I started this blog 12 years ago in 2011 when I last had a sabbatical and I am ‘opening’ it again for this time of reflection. For those who don’t know me, my name is Ruth Maxey and I am a United Reformed Church minister. I have three grown up children, two sons in their 20s on the ASD spectrum and living at home (Tom and Sam) and an 18 year old daughter who has just finished her A levels (Hannah). Plus, of course, my husband Dave who is my rock.
For the last 10 years I have been working as a Pioneer Minister in an ecumenical partnership (Walton Churches Partnership) in the new estates of Broughton & Brooklands in Milton Keynes. Over those 10 years I have had the privilege of starting and growing a new church community called Church Without Walls and a large part of my sabbatical will be writing up that story. But I will also be spending time visiting new church communities in Europe, on retreat in Taize and walking a part of the Camino de Santiago.
My sabbatical is drawing to an end. Only a couple more days before I am officially back but I am already beginning to pick up the threads of ministry. On Sunday I joined our church community for Forest Church. There was a multitude of scooters and children speeding in all directions in the cold but beautiful autumn sunshine. We stopped at a bridge over the canal, and I was struck by the Larry’s reflection: many bridges have a keystone, the central wedge-shaped stone found at the apex of a masonry arch. But the canal bridge we were looking at had no keystone, rather it was held together by all the individual bricks. Each brick was, in a way, a keystone, crucial to holding the bridge up. As a church community we each have our place and are crucial to the bridge staying up. As I looked at this old bridge and watched the children and adults chalk their initials onto the bricks, I reflected how I can too often see myself as ‘the keystone’. I had worried so much before my sabbatical about how they would ‘manage without me’, but as was said to me at Forest Church as we walked in the sunshine “Not saying we didn’t miss you, but we were fine, the church was fine!”
What do I bring back from this rich time away? How do I hold on to some of the insights and experiences? One simple concrete thing I bring back as a gift for the church community is the story of CWW which I have finished. I hope there will be a way for people to reflect on the community that together we have built and that will continue to grow and change. A messy community of people trying to follow the way of Jesus in these new and different times. (You can find a PDF copy on this blog). I also bring some thoughts for myself on how I want to try and walk a little differently on this journey of life and faith. But also, some questions and ideas for CWW as a community to begin to reflect on.
I found the book ‘A Ruthless Elimination of Hurry’ very challenging, particularly as someone who tends to take life at speed. One very small, but practical change, is that I will be turning my phone off every evening (unless we have a meeting) and all-day Monday (my day off). Such a small thing, but I hope it will be part of trying to take life at a slower more reflective pace. I used to sit in bed with my phone both at the beginning and the end of the day. In the mornings I would launch straight into emails and WhatsApp, a habit that feels like pushing off at the starting line of a race rather than offering the day and all that might unfold into God’s hands. At nighttime it would set my mind whirring rather than quietly holding all that has happened before God.
I have returned to my early morning swims but rather than setting the alarm so there is only just enough time to get there and back, I am waking earlier, listening to ‘Pray-as-you go’ (such a good daily prayer app) and having enough time for the sauna too! 15 minutes less sleep for a slower paced start in the morning. As I drive back, I see all the Mum’s on their way to school corralling the children and am thankful for this precious early morning time that for much of the last 20 years has been full of children and school run. (A tip for those on the school run, I used to listen to Pray-as-you-go on my walk back from dropping kids at school, the first quiet moment in the day).
One of the gifts of the time walking the Camino was that I let go of my constant forward planning and focused on the very specific challenge of that day; often it would simply be aiming for the next stop, or the top of the hill. I am a very future focused person; I don’t dwell on the past (in fact I have a terrible memory and frequently forget it!) but I do constantly look forward, plan ahead and, therefore, worry! To try each day to focus on the challenges of this day and not the unknown challenges of tomorrow, the next day, the next week. To place the future, each day, into God’s hands, remains, for me, one of the hardest things to do. As I return, full of plans for the future, I need to constantly pull myself back, imagine I am walking the Camino again and look simply at the challenges of today’s walk.
