Finisterre

Fisterre, Finisterre, or “The End of the Earth”; it is here that I write today. I sit on a rocky outcropping next to a granite cross, at the very end of this Cabo de Finisterre, under the Faro or lighthouse that guides seamen around its rough sholes. I have jauntily walked the 2.5 kilometers from town to this end of the earth. The sun is shining brightly, the sky is blue above but increasingly white as it recedes to the misty horizon at the far end of the sea. The shine of the sun glistens silver off the surface of the sea, itself rippled and dippled by the lightest of breezes. It is just about perfect.

On the pillars of two steel towers all manner of pilgrim clothing have been strung and they flap dirtily in the breeze. On the arms and ledges of the granite cross small stones hold down folded pieces of paper with prayers and hopes and words of gratitude hastily scribbled on them. I have no pen with me but I must do something too, so I take my handkerchief, the one that has been in my back pocket for all these days on the road, the one embroidered with a fancy “R” for “Robert”, for this old rag once was my dad’s best handkerchief, which somehow I inherited, and I set it under a stone too, just above an almost hidden carving of Santiago in the base of the cross. There, I’ve done it. I’ve finished this pilgrimage. I’ve reached the geographical end of Europe, the end of the earth for previous generations who did not yet know of America.

I gaze out to the perfect line of the horizon- next stop: America. And I’ve reached the end of this particular pilgrimage of heart and spirit, too. Goodbye, dear road. Tot later, wonderful Weg. Au revoir, beautiful Chemin. Adios, gracious Camino. Thank you. Dank U, Merci, Gracias. My eyes well, I suppose for the last time out here. I hope I will be back someday not too far off. If not, I have already been plenty changed and much enriched, and so humbled and will always be more grateful than any words can express. I love this earth. I love its Creator. I love my brother and Lord Jesus, I love Big Jim. I love all those who have been so good to me and have accompanied me along the way on foot and in spirit.

I end the geographical part of this pilgrimage here at Fisterre and I now end this blog here, too. The greater pilgrimage of life continues, of course, and I am now ready for whatever is next. May we all be blessed on our way.

St. James, pray for us!

Santiago, Day 5

Today was an "alone day" in Santiago: no friends, no guides, just me and the great company of saints who cheer us on from their side of the Kingdom of God. It has been most probably also my final full day in this city. I did my best to make the most of it in my own way and according to my own speed and tempo, just like the camino itself. I got business out of the way first by finding an orthopedic store and asking about a soft foot brace that is used during the night to stretch those aching foot tendons and thereby, hopefully, heal them. The man at the desk professionally dressed in a clean white smock had never heard of such a thing and offered me some silicon insoles instead. I didn´t buy them. I then walked across the street to a peluqueria and got my hair cut, a sort of contemporary living of the medieval custom of pilgrims burning their clothes as a sign of leaving behind their old lives and beginning a new one. The young lady behind the sheers took plenty off; my gray mop was everywhere when she was done. I felt rather like a shorn sheep; I don´t think my hair has been this short since I was a 11 year old on summer vacation. But the feeling of letting go of the old and looking forward with hope towards what is to come was real enough as I headed back up the hill towards the Cathedral of Santiago. I was there just in time for the noon pilgrim Mass, tucked into a pew and joined in the liturgy from the pilgrim side of the sanctuary. The aged priest who presided stepped forward after the Gospel reading and gave a stem-winder of a homily and it was good; who would have guessed he had so much passion in him! It lifted my spirits to watch him and listen to him preach the Good News with enthusiasm and fire. Afterwards, I stayed in the church for awhile, then after the crowds thinned, (to go to lunch, I suppose), I stepped back down into the crypt for a brief visit at Santiago´s relics. Then to lunch myself, a little rest in my room and back into town to visit a couple of museums before going back to the Cathedral for a more prolonged and serious visit. The crowds were pretty heavy since several tour groups had pulled in not long before I got there so I took my place in the area of the nave reserved for personal prayer (sort of) and just took a long time before the image of Santiago above the main altar, the one the pilgrims embrace from behind upon their arrival. Once again I thanked him for bringing me here and getting me as far as I got, for the blessings on the way, for keeping me from any real harm, and once again, I mentally read through my litany of intentions, all the people who have asked for prayers here. After a while, I decided it was time to fulfill one final pilgrim responsibility before leaving this special place. I pulled out of my synthetic wallet (what else but synthetic!) the cards and notes people back home had given me way back in the end of June just before I started walking, each with their own special intentions and prayers written on them. I had carried these little pieces of paper across more than a thousand two hundred kilometers on my back, then another thousand-five hundred by train and bus, and finally, again by foot, just a final kilometer or so from my hostel to the heart of this basilica. I read through each one of them again, kept them in my hand as I got up, walked over to the stairwell going up to the stature of Santiago, climbed the stairs, gave Santiago one more abrazo making sure the papers in my hand touched him, walked back down and down even further into the crypt, read them to him there again, then looked about for a discrete place to deposit them, as close to Santiago as I could get. I wandered around behind the altar keeping my eye open for some crack or chink or hidden little hole in the wall where I might set them, then directly behind the main altar and almost directly above the tomb, I noticed a large glass window separating the ambulatory of the apse from the back of the altar with a marble ledge beneath it on both sides of the glass. In the glass was cut a small opening just big enough for a hand to pass through, so with no one looking, I kissed them, slipped the cards and papers through that hole and tucked them into a corner where they would not be quite so easily seen. There, that job now done! I felt rather proud of myself for my cleverness and even more, I felt relieved at having delivered on the promise to bring those prayers to Santiago where he can attend to them from here on in.
So that´s been my day. I´m just about ready to move on from Santiago and the Field of Stars, but even as I do so I´m thinking about next spring when my feet and tendons will be all well again and before I have to be back home for good; hmmm... how about finishing this thing then, in the way I had intended, by walking from Sainte-Ferme to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France, and then across Spain and back to Santiago. Anyone want to go along?

