{"id":776,"date":"2013-10-21T18:55:05","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T16:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/?p=776"},"modified":"2013-10-22T15:51:23","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T13:51:23","slug":"prayer-camino-de-levante-xativa-almansa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/prayer-camino-de-levante-xativa-almansa\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer: Camino de Levante: through Xativa to Almansa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prayer: \u00a0“Pray all the time”<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Way to Almansa<\/h2>\n

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My first post on the Camino de Levante<\/a>\u00a0told 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. \u00a0I sensed that this child-saint, known as “The Little Flower” \u00a0seemed to be telling me to pray all the time. \u00a0On my two previous Caminos I had prayed regularly: prayers of thanksgiving, mantras, the naming of family and friends. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0Put in a list like this it seems to me a lot of prayer but it was far from praying all the time. \u00a0Also I’d followed\u00a0Sadhana<\/a>\u00a0by Tony de Mello: a”Way of Prayer”. \u00a0Anthony 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.”<\/a>\u00a0 This condemnation was made by Joseph Razinger who later became Pope and signed by Cardinal Bertone. \u00a0I include this detail for historical interest since Tony de Mello’s works are widely used in Catholic circles today. \u00a0Sadhana had opened up new horizons on prayer for me but, nonetheless, I still felt I was a novice at prayer. \u00a0Appropriately, the route to Santiago from Valencia heads off South for the first two or three days whereas Santiago is in exactly the opposite direction. \u00a0My prayer experience is often like that: I head in one direction and find myself being led in another.<\/p>\n

\"Heading<\/a>

Heading South to go North. Santiago 1,204km<\/p><\/div>\n

The Camino de Levante offers fairly good stops for the pilgrim but these are not usually in albergues<\/a> as on the Camino Franc\u00e9s. \u00a0Generally, 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. \u00a0It was important to have a sleeping mat as well as a sleeping bag. \u00a0There was always a loo and a shower with hot water. \u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n

“Teach me how to pray”<\/span><\/h1>\n

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. \u00a0We are taught prayers as children and the Mass is a prayer. \u00a0I had tried meditation and contemplating Gospel scenes using my imagination and senses. \u00a0All this seemed fine, but I was faced with praying all the time, which suggested to me I needed more resources.<\/span> So I simply prayed, “Teach me how to pray.” \u00a0I added this as one of my prayers which I repeated over and over again. \u00a0At this time, too, on my third day, the knee injury with which I had set off from Valencia began to give me pain. \u00a0I remember taking this picture in the evening as I neared Xativa as the sun was about to set. \u00a0I was in a good deal of pain when moving.<\/p>\n

\"Evening<\/a>

Evening approaching Xativa.<\/p><\/div>\n

My knee had seized and I was walking at less than 1km\/hour. \u00a0I calculated I had 2 more hours of walking ahead. \u00a0The day’s walking had given me plenty of beauty to delight in but now I had something “real” to pray about. \u00a0 The words, “Father, this is hurting me. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0So I hobbled into Xativa detached. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0I recall taking this photo while leaving in the morning.<\/p>\n

\"Xativa\"<\/a>

Xativa<\/p><\/div>\n

The rest is a blank including where I got hold of bread and sardines. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0It 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. \u00a0I needed that to become a habit and indeed that day was so beautiful I didn’t feel too challenged. \u00a0The orange groves were giving way to orchards and the sun was shining heating up the February morning.<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a>

On the road to Moixent<\/p><\/div>\n

At midday my knee began to hurt. I felt a thud of disappointment and alarm. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0My knee was none the better after the pause and, once again, I was notching up about a kilometre in an hour. \u00a0I began to repeat, “Jes\u00fas, en t\u00ed conf\u00edo.” \u00a0It 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. \u00a0I began to speed up slightly and reached Moixent by nightfall. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0I was tempted to sleep in the park but, \u00a0having been entrusted with the key, I dragged myself there. This pattern of pain free mornings repeated itself for the next few days. \u00a0I learned that the first 15 km were a gift, then would come the agony which was possible to survive by repeating my mantra. \u00a0Meanwhile 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. \u00a0Washing clothes is a contemplative task, I now know. \u00a0Indeed, everything can be.<\/p>\n

\"Hand(y)<\/a>

Hand(y) rails for drying clothes.<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/a>\u00a0). \u00a0It is being aware of self, of others,of the surroundings and of God in all things. \u00a0It is an attitude, a way of being. \u00a0“Peace is every Step”<\/a>\u00a0is a Zen Buddhist approach to mindfulness which decribes what I was beginning to discover. \u00a0This disposition was growing within me throughout the pilgrimage and still is. \u00a0I can recall nearly all the places I slept after Xativa!!<\/p>\n

\"Goats<\/a>

Goats crossing the Camino<\/p><\/div>\n

There is much more I hope to write about praying all the time. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0Being outside from early morning and all day helped me, together with this attitude of prayer which I was hoping to make part of me.<\/p>\n

Gerald Manley Hopkins, another Jesuit, was steeped in Awareness and I recalled his famous poem:<\/p>\n

Pied Beauty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Glory be to God for dappled things\u2014\u00a0<\/span>
\nFor skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;\u00a0<\/span>
\nFor rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;\u00a0<\/span>
\nFresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches\u2019 wings;\u00a0<\/span>
\nLandscape plotted and pieced\u2014fold, fallow, and plough;\u00a0<\/span>
\nAnd \u00e1ll tr\u00e1des, their gear and tackle and trim.\u00a0<\/span>
\nAll things counter, original, spare, strange;\u00a0<\/span>
\nWhatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)\u00a0<\/span>
\nWith swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;\u00a0<\/span>
\nHe fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.<\/span><\/p>\n

G.M. Hopkins<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Seein<\/a>

Seeing God in all Things.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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; \u00a0to yell out in agony or shout the “Glory be to the Father” at the top of my voice. \u00a0 And listen to God in silence.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Prayer: \u00a0“Pray all the time” The Way to Almansa [mapsmarker layer=”12″]   My first post on the Camino de Levante\u00a0told of how, on the second day of this Camino from Valencia to Santiago de Compostella I became aware of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10,3,8],"tags":[95,93,94,92],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camino-de-levante","category-gps","category-pilgrimage-and-prayer","category-the-camino-de-santiago","tag-gerald-manley-hopkins","tag-mello-awareness","tag-pied-beauty","tag-red-cross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-raft-of-corks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}