During my sabbatical I signed up, on my personal email, to the weekly CWW email and have so much enjoyed the wide range of reflections that people from across the CWW community have shared. (I am reproducing quite a number of them as part of the story of CWW). I have been reminded of the rich depths of faith within the community, of the diversity of people’s experiences and the people’s willingness to share their vulnerabilities. As I reconnect it has also been so good to see how the community has continued, and I hope, flourished in this time. A personal challenge for me is always to remind myself that I am not the ‘keystone’. Each and everyone of us is an important brick in the bridge, none of us is ‘the church’, we all are, and the only keystone is Jesus who we seek to follow.
For the church community there have been so many interesting reflections as I have visited other new church communities across Europe and reflected on our own community. These are probably the key ones as we move forward:
CWW grew out of a strong partnership and connection with the local community, a vision of ‘blessing’ our local community and kingdom building. It is very easy as we become more established as a ‘normal’ church to lose that focus. To shift to a concern only about what happens on a Sunday. How as a community do we maintain that outward looking focus at the centre of who we are as a church community? (My reflections on my visit to Hecht in the Netherlands and Mandak House in Hungry are particularly relevant)
The church is the whole community who together seek to follow the way of Jesus, but we have struggled in recent years to find ways in which we can share together in decision making. How do we find ways to engage the whole church community in questions of the direction and focus of our life together? This is both a practical challenge (how on earth do we find a time that suits everyone to meet?) and a deeper faith challenge as we move to an understanding that “we hear the Spirit speak to the church through members gathered together.” Open Forum has been the format we have used but we maybe need to explore again how and when those gatherings happen.
The life of our church community must always be underpinned by prayer. By space for deepening our relationship with God. We are a community that, we hope, always looks outwards to those who are new to faith, who are dipping their toe into the life of faith and beginning to explore what it might mean. We aim to have worship that is accessible for those who come from little or no church background. For families with noisy kids and adults looking for new friendships. But we must continue to find places for quiet prayer and reflection and that is easy to get lost. Where in our life together can we find a place for prayer? Both as groups together and encouraging people in their personal prayer life.
The first book I read on my sabbatical was ‘Friends in Christ’ by Brother John of Taize. One of the many challenges from that book was around how we create spaces for building deep and meaningful relationships of faith within our community and how we make sure that we are always open to friendship and relationship with the most unlikely people. We have a number of small groups in our community which have been places of vulnerable sharing and deepening of faith, but they have nearly always been in the daytime and not accessible for those who are in full time work. How do we explore ways in which we come together as ‘friends in Christ’ to share more deeply on the journey of faith, particularly for those people whose lives are stretched to the limit with work and family demands?
During my sabbatical I have been knitting squares, a huge pile of multicoloured, slightly different sized squares are now sitting ready to be crocheted together into a blanket. The blanket is both a bit like my sabbatical, a rich and varied offering that I am not sure how it will fit together. And, a bit like the church community, a rich and varied community that, with a bit of help here and there and creative crocheting, surprisingly fits together!
We made it! 149km over seven days of walking, definitely a case of the tortoise and the hare as our slow but steady walking got us there in the end. Santiago de Compestela is a stunningly beautiful city that feels more like an Italian city (Esther kept saying how it reminded her of Florence). There is a large medieval centre focused on the cathedral and surrounded with squares and narrow streets heaving with tired, but elated, walkers.
Our day, though, began 20 kilometres away in O Pedrouzo, walking on a misty dark morning at 7.15am through beautiful, slightly spooky, woods. The darkness was full of the twinkling headlights of the trail of walkers all heading for Santiago. The morning walk was so much prettier than I had expected, mostly through woods, but, of course very busy with a buzz of excitement. We would be constantly overtaken by waves of walkers and for a time walk quietly on our own before the next wave. But we would also catch up and pass familiar faces who had stopped before us on the way.
Our breakfast stop was just after we had passed the end of the airport runway for Santiago, a tiny hamlet with a few old houses, a simple stone church and two cafes for all the walkers. We could have been back in the countryside except for the occasional sound of aircraft landing.
