Buen Camino!

It's New Year's Eve; it's been quite a year - with high points like the Camino in September and a yet a major valley where conversely I have rarely felt God more present.

I'm still reading Buen Camino! by Natasha & Peter Murtagh and apart from enjoying their descriptions of some of the places that I have been myself, like Puente La Reina and Estella, I particularly liked this meditation by a Jesuit Jose Antonio Garcia Monje which Peter Murtagh picked up in the church of St. Stephen in Zalbadica. I think it sums up the Camino experience:

 

"The journey makes you a pilgrim. Because the way to Santiago is not only a track to be walked in order to get somewhere, nor is it a test to reach any reward. El Camino de Santiago is a parable and a reality at once because it is done both within and outside in the specific time that [it] takes to walk each stage and long the entire life if only you allow the Camino to get into you and to make [you] a pilgrim.

 

 

The Camino makes you simpler, because the lighter the backpack, the less strain to your back and the more you will experience how little you need to be alive.

 

 

The Camino makes you brother / sister. Whatever you have you must be ready to share because even if you started on your own, you will meet companions. The Camino breeds community: community that greets the other, that takes interest in how the walk is going for the other, that takes and shares with the other.

 

 

The Camino demands of you. You must get up even before the sun in spite of tiredness or blisters; you must walk in the darkness of the night while dawn is growing; you must just get the rest that will keep you going.

 

The Camino calls you to contemplate, to be amazed, to welcome, to interiorise, to stop, to be quiet, to listen, to admire, to bless...Nature, our companions on the journey, our own selves, God.

Bordeaux Wine

Over the Christmas holidays I have decided to use some of my free time to read Natasha & Peter Murtagh's book Buen Camino! kindly lent to me by my friends Richard & Pamela Wood who attend St Senan's church in Iniscarra.

Today I have also been enjoying a few glasses of a 2010 bottle of Saint - Emilion Grand Cru wine from Bordeaux donated by a patient. Deep & rich with a fruity aroma of cherries it has pleasingly assisted the remnants of my turkey and ham to digest!

There is in fact a connection with the Camino and my choice in wine, for as Peter Murtagh's points out, in the 11th & 12th centuries, Irish pilgrims often made the arduous journey to Galicia via empty wine ships returning to Bordeaux.

I raise a toast of my Bordeaux wine to those intrepid Medieval Irish pilgrims who braved life and limb to go on pilgrimage!

Holy & Whole

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 MSG

May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he’ll do it!

I love these verses from The Message version of the Bible because they sum up in two words; Holy & Whole; everything God wants to do in our lives as we journey with him. All we have to do is be willing to open our hearts to him so he can do his work.

So often we erect elaborate walls between ourselves, God and other people as the result of hurts and disappointments we have experienced, but we need to lower our defences and not be afraid to invite God to take control because everything God wants to do in our lives is motivated by his love.

Camino Part 2

I have started planning for my next trip & I am already excited! The plan is to walk from Estella - Belorado in March with my friend David King. Including a 10km detour off the main Camino to the Unesco World Heritage sites of the two monasteries at San Millan de la Cogolla, we should walk a total of about 145km.

In preparation I have bought myself a few additional items from Decathlon:

• Pair of grey Quechua trousers, which like my craghopper ones have the option of unzipping the lower legs to turn them into shorts (On the last walk someone advised me to only take one pair of trousers but by the end of the week I found they began to smell!)

• Quechua Forclaz Light 15c 185cm/6'1" sleeping bag as I don't think me silk liner will be warm enough in the albergues in March.

• Camping First Aid Kit.

• Quechua Arpenaz 25l 157cm - 190cm rain poncho as I had a rucksack rain cover and a raincoat but found the rain down between my back and the rucksack and the rucksack still got damp.

The Valley of Baka

Psalm 84:5-7 NIVUK

"Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion".

I love these verses because they remind me that even if we have to travel through hard places spiritually, emotionally or physically, (one translation of Baka is weeping) if our hearts are set on following after God, they can be turned into places of blessing, refreshment and personal growth.