Completion

Santiago de Compostela: A holy city. An old city. A city once of huge religious significance - a significance that once colored the life of the City to such an extent that it is difficult for me to fully appreciate. But artifacts of this commitment to religion remain, although to me there seems a strong sense of faded glory. Somewhere in the hustle and bussel of this modern European city, now driven by commerce, government and education, there is a muffled voice calling out from the past still proclaiming the relevance of the spiritually lead life - at least the Roman Catholic version of it.

A holy City - third in ranking to Rome and Jerusalem in religious importance. How could it be that important - out in the hinterland of north-west Spain? It seems the reason is based on the miraculous revelation of the location of the remains of St. James, one of the twelve apostles. The only other remains of an apostle are Peter's in Rome. There was no city here prior to the discovery of St. James' remains in 813. So monumentally important was this find that today 1 cathedral with 18 chapels, 12 convents and monasteries, and 27 historic churches frame an extraordinary religious commitment to the relevance of St. James and his remains. Represented here with very significant buildings are the Carmelites, Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Sisters of St. Claire, Jesuits, Augustinians, Sisters of Mercy, and more. There is no mistaking the gravity of religious significance of this place in the Roman Catholic world.

A holy city - based on events that may be explained only by God's hand. I quote from a booklet: "According to ancient tradition, St. James, one of the 12 apostles, traveled to Hispania and came to Galicia, the end of the earth, the most western place, to spread Christianity. In the year 44, he's was executed in Jerusalem and refused burial. His disciples sailed the sea as far as Galicia, where they buried him. His tomb remained forgotten until, in the year 813, a shining light indicated the place where he was buried. The chapel that was erected on the site was eventually turned into a monumental Cathedral, which became the center of a marvelous levitical city. The discovery was followed by a series of miracles and apparitions, giving rise to numerous legends. Guided by the Milky Way, the itinerary marked in the sky, thousands of pilgrims started coming from distant European lands."

So this is the remarkable history of why there is today a Camino. Ted and I did not travel this path to pay homage to St. James or specifically to God. We did walk with an open mind and willingness to see our Christian path in new light, and to be guided in spiritual growth where the opportunity presented itself. What was my spiritual experience? - I will write this in a future blog - but I can say there was no grand epiphany or revelation. There was however meaningful experience that will likely affect my spirituality for the rest of my life, and in ways that I will fully understand only in the future.

Day 11 (October 12)

We arrived in Santiago and met Cathy an Sallie in front of the Cathedral. All is well and it's quite a relief to arrive and put the hiking boots and pack away. The old city is beautiful and vibrant. We had a great dinner and am now getting ready for bed. I will have a more complete update tomorrow.

Day 10 (October 11)

Would you believe it was another sunny, warm day! This is 33 days without rain for Ted, and everyone of those days was sunny. This must be some kind of record as this is definitely not normal.

Today we left O Coto at just after 8 am - somewhat late. I had a great sleep for about 10 hours - I never sleep for 10 hours. Well maybe tonight. We had our longest day - covering 35kms. Our original destination for the day was Arzua. We got there at 2:30. We both felt we could do more, but the next place we felt sure that there was accommodation was Brea, 15 kms further down the road. In our experience, that is an unusually long distance with no albergue. Another 15 on top of the 22 kms we had already walked seemed too much. However, we also had experienced that there were albergues, casa ruals, and pensions that were not in our book. Surely there were some in this 15 km stretch even though the books showed none. We checked with other pelegrinos around us, and there books also showed no places to stay. We then walked to the alberge in Arzua that some friends were planning to stay at. Fortunately the young lady behind the desk spoke sufficient English, and we asked her if she knew of a place to stay in this 15 km zone. She did and said it was in Salceda, about 10 kms down the trail. At our request, she phoned and made arrangements for us. Because the pension was not going to be staffed when we would arrive, she gave us their phone numbers. This seemed to work out well. Only another 10 kms, we have a reservation, we have contact phone numbers. This was OK as a friend taught us how to call locally using our Canadian cell phones.

Well, the body has limits. After the next 5 kms, my knee and the blister on my heel both started to pain. We arrived in Salceda and I was now in pain and tired. So where in Salceda is this place? I ask a local in his backyard for assistance which he willingly provides in Spanish only. He points out where it is, and off we go. When we get there, we can't find the place. We drop into a local restaurant who's owner indicates that's not a good place to stay. Well, what to do. Ted arranges for a taxi, due to my situation, to the next Town, Brea. But it's not a taxi with a taxi license that picks us up, it's a guy in a van that only speaks Spanish. We hop in and he delivers us to a nice pension about 2 kms down the road. But this guy isn't a taxi driver, he's the owner of the pension! Wow. He charged us 38 Euros for the room with 2 beds, and nothing for the ride. We all got something out of this deal, not quite what Ted and I were expecting - but it all worked out well.