As we walked through more beautiful forests the sound of music drifted through the trees. I thought at first one of the young walkers was playing music and then Esther said, “I can hear bagpipes!”. Along the path there was a busker playing the bagpipes, a traditional instrument for Galacia, the part of Spain we are in. It was really magical as the sound echoed along the path piping us on our way to Santiago.
We were tired, somehow having the end in sight made all the aches and pains more noticeable. The waymarkers counting down were an encouragement and we got a photo at the 10km mark (Esther had particularly hoped for a 0 km at the Cathedral and was rather disappointed that the waymarkers seemed to disappear from around 5km).
By the time we had reached our lunch stop the morning mist, which had hung around for a long time, finally lifted so that we were able to enjoy the fantastic view point where the Cathedral is in sight in the distance at only 5 km away. The last section felt as if it went on forever as we entered the busy suburbs of Santiago. The Cathedral was no longer in view and while there were arrows showing the way the encouraging ‘countdown’ in kilometres had stopped.
Once we entered the medieval city we got well and truly lost, our legs aching, bags heavy and feeling too foolish to ask ‘Where is the Cathedral?’ Finally with the help of Google maps we were suddenly there, the square full of pilgrims sitting on bags, hugging, taking photos. It was a wonderful moment and quite emotional to finally have made it. We sat for a while simply taking in the atmosphere and relishing the achievement.
That evening we collected our certificates; the pilgrim passport with all the stamps from the journey are proof that you have really made the pilgrimage and only then can you receive a certificate! Afterwards we went to the evening Mass at the Cathedral, it was packed. We arrived thirty minutes early and only just got a seat. I am not a big fan of huge ornate churches, I struggle with what they are saying about what it means to follow Jesus. But it was good to be there and felt an appropriate conclusion. It was entirely in Spainish (of course) and the tiredness of the walk meant I found myself drifting off at times. For me it was the moment when we shared the peace with those around us, so many different nationalities, people I half recognised from different moments on the walk. The worldwide nature of the Christian faith, people from around the world following Jesus in their own way and connecting in this ancient place with the pilgrims over the centuries.
And now it is farewell to the Camino, to Esther my special travelling companion, as I travel on to meet Dave in Barcelona for a few days. I have loved this time of walking, and sharing it with such a dear old friend, a time to treasure. The simplicity of simply getting up and walking each day, of a new place each night to unpack and make briefly home.
It is also coming to the end of my sabbatical, I have a few weeks left when I get back to finish off my writing and to begin to reconnect with life at home. It has been so good to have the opportunity to travel so much, to see so much in other places, to look beyond. But I am also so blessed that when I think of coming back it isn’t with dread but a sense of anticipation, of sharing again with my Church community and looking forward with them to whatever the future holds for all of us.
Santiago is in sight, less than 20 kilometres to go and the first blisters of the walk have appeared as if to remind me that we are not there yet. We set off at 7.15am in the dark, the sky clear and star lit, a sign of the cloudless heat to come later. We were glad of others up early who walked with head torches and helped guide our way until we soon reached the street lights of the suburban town of Arzua. The cafes were full of people having a quick breakfast or coffee to set them up for the day and there was a constant stream of people joining the walkers as we made our way through the town. It was almost like the Pied Piper, but there was no leader.
Throughout the day waves of walkers would come past us and then for a while it would be quieter before another wave came past. Few people say ‘Buen Camino’ anymore…too many people to greet! The sounds of conversations blend together in Spanish, Italian, English and a considerable number of Japanese. There are day walkers and the sun browned huge backpack walkers who have clearly come a long way.
The dawn light was beautiful, a pinky sky with shapes of mountains in the distance, although nothing will be as special as our first day walking high up in the mountains. While we were at our breakfast stop we noticed a police car come and stop by the path and three policemen get out. Soon there were pilgrims stopping as they walked past and we realised that the police were offering stamps for our pilgrim passports as well as a photo opportunity if you wanted! We couldn’t resist and got a photo and stamp!
