Last night at dinner we discovered the "eccentric" part of our albergue host. We had noticed in the guide that peregrinos were not allowed to "do any work," and were a little curious what that might mean. At dinner we found out when Rob, a fellow American (from south Georgia), made the mistake of serving one of the other peregrinos at the communal dinner we had. He dished up some (wonderful!) vegetable soup for someone who wasn´t sitting too close to the serving bowl, and the host walked up, spoke to him in rapid Spanish, and took the soup and dumped it back in the serving bowl. No serving anyone else. A little difficult for some of us to fit into our "servant of Christ" mentalities, for sure! Fortunately, he hadn´t caught me serving both Marty and Emlyn--and we made sure we grabbed only for ourselves after that!
Dinner was kind of a hoot, over all. I paid for a meal for Marty and Niles as well, and they walked over from their albergue to join us. We all sat down to eat at long tables a little after 8:00 p.m. It was crowded, with a true polyglot of languages flying around. Marty was unfortunately closer to the German-speakers than to the English-speakers, but we all had fun anyway. Jorge and Raphaela were with us again, but Sara had decided she wasn´t feeling well and really needed some quiet and private space, so she ended up moving her things to a hotel in town. (She´d been afraid to say anything to the host about wanting to leave, and when he found out she wasn´t feeling well he offered her a room in the infirmary area. But she declined, and when he understood she was just emotionally worn out and wanted quiet and privacy, he drove her to the hotel himself.)
After dinner, several of us, including Jorge, Raphaela, Rob (the guy from Georgia), and two other guys (from Scotland and Italy) all decided to go out for wine. We eventually gathered at a cafe in the main plaze, where several of us decided on hot chocolate (which pretty much tasted like a hot, melted cup of semi-sweet chocolate bar--just, wow) and churros. Rob was asking Jorge what he had gotten from the Camino when he walked it before, and Jorge talked a lot about the amazing energy of the Camino, and the experience of meeting someone at the end, in Santiago. He said, even if you´ve never spoken to them before but you´ve seen them walking along, when you meet in Santiago you just grab each other with a "We made it!" hug.
Rob is very interested in how people use the Camino as a spiritual practice. I eventually learned from him that he has attended a wide variety of churches--Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Gospel, etc.--and he´s ended up very dissatisfied with all of them. He´s tired of churches where people put on a facade of looking good, but don´t do much beyond just show up. He has now started a house church, where he says they have only one rule: you have to be honest. You have to be honest about who you are, what you do, what you think and believe. He says, if you´ve had a bad day you can come and swear over what a lousy day you´ve had. If you´ve had a good day you can come and say that you´ve had a good day. But you can´t put up a false front, or mislead the other people. He says they´ve told a few folks to leave the church because they weren´t honest--and there are plenty of other churches that will welcome them. He said it´s not really part of the emergent church movement, because they´re more grounded in the tradition than emergent churches--although I´m not sure "emergent" really means non-traditional in that respect. But I think I get his drift. He´s looking for authentic community, couldn´t find it, and decided to gather it himself.
Interesting.
I had hoped to talk with him a bit more today, but haven´t seen him. At one point, when he was describing his community´s insistence on honesty, I said, "You mean you´re actually expecting people to stop worrying about going to church and start actually thinking about being the Church?" His response was, "Ah, I see you get it." He´s interested in the Camino because he´s teaching some classes on spiritual disciplines (he´s actually gone to the ELCA website, and said, "you guys have some great resources on there."), and ran across a reference to the Camino in a book on spiritual disciplines. We talked a little bit about prayer labyrinths, and the practice of using them, which he wasn´t familiar with. The guy from Italy talked about the fact that he and his wife are both walking the Camino, but 3 weeks apart, to give themselves space to meditate on some of the issues they face in their lives. Intriguing conversations, all around.
This morning we slept late, since our eccentric host proclaims "pilgrim sleep is sacred sleep" and the doors don´t open until 7:00. We knew we had a short, easy walk today. We could have taken a more strenuous path up the mountains (with a rise of almost 1000 feet) which the guidebook said is much more beautiful than the walk along the highway (proclaimed "boring"), but we opted to save ourselves some strain. Actually, the walk today was very lovely. The weather remains very nice--sometimes almost too cool in the shade. And the walk, even though along a highway on our right, also followed the most delightful river, which flowed and burbled with rapids and the occasional waterful to the extent that it was louder, sometimes, than the highway noise. It was very beautiful, and we walked along it most of the way. So I just kept my eyes, most of the time, to the left, where my mind could rest on the green and the sparkle and the shape of the stones under the water. Lovely, lovely.
We are entering the region of Galicia, and it is so very beautiful here. The town we came to is small and quaint, as is the albergue we are staying at. The kitchen, just outside our dorm room, is actually open to the outside--like cooking and eating on a balcony. We had a very nice, simple meal this evening, which we lingered over. Jorge dropped by earlier to day, and was eating a late lunch with some new friends before going on to meet Raphaela (they are both very flexible people!), and he continues to linger. I talked with him just a bit before Marty, Emlyn, Niles and I left to come into town for ice cream (and internet blogging), and I mentioned the questions I have been asking--especially young people--about their experience of the Church, and God, and faith, and their lives. He said, "I was considering just staying here tonight. Now I´m definitely staying." I´d love to talk with him some more and hear what he has to say; he´s obviously a young man with a lot of love for life, and for people, and I´d like to hear what he thinks. But he is indeed a free spirit, so we´ll see if he´s decided to move on or not when we get back.
The four of us have had a better day today. My tendonitis is still tender, and I can see the swelling around the tendon, but it´s ok. Emlyn not only has blisters, but she has developed a second blister directly under a first-layer blister, and today discovered that she had yet a third blister under the second blister. They are literally right under each other, between her toes, and I have no idea how she has gotten them there. But she´s managing. The shorter, more restful days have been really good for us, and we´re learning to not feel like we´re not accomplishing enough on these 4-hour days. Giving ourselves a bit more rest, a bit more time to just experience the communities and the people, is really giving me a lift. It´s amazing to think we have only a little over a week of walking left.
I am needing to make sure I keep myself focused in staying in the now, and not start thinking about either how much I want to get home, or how much I´m not ready to go home. It doesn´t matter. What matters is receiving the amazing blessing this day is bringing. Not whether I missed anything by not walking the high route, or by not seeing Raphaela again, or connecting with any of the Camino friends we left behind--but walking and breathing the blessing that is absolutely everywhere I look. Amazing and wonderful.
Blessings on your Camino this day!
No comments:
Post a Comment