So now we are within a long day's walk to Santiago. If we do this tomorrow, we'll be in a day early - not bad. Cathy and Sallie reach Santiago by train tonight. Will we be able to push ourselves and meet the tomorrow some time. Stay tuned ...

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Day 9 (October 10)

Wow - 9 days. In some ways it seems like 3 day, in others 1,000 days. Dare I say it - it was another beautiful sunny day with temperature maybe 25 to 27 max. We left Gonzar around 8am and arrived in O Coto about 3:30 after pounding away for 25 kms. The hills are still linear, but not as high or as steep. When we first got into the hills, we traversed them by walking up or down along their linear length. Now, we seem to go straight onto the hill and over their top. The runs up and down can be up to 2 kms of steady work. I have definitely increased my strength to do this and can climb the long trails without rest. After doing this 3 or 4 times in a day, it gets tiring. In fact today was the first day that I really felt like quitting early. I was tired and thirsty. But no, we have to go on. I said a little prayer for strength and pushed on even though I was tired. Would you be surprised if I told you that our intended stop point for the day did not work out, and we pushed on a further 3 kms. Figures! The day I'm tired early. Something comes to mind about not counting chickens before ...

Well, the place we are staying in is really quite nice and we had a lovely dinner with very nice people who run the place. I find it surprising that we can get along at being understood even though I speak hardly a word of Spanish, and they have only a few words of English. It all works. I'm now getting a sense of what they are saying even though I don't know the words.

We crossed paths again with Anna from Indiana - a nice reunion. She made me a sandwich from a long loaf and some type of olive sliced meat. It was yummy. We also met 3 young German girls who had surprisingly good English. It was interesting to hear them switch from German to English in the same sentence. They even had all the little phases that a native english person would use. Language is so fascinating.

Well, it's off to bed. 22 kms tomorrow - the average day.

How Catholic am I now?

This is an interesting question. I am not a Catholic and I never have been. But this is a pilgrimage, and if one is here for religious reasons, then there is probably some level of comfort or identification with Roman Catholicism. When this pilgimage began centuries ago, there was only the Roman church. I'm not sure how close the eastern church was to the Roman church 1,000 years ago, but let's say it was close as both came from the Roman root.
I think this question can quickly flash to a whole list of differences between Catholicism and Anglicanism. However, in comparison to other protestants, it seems to me that Anglicans are the closest of the protestants to Catholics. We are definitely not the same, in some very critical areas, but we are similar.
Given the similarity of Angicanism to Catholicism, I would say that makes me a 50% Catholic. (Some may strongly disagree with this concept and I would understand that - they just do not understand my head space on this). Add the impact and learning from the cusillio experience and I think that adds another 10%. While cusillio started in the Catholic church in Spain, some will argue that the version I went through was Anglicanized. While I agree with this, there is nothing in Angicanism that I have experienced, heard about, or read about that is anything like the cusillio experience. It's Catholic roots are still very visible in my view.
So now I'm up to 60% Catholic. To this I will add the experience of the pilgrimage. While there are no priests walking with us or pulling us into churches for conversion discussions, the thread of the Catholic church is very evident, if not mostly in my own mind due to my own limited understanding of Catholicism and the history of the Roman church. The experience of the pilgrimage reinforces some very basic religious concepts: that spiritual progress occurs with work; that even though there are obstacles to spiritual growth, hard work and determination will yield results; miracles are available to those with the correct perspective. Are these concepts strongest within Catholicism or Anglicanism. I would say the former. So I'm giving myself another 5% because I now more fully believe in these concepts.
So, there you have it. Based on my overly narrow and simplistic approach, I would say I'm 65% Catholic, even though I'm very much an Anglican. Wow, we can have some great debates over this!

Day 8 (October 9)

Another incredible day of sun. We started off at 7:15 in blackness partially lit by a beautiful array of stars. It took about an hour for there to be enough light to turn out our head lamps. The morning was very cool. We walked among the well treed ridges and valleys of Galacia as we continued westward to our destination of Gonzar - a very small town west of Portomarin. We had expected a 25 km day. However there were two section of the trail closed for reconstruction. We made detours that added time to the trip. By the time we arrived at the albergue at 3:30 we were pretty tired. Another peligrino has a pedometer which read 29.3 kms for our exact trip. That's a lot of detour!

We had a lovely lunch in Portomarin with another peligrino. She is walking alone and related a story that had occured to her a couple of days ago. I will not get into the details here, but there is a real risk of harm for women walking alone. Some areas are very remote and there are not always other peligrinos close by on the trail. Apparently, there have always been security issues for peligrinos.

I also had a very nice discussion with a gentleman from Holland that started his walk in France. Total trip is something like 1600 kms. That's big!

Well, as of today I have completed 180 kms. The walk today physically went well overall, but I continue to have upper shin pain in the morning that slows me down and creates discomfort. I'm really not sure what drives this. I'm wondering if the cold mornings are part of it? Or if the muscles need to be worked for a few hours to get loose? Hopefully tomorrow will be better!