Today’s walk was one of our longest but we made good progress in the morning, determined to do as much as possible before it got too hot. Luckily much of the walking was once again winding through lovely wooded paths often covered in a carpet of spiky chestnuts. The afternoon was slower but we arrived by 4pm at our hotel/hostel for the night. The first one in a town with little view, no garden but clean comfy bed and showers and cafes nearby.
Esther reflected on the way that the Camino had been far less ‘religious’ or faith focused than she had imagined. There is a real sense of the historical religious nature of the path but few of the churches have been open and there has been little sense of contemporary faith. I think she is right, many people, I suspect, do not walk for any specific religious reason. For myself I find walking a reflective spiritual time, I don’t know, though, whether walking this particular path has a deeper meaning than walking others? Maybe it is, in fact, that connection with the past, the sense that my faith today is linked to those who have walked this way for 100s of years? Tomorrow we plan to go to the Mass in the Cathedral in the evening and I am sure it will feel a special moment.
I am sitting in the shade as the multi coloured washing from many pilgrims (ourselves included) gently blows in the warm breeze. I have a pot of tea, which I am rather proud of as I first had to buy a cup of milk from the nextdoor cafe, then hunt in the hostel kitchen for some mugs (and miraculously found a teapot, minus lid, and matching milk jug), then work the cooker to heat the water and finally with my teabags, that have travelled the Camino with me, make the perfect pot of tea!! Bliss at the end of the day.
We had a lovely relaxing rest day yesterday with the sun shining at the beautiful hostel/hotel we were staying at. The husband was English (from Cornwall) and was the most amazing cook. So as well as time to rest, read and do some washing we had the most delicious meals and felt truly spoilt.
It was good, though, to get back on the Camino and we set off this morning at 8.15am after a yummy breakfast. The sky was clear and a dusty pink, not a rain cloud in sight. It was 1.5km to the Camino from our accommodation and as we got nearer we could see ahead a steady stream of people with rucksacks and walking sticks, we were back on our way.
The book described todays path as ‘undulating’ which suggests something quite gentle, but really means a day going up and down! It was a pretty path, though, well away from the main road and often through beautiful wooded paths. There were significantly more people today but, I suspect, many were Spanish day walkers as they would fly past us with tiny day packs chatting happily together…it is, after all a Sunday!
At one point as we walked through a beautiful wooded area, with many magnificent huge mushrooms growing in the shade, we came upon a group of Spanish children, with a couple of adults, out mushroom collecting. They gaily shouted ‘Buen Camino’ before running at speed past us down the hill we were gingerly tackling.
Our stop for tonight is by a river and is both quiet, surrounded as it is by fields, and a buzzing ‘pilgrim’ stop with two hostels and a couple of cafe/restaurants. I enjoy the constant movement from one place to another, never sure what it will be like and always enjoying the surprise of a new place. Esther laughs at the way we have the same habits when we arrive as we did when we travelled together 33 years ago; I instantly have to unpack, put my things in their proper place, have a shower and change, whereas she likes to arrive and lie on her bed until I am sorted!!
As I have walked today I have thought often of my Church Without Walls family meeting today for Dinner Church and how it will be good next month to be back with everyone. But I have also thought what a special gift this time has been to step back, to pause, to just be for a while. One of the things about walking like this is that most of the time I can think no further than the top of the hill ahead of me…it constantly brings me back to this present moment and God’s presence with me in the here and now.
It was dark and wet as we left our tiny hostel early on Friday morning in full rain gear for the first time. By the time we had climbed to the top of the first hill the grey dawn was lighting the sky and the rain had turned to mizzle. (In Spanish ‘Melura’, faint rain that falls softly.)
There were large sections of our walk alongside a fairly busy road and at one point, early in the morning, our Danish friend on his mobility scooter came flying by waving to us. As we trudged up the hill his style of Camino suddenly seemed more attractive!
Back on the smaller path breakfast was at a small, but busy, hostel with the buzz of many different languages attempting to order breakfast. Fresh orange juice, coffee and toast always tastes so good after an hour walking. The rain had stopped and we carried on with our raincoats packed away, but it was to be a day of sunshine and showers with frequent stops to change our rain gear… neither of us were particularly agile in our attempts to put on or take off our waterproof trousers and we must have been quite a sight!
