I would not have been aware of the importance of this moment for me had it not been for an extraordinary meeting I had the following day. Before leaving Lourdes, I wanted to go back to that spot under the trees again. There is now a bench there and I sat down, peacefully on this bench. A young woman came along with a child in a push chair and sat down alongside me. “God, it’s hot,” she said. Her accent was broad Glaswegian. The child wasn’t hers, she explained and as the little boy wriggled to escape from his push chair I realised he was down’s syndrome. “Aw, Michael, will ye sit doon!”. Michael had been my little brother’s name. Like me, he was born in Glasgow.

Lourdes, candle lit procession.

As I walked out of the sanctuary a little later I reflected on how strange it was that there were so many coincidences in this meeting: the same spot exactly; a little boy from Glasgow; a down’s syndrome child with the same name as my brother; and where, the night before, I had been struck so forcefully with a sadness relating to his early death.

When I next saw my mother, in her nursing home in Stirling, I told her this story. She was, as always, very confused, circling her room anxiously saying, “We have to stop them before they do it.” But on this occasion she listened and then said, very fondly, “Ah yes, the wee baby. Michael.” Maybe this was all she heard but it evoked in her a memory not of sadness but of love. My own sadness needed to be transformed into love but at that point I could see nothing of this.

The event in Lourdes in2002, started a process of growth in me which has given my life a new direction.

Throughout my adult life I have always had an uncomfortable reaction when a woman close to me has been sad or upset. Being sad is quite normal. I don’t react badly when I meet a man who is in distress. But if it is a woman, I think I have always been frighted by her sadness. Looking back, I can see that my response has led to many complications in my relationships with women at home or at work since I will do anything to escape or change such a situation. This is a type of co-dependency on my mother. My main escape was alcohol and after I stopped drinking it was to withdraw, to flee. After this experience in Lourdes, I have slowly, over the past ten years, come to see that sadness in another person is just that: they are sad. How simple! With patient help from others I have been learning to meet that sadness with compassion, not fear. I can be ok even if the other person is not. Arriving at this point has taken many years. In effect I had been very limited use as a companion for women: as soon as they showed a negative emotion I was filled with my own suffering. Together we asphyxiated with pain. My blog on the Caminos to Santiago is about the spiritual processes in living a life being transformed by Grace. (“Grace” is a word I have not used before, but it is the word I need here.) The great miracle, which I will write about in a future blog, was my encounter with Compassion.

Lourdes in 2002 was a special moment, a sign which I recognised. A sign is a pointer and an encouragement to choose a path. It can lead to miracles, for me the miracle of Compassion ………which always leads to Love.

I will post on Compassion at a later date. Please subscribe if you want to be informed of future posts.

Posted in Pilgrimage and Prayer, The Raft of Corks. | Tagged Holy Spirit, Lourdes, miracles, signs, Spain | Comments Off

Camino de Levante – Oranges and a word from Theresa of Lisieux.

Posted on October 4, 2013 by John

Camino de Levante: Setting out from Valencia

My bedroom for the first night.

Oranges and a word from Theresa of Lisieux.

On 8th Feb. 2011, I arrived by slow train in Valencia and headed south on the Camino de Levante to Santiago de Compostella. This was my second long distance Camino and I had chosen it rather than the Camino del Norte which was my preferred route because I had injured my knee in training (coming down a steep mountainside off-track). The nothern coastal path is very hilly and this one from the Mediterranean begins gently with a sweep south before swinging back up to Castilla La Mancha.

Valencia produces wonderful oranges and the Camino makes its way through plantations for several days. My first night I slept between rows of orange trees. The next day I ate one or two, but moderation became difficult, especially when confronted by the great variety of fruit. When I lost site of the yellow arrows marking the Camino I asked a man for directions. He was loading his van with sacks of large Oranges which I knew were especially good since I’d just eaten a few. He said they were good quality but that the prices paid to the farmers barely made it worth while growing them. When he came to shake my hand I had to appologise for their being so sticky from eating the fruit whereupon he offered me more to take with me. So many Spaniards have an easy generosity and are open-hearted to strangers, even those who pick oranges off their trees.

Some harvests are dumped when the auction price is too low.

I began this Camino with a great desire for silence. The previous year I had made my first pilgrimage to Santiago by the Via de La Plata and had begun to learn about praying. I had found that at times of the day, or in special places, I was drawn to prayer. I had a practice of gathering myself together at the beginning of the day, once all the chores of getting on the road and finding the path were out of the way. Usually, I composed myself by acknowledging God as the God of Compassion and Love to me and through me. This equates to the advice of Ignatius of Loyola on placing ourselves in God’s presence at the start of prayer. I don’t have much idea about God, but I believed I knew what compassion and love meant.

Early blossoms on the Via Augusta

The Camino initially follows the Roman Via Augusta and on this Roman Way, on my second day of walking, I composed myself for prayer. No sooner had I begun than I was aware of the presence of Theresa of Lisieux. I knew some things about this saint but none of them drew me to her. There was nothing I could identify with in this girl who died aged 24 after a very sheltered life. When I say “aware of the presence” I am hoping to convey that I wasn’t consciously bringing Theresa into my mind. Indeed I was surprised. Sensing a presence is very different from thinking about a person.

Photo of Theresa of Lisieux aged 16, the day of her Vows as a Carmelite nun.

This St. Theresa is known as “The Little Flower” and is an fine exemple of 19thC (French) spiritualty. In my childhood there were remnants of this piety such as Lents without sweets and very early Mass every day. Ever since I gained a bit of common sense I ignored this apparently sweet and soft spirituality and headed for liberation theology.

As I continued walking it appeared to me that she was saying, “Pray all of the time, John.” It was not a voice yet I heard clearly this message: it seemed to be delivered with very much love. This is the best I can recall of that moment but from then on I have taken that message very seriously. I am still learning what it means. Since then I have read about contemplative prayer and was given a copy of the Way of the Pilgrim. And I have tried to pray all the time. For me this experience marks one of those significant moments in life which become a “before and after”. There was no dramatic change but after years of unemployment I now had a job.

This was Day 2 of a pilgrimage which was to last a further seven months.

Posted in Camino de Levante, Pilgrimage and Prayer, The Camino de Santiago | Tagged La Plata | Comments Off