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<\/a>Fairies, magic, and wonder on the right. Miracles, faith and saints on the right.<\/p><\/div>\n
As a child, Christmas was pantomime time and at Peter Pan I remember saving Tinkerbelle’s life by clapping frantically as an act of my faith in fairies. \u00a0About 40 years on I no longer believed in faries and I also thought that happiness was something that belonged to childhood. \u00a0I was immersed in “reality”: family responsibilities, mortgage and so on.<\/p>\n
Well, I’ve been cured of all that “reality” nonsense since I started walking and don’t find beliefsabout reality helpful any more. \u00a0Beliefs are like classroom walls: they cut off our horizons.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Wide horizons are a joy on the Camino.<\/p><\/div>\n
What I can<\/strong> tell you about is my memory of experiences, vapours I have breathed which have been envigorating, life-giving and transforming. \u00a0 The Camino has changed me. \u00a0Yes, the mean, manipulating, angry, critical and rational man you may have seen in me has evaporated and if you happen to be one of the many whom I have wronged, read on.<\/a><\/p>\n So what’s all this about miracles?<\/span><\/p>\n One of the difficulties about being a Roman Catholic is that the Church keeps getting in the way of the best experiences and joys of the spiritual life. \u00a0But wait…..first of all………….<\/p>\n My first great miracle was on my first Camino, The Via de La Plata. \u00a0Very early on, before my first blisters had burst, after my first night, a night sleeping out alone in a field,<\/p>\n Simple accommodation on my first night, first Camino.<\/p><\/div>\n I awoke feeling a great freedom from my former need for a bed, a roof or even a tent to pass a night asleep. \u00a0Maybe, I thought, there are other things I don’t need.<\/p>\n Feeling lighter and freer, I strode on and confidently walked across a small stream and sank in up to my right knee and couldn’t lift my foot out of a huge dollop of mud. \u00a0I wriggled off my sandal, found terra firma for my other foot and levered myself up the bank.<\/p>\n Sandal extracted from sinking mud.<\/p><\/div>\n My sandals were my only footwear. This incident freed me from thinking that walking in wet footwear was a “bad thing”, a long held belief from childhood. \u00a0So what else might I be released from believing?<\/p>\n It was 18th March and I began to see flowers everywhere.<\/p>\n Flowers noticed while walking in wet sandals.<\/p><\/div>\n “It doesn’t matter!”, I felt. \u00a0I could have taken up recruiting for\u00a0http:\/\/www.thefuckitlife.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet, I was on a Pilgrimage – an act of Faith in a sense. \u00a0Faith is not what I thought it was – I used to think it was about believing in things, like God and the Virgin birth. \u00a0 All beliefs, whoever held them, lost their power; they were no more solid than my foothold in the mud. Beliefs were not worth dying for. \u00a0A faith is not worth dying for, nor an educational theory nor an insecurity. \u00a0And that is still my position on “Religion”, although you will find on this The-Raft-of-Corks blog over 60 posts inspired by spiritual experiences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I felt freedom and felt free to immerse myself in anything I chose (which wouldn’t be a muddy burn). \u00a0With all this freedom I saw no reason to look further than my own roots since I felt no great need to renounce them, even when faced with an enticing choice of religions, sects, philosophies and juicy nihilisms. \u00a0I’m Scottish of mainly Irish Catholic breeding so there’s plenty to chew on.<\/p>\n Easter Eggs in Seville, start of the Via de la Plata<\/p><\/div>\n Also I already know loads about Roman Catholicism: I have too few years of life left to plunge myself as deeply in Buddhism or Zoroastrianism, all things being equal, absolutely. So the balance points, for me, to an election for my unrejected roots. \u00a0I was lumped with that inheritance and even though there is much of it I don’t like, it is my language for these very, very difficult-to-express matters like life, death, suffering, world poverty, genocide, love, powerlessness and our infinitesimal smallness in the universe and in time, whatever that<\/em> is.<\/p>\n “For to be aware and to be are the same” Parmenides<\/p><\/div>\n Given a 2000 year old belief system, with a rich vocabulary, a history of repeated mistakes, a track-record of misunderstanding of its own objectives, a big following of the faithful and the disgruntled, wonderful music, a rich basis of ritual practice, good liturgy and hundreds of mystics on the margins, a sacred literature of quality of all different styles and pretensions………well, why should I look elsewhere? \u00a0I’m landed with this family, even if the cupboards are filled with abused skeletons and sinfullness. \u00a0A bit like my own life – with abused skeletons replaced by obese, inebriated skeletons.<\/p>\n So, while not believing that St James ever set foot in Spain, or rather not caring, I immerse myself in this ancient tradition of walking to Santiago de Compostella…<\/p>\n Santiago Cathedral. Burial place of St. James the Apostle. (Maybe….or not likely)<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Yes, free of beliefs (Miracle no.1), immersed in but not confined by my roots, I was disposed to meet with miracles<\/a>. \u00a0Two days later my blisters began.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pilgrimage \u00a0– \u00a0Miracles for all. As a child, Christmas was pantomime time and at Peter Pan I remember saving Tinkerbelle’s life by clapping frantically as an act of my faith in fairies. \u00a0About 40 years on I no longer … Continue reading So what’s all this about religion?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/a>Everything!!<\/h1>\n
<\/a>So why do I say so much about miracles and saints and the Church?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a>\u00a0Miracles?<\/h2>\n