We wound down the hill past old farmhouses, many with large free roaming dogs that seem to be so common on the Camino, and yet despite my initial nervousness on the first few days never seem to bark or show any interest in the numerous walkers. Ahead there was a crowd of walkers outside a small hostel and the sound of a bell frequently rung. As we came nearer we noticed a small group clearly praying and realised it was the small Christian run hostel I had read about. The sign by the bell encouraged you to ring it if there was something you were grateful for, after the use of their loo I knew exactly what I was grateful for!! I think Esther’s gratitude ‘prayer’ was maybe a little more meaningful!
While the numbers of pilgrims on the Camino has increased it simply means you can probably see a walker or two in the distance both ahead and behind, it is not in any sense crowded. The walk down to Palas de Rei was again often on tarmac and not as pretty as previous days. We have, though, continued to spot ‘horreo’ unique grain stores found only in this part of Spain that Esther has become rather obsessed with photographing. They are rather fascinating and beautiful in their own way and a reminder that we are walking in Spain and not rural England.
It poured with rain while we were having lunch which meant we had a longer stop than planned, no hardship to sit drinking coffee while waiting for the rain to ease. The afternoon was more sunshine and less showers and we headed back into more rural areas through beautiful wooded paths. We were both ready for our rest day on Saturday and our hotel/hostel for the two nights was 1.5km off the Camino, a gentle downhill past eucalyptus groves with a sweet smell.
Just before we arrived we suddenly came to, what can only be described as a scar on the landscape, a huge gash where a major road is being built. It felt quite shocking to turn the corner and see a major bridge and diggers and to then go past again back onto a tiny country road. I wonder what the impact will be for the area? Better transport links but also increased noise and traffic?
What a fabulous place to have two nights! A complex of stone buildings with views of fields and gentle hills. A comfy living room with books and games, perfect to sit and read and write on our rest day. And then the food!! Every review had said the food was amazing and it did not disappoint, top restaurant standard but the cheap Camino price.
I have found myself beginning to reflect more on returning to CWW after my sabbatical, thinking about what I will bring back but also how it will be important to listen to the community about how this time has been for them. It would be so easy to come back bursting with energy and ideas and to not stop and first listen, particularly, to those who have carried more during this time.
Today is our rest day and it stretches ahead after a late breakfast with plenty of time for reading. Later today we might go for a short walk to a nearby castle, but that will be the limit of our walking!
I woke briefly in the night to hear torrential rain and was glad that Esther had brought my socks in from the washing line. By morning the sky was grey and threatening rain so after a quick breakfast (it was included in our stay, so not to be missed) we started off just after 8am in full rain gear.
The night before we had gone for a brief post dinner stroll and nearby had come upon one of the many tiny chapels that can be found on the Camino, this one, unlike many, was open. Inside the walls were covered in graffiti, but not of the usual sort instead “Jesus loves you” and “know you are loved” were a few of the English graffiti to be seen. The altar was a sight to behold, at the back was a statue of Jesus almost submerged in the photos, papers and knick-knacks that covered the entire altar. It seemed to me to be such an image of the way that Jesus somehow holds the messy chaos of our lives. Esther took a photo which maybe shows more clearly what it was like.
The grey morning brought little rain and we soon packed away our rain coats as we slowly made our way down the path towards the next main town, Portomarin. Our legs felt considerably less stiff than the day before and we fell into a gentle rhythm. The views were pretty but not as spectacular as those first few morning.
Portomarin is the town that moved! It is just up the hill from a river and if you stand on the bridge you can see the shapes of previous buildings on the banks of the river. Portomarin was moved up the hill, stone by stone, in 1956 because of daming further up stream and therefore the high risk of flooding. What a remarkable thing to do, to move a whole town. I wondered if there were people who remembered the town where it was? The same buildings but different views? At the centre of the town is an 800 year old historic church that looks as if it has been there forever but was moved up the hill. There was something so strange and fascinating about the idea.
Over an early lunch in the square at Portomarin we got chatting with a Danish man who was doing the Camino on a mobility scooter. He had started in France and was doing the whole 500km. With the aid of ‘google translate’ he explained that following a brain haemorrhage he had decided to undertake the Camino as his journey of rehabilitation. He wryly commented that his wife had said “you can do it, but I am not!” I was amazed that he had undertaken such a journey on a mobility scooter, and he proudly showed us what a superior model of scooter it was. I was pleased to see he had a helmet, incase of falls or crashes, and he said how wonderful all the people on the way had been.
I was reminded of my Dad who had also been very adventurous on his mobilty scooter; of our last holiday with him in Wales and pushing the scooter up various hills when the battery was struggling. He would have loved the idea of the seeming madness of doing the Camino on a scooter. Esther and I continued our journey once again rather inspired by the way different people were making the journey in their own unique way.
The afternoon began with a beautiful wooded climb away from Portomarin, after that the path spent time alongside the road (which was less attractive) but also turned back into the countryside at various points. We found a cafe just as the rain briefly returned and then walked the last few kilometres to our tiny hostel for the night. It is in a small hamlet right on the Camino. We had been warned there was no where to eat locally so had bought a small picnic at the supermarket in Portomarin and are now sitting outside with tea and chocolate greeting both the local cats and the occasional Camino walkers as they pass by.
We have arrived at our Hotel/Hostel for the night. It is in a tiny hamlet but buzzing with life as it serves the Camino walkers and cyclists who pass it’s doors. The large bar was full of people enjoying a drink and a rest before heading off to journey onwards. We put our rucksacks in our room (failing miserably in our attempts not to groan as we staggered up the steps) and then enjoyed a cup of tea on the peaceful terrace that looked out to the hills and forests surrounding.
We had set off at 7.30am before breakfast this morning as the dawn was breaking, the sky once again awash with colour. Despite the gentle downhill path we felt every step as our legs got used to the rhythm of walking again after the exertions of the previous day. Day two was clearly going to be harder than day one.
Breakfast felt hard earned as we reached Sarria, a busy town that is, for many, the beginning of the Camino. For those, like us, who are only able to do a week most begin in Sarria as it meets the requirement of walking a 100 kilometres in order to ‘count’ as a pilgrim. We found the perfect spot for our much needed coffee and toast in a small old square. On the table next to us an older English man sat down and ordered eggs and bacon. Chatting with him later we discovered he was 80 years old and walking the whole 500 kilometer Camino!! I was in awe. He had started in June but following an injury had had to stop, but was now back finishing where he had left off. His advice was to pace yourself and take rest days, wise words.
We climbed up out of Sarria through beautiful ancient woods. Everywhere there are chestnut trees laden with green prickly fruit looking like strange apples in the trees. As we came out of the woods (less steep than yesterday) the landscape was wide and green with fields of corn.
The Camino was busier today, as all the guide books said it would be; there were cyclists shouting ‘Buen Camino’ as they raced passed, far more walkers, (even one or two slower than us!) but it was still spacious and companionable.
After our lunch stop for tortilla and orange juice we continued our slow and gentle ascent. It was greyer today with occasional smattering of rain, never enough to warrant stopping to get our raincoats out. A small white cat said hello and there were fields of honey coloured cows with huge horns, but no bells today.
Everyone is doing the Camino their own way, that is a constant refrain. Some have their bags transported between hostels and just have a day bag to carry, others are walking the whole way, carrying everything and sleeping in dormatories. There is no right way, we make the journey as we are able in our own way.
The sky was full of stars as we packed up ready for an early start on our first day. By the time we had had breakfast and set off at 8am the early morning colour was creeping over the hills. It was the most beautiful start to the Camino with the mist floating in the valleys below, like strange white pools, and the soft sound of the cow bells occasionally breaking the stillness. The path wound round and down the hillside with the mist slowly dispersing and the the valleys emerging.
We walked and talked, as Esther and I always do, meandering through our lives, pausing to listen to the silence or admire the views. Occasionally other walkers would pass with the cry of “Buen Camino”, we did not pass anyone as we were taking seriously the ‘slow down’ mantra (and to be honest we are not fast walkers!)
By 10.30am we had covered 8km and reached the pretty tiny village of Triacastela where we stopped for fresh orange juice. After that the walking got tougher as we climbed and climbed through forest paths, Esther far ahead of me, waiting at intervals as I caught up.
What is such a joy on the Camino is the frequent stone markers telling you how many kilometres to Santiago, it is such an encouragement to see the kilometres counting down when you have laboured up a tough path. There are also, at every turn, a yellow arrow and Camino ‘shell’ painted or embedded on the wall reassuring you of the direction you are taking. To know the way you are heading is so important on the journeys we take, whether physical or spiritual. The way may still be hard but the markers that point us on and the encouragement of ‘Buen Camino’ from other travelers can ease our way.
After the slow upward path we had a brief respite as once again the views of the green and lush valleys below came into view and the path wound round the side of the hill. Honey coloured cows with sweet eyed calfs came to say hello before we took a steep forest path down, thank goodness for the walking poles that saved my knees from giving way.
We found a stone ‘bench’ off the path with a stone labyrinth in amongst the trees and ate our sandwichs purchased that morning…. nothing tastes as good as a sandwich after a long walk! I contemplated walking the labyrinth, but by then the thought of walking any extra steps seemed madness so after a rest we continued.
The path we are walking is a path that has been walked by pilgrims for 100s of years and there are constant reminders of the way we are walking in the footsteps of so many faithful people from the past. There are small tiny chapels found in tiny hamlets along the way and ancient stone markers of the pilgrim path. The sense of continuity with the past is everywhere but also there are reminders of the way the Camino is now a ‘modern’ pilgrimage which, for so many, has no connection with the Christian faith from which it was born but is about a time to reconnect with our bodies, with the simple things of life, the rhythm of walking from place to place. To me these things are not incompatible, it is a Christian pilgrimage route that is accessible and connects far more widely.
After our long steep walk down, and as we neared the end of today’s walk (about 25km in total) we came to a lovely small cafe which was the perfect stop for a cup of tea. After some gentle instruction and providing my own tea bag (what a great idea to use a cafetiere as a tea pot) we sat enjoying ‘Santiago Cake’ (I must find the recipe) and the perfect cup of tea!
Our ‘hotel’ for tonight is in a tiny hamlet and as I sit outside in the late afternoon sunshine listening to the silence I am grateful for this special time, and also hope that I don’t ache too much in the morning!
The city was only just waking up as we walked to the station at Barcelona. I had managed to make us an early morning cup of tea (this will be my mission at every hostel/hotel we stay at!) and we were ready for the next stage of our journey. The warmth in the air and the palm trees on the streets were a reminder of how far south we were.
This was the first time on a Spainish train in this summer of train travel, yesterdays train from Paris to Barcelona had been French. Comfy seats, loads of luggage space and views of the hills as the sun came up. A good strong coffee and croissant from the buffet car and time to look at the Camino guide as we begin to realise that we are really doing this. In many ways I feel ill prepared as I look at the hills and miles we are to cover, but equally I think of the song I listened to on ‘pray-as-you-go’ this morning, the words were so apt: “Slow down! Don’t worry, walk with me”.
When we got off the train at 9.30pm last night in Barcelona we sped off in the direction of the hotel, stomping along together. Esther suddenly said “lets just slow down, there is no rush” and we both realised that was exactly what we needed to do. To walk slowly, gently, to notice the sights and sounds around us, we would be at the hotel soon enough.
We changed trains in Madrid and the air was cool as we worked out how to cross the city. The views from our second train as we headed towards Ourense were stunning, the landscape shifting to dusty yellow with small scrub bushes and trees clinging onto rolling hills that emerged and disappeared. Now and then a river came bursting into view and sometimes huge forests would stretch ahead, but towns and villages were only rarely seen.
33 years ago Esther and I travelled together across India for six months, an amazing and formative time that we both were reminded of as we settled into our travels. One thing that is so different (apart from our age, which I rarely feel, but I suspect, once walking every day I will be rudely reminded of) is technology and specifically mobile phones. 33 years ago we had such limited ways in which to communicate or keep in touch with the outside world and family and friends at home. My mother would send weekly letters to ‘post restante’ addresss (post offices where we guessed we would be at any given time). The letters took at least a week so we were always out of sync. International calls could also be made from the post offices in big cities but had to be booked and were rare. I had a small short wave radio in order to listen to the world service and keep in touch with the news. It was on that radio I learnt that Iraq had invaded Kuwait and realised that our flight home with Iraqi Airways might be a problem! How much has changed in intervening years and our ease of communication is both a gift and at times a curse, but it is good to be traveling again with Esther on a very different journey.
We changed trains again in a small Galician town called Ourense and had two and a half hours to explore, so we wandered down to the nearby river and there discovered natural hot springs and a series of free public pools to bath it. What an unexpected treat, and thank goodness I had squeezed my costume in! It felt unbelievable to be sitting in boiling hot natural springs in the midst of our journey across Spain.
After a bus replacement service (they happen everywhere!) and a winding minibus we arrived at our hostel in a tiny hamlet up in the rolling hills. It was SO quiet, with the dusty pink clouds as the sun said farewell. Tomorrow our Camino really begins… although I feel these two days of travelling have, in their way, been the beginning of our pilgrimage.
We are on the long train journey from Paris to Barcelona, the countryside is green and rolling but, I am sure will change and shift as we move further south. Time to read and reflect a bit before my days are dominated by the simple task of walking.
It is many, many years since I have read the brilliant book called ‘Falling Upwards’ by Richard Rohr where he explores spiritually for the second half of life. I was struck straight away by this line in the opening chapter:
“Homes are not meant to be lived in – but only to be moved out from.” It was part of a reflection on the need for us to journey, to move on in our spiritual lives and the way that the “familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently.” Maybe one of the purposes of this summer of travel is to shake me physically out of the familiar and therefore to enable me to also begin to journey spiritually.
At the heart of this book is the idea that there are two projects in our lives, one, which is the focus for the first half of life, is all about the establishing of identity through work, relationships, all the things by which we create a sense of self. But the second focus in our lives, the harder project is “the task within the task”. As Richard puts it so well: “What we are really doing when we are doing what we are doing”. It is the heart of life, the thing that underpins and makes the difference and moves us from a focus that is about just getting through life, survival, to something more:
“As Bill Plotline, a wise guide, puts it, many of us learn to do our “survival dance,” but we never get to our actual “sacred dance.”.
The title ‘Falling Upwards’ points to a core theme, that we need to go down before we can come up. This theme is, of course, at the heart of the Christian faith – death and resurrection. It is only as the seed dies in the ground that new birth comes. Yet, so often the Christian faith has bought into a ‘progress’ model, that we are moving forwards and upwards and the place of failure, of ‘falling down’ has been lost.
As I read this section I was aware of my own ‘perfectionist’ tendancy, and found this line both challenging and liberating “the demand for the perfect is the greatest enemy of the good”. To let go of the pressure to be first, to be best, to let go of the fear of falling and failure is fundamentally about trust and faith. We cannot “make” ourselves “good” and in fact “we grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right”.
Of course we rarely choose to ‘go down’ and in the first half of life we do need some successes, affirmation to help form our sense of identity, but then we need to be open to all that we can learn from facing our mess ups, our imperfection and realise that through that we will find deeper meaning.
I was thinking of the conversation I had with my wise sabbatical supervisor as I pondered. How ‘driven’ am I to be ‘productive’ during this sabbatical? Even writing this blog can be seen as part of that desire for some sort of outcome from this time. I do not want to feel the time is ‘wasted’. Yet the message that constantly comes through is the importance of letting go, of ‘wasting’ time, of falling down.
In the English language we talk about ‘falling’ in love. There is a letting go that is part of trusting ourselves to the love of another. We also would rarely go willing to the vulnerable place that love involves, we have to fall into it. When we fall down spiritually it is similar, it is also a place of love and a place of vulnerability that we would struggle to choose.
“Great love is always a discovery, a revelation, a wonderful surprise, a falling into “something” much bigger and deeper that is literally beyond us and larger than us”.
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