Santiago, Day 4

"Day 4": already? Have I been here in Santiago that long? Long enough for this place that has captured my imagination for so very long begins to seem more ordinary and more like any other place even as the many more days trundling across Belgium and France take on a bit of a dreamlike status as well. I don´t really like the sense that Santiago de Compostela should begin to feel ordinary to me; I rather want it to remain a hope, a dream, a sacred place in my life. When that feeling gets too strong, I dip back into the Cathedral, wander about within its dark and cool interior, step down into the crypt where James´bones are kept in a silver reliquary, and there return to the base and reason for it all. Asking him to care for my family, my friends, our Louvain seminarians, those who have cared for me along the way, that brings me altogether back to the sense of being in a place out of time and beyond ordinary space, a holy site, a set of bones that draw us from such far away places to them mysteriously.
My appreciation for that crypt and the basilica built on top of it grew appreciably today during a personal tour of the Cathedral Museum given to me by Father Alejandro Barral, its founder and retired director. That crypt goes back to Roman times, the first century perhaps; on display where bits and pieces of pottery, glass, and even a stone button used to weave wool into thread, all testifying to its ancient past. If an apostle of Jesus were to be buried anywhere this would be it. The evidence that significant Christian cult on the site goes back into the very early centuries is also there. Those early Iberian Christians were paying attention to someone very special there from very early on. No one can prove it was the apostle James, but Christian writers were mentioning him and Spain together from way back as well.
The other thing that fascinated me was Don Alejandro´s description of the stone choir that originally stood within the nave of the basilica, it was a great work of art designed and executed by the third great architect of the basilica, Master Mateo. A segment of it has been re-erected in the Museum and it is spectacular, especially when its details and the spirituality behind them are described lovingly by someone who knows the place like his own child. That choir, an enclosed place within the church where the canons of the cathedral sang the daily office of psalms and readings, was designed to represent the New Jerusalem that is our Earth when it reaches its fullness in peace, justice and life under the loving hand of it Creator, the Father of All, through the saving grace of his Son and the refreshing breath of his Spirit. I love that image from Revelations/Apocalypse; "all will be well and all will be well" it reminds us (in the words of Julian of Norwich).
So it is that image along with that of Santiago´s crypt that I take to bed with me tonight. Sleep well for all will be well and all will be well...

Santiago, Day 3

This Sunday in Santiago de Compostela held its fair share of little adventures, the most exciting of which was taking part in a tour of the rooftop of the Cathedral of Santiago. No slate or clay tiles up there, its all granite blocks set in place in gentle slopes that are walkable but gave me the heebie-jeepbies anyway. But what a view, not just of the city below, but of the towers and the bells and the famous statue of Santiago that looks out over the plaza in front of the Cathedral doors where the pilgrims arrive daily in their ones and twos and twenties. The view of this statue ensconced securely in his niche, from behind and almost from eye-level was a thrill for me. That statue has been a favorite of mine since four years ago when after completing my first pilgrimage to Compostela, I had a long talk with him, I down below on the plaza, he up high almost touching the sky (that conversation is included in my book on the pilgrimage which will be published by Wm. Eerdmans & Co. soon; look for it in your favorite bookstore after the new year! Sorry for the advertisement here!).
Less of a diversion and more important for me today was participating for the second time in the noon Mass for Pilgrims. Unlike yesterday, I was not distracted by the silliness of a unawarded certificate, but felt much more a part of the liturgical celebration even from before it began. While in the sacristy waiting to process in, I was invited to offer one of the General Intercessions in English during the coming liturgy. My impromptu prayer was simple: "For kings, prime ministers and presidents of powerful nations, that they might be wise in the exercise of their authority, forgoe the tools of war and oppression and follow the Way of justice and peace for all who live on this earth." Later, because I was one of the first concelebrating priests to receive communion, I was given a ciborium filled with the consecrated bread of holy communion to distribute to the congregation. I took up a position in the transept and began one by one, to share the Body of Christ with the Body of Christ: "Cuerpo de Cristo... Cuerpo de Cristo... Cuerpo de Cristo..." "Amen, amen, amen...," came back the responses from the people before me: "So be it... Yes... I believe..." For awhile I had shivers going up and down my spine with the sheer beauty and grace of this simple and true mystery that I cannot help but love.
Later, up on the Cathedral roof, a family from Grenoble recognized me and asked if I was the priest who gave them communion today. I said I must have been. We then visited and took pictures of one another up on those slanty stone heights, suddenly we were friends and fellow pilgrims bound together in communion with one another for having walked (mostly) to the same place from very different directions.
After the liturgy, I said goodbye to Edmon who was on his way to the bus station to get a ride out to Finisterre, the "End of the World" in medieval times since it is the furthest point west of the European continent (or so I am told). Tradition has it that pilgrims burned their pilgrim clothes there to mark the end of their pilgrimage and their old life and the beginning of a new life renewed and purified in faith and love by their months on the Way. I was told by our rooftop guide that many ( presumably those that didn´t go on to Finisterre) did the same thing on the Cathedral rooftop at the spot exactly above the main altar and the tomb of Santiago, a spot now marked by a green bronze cross set atop a stone image of the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God.
After Edmon´s departure, Toni and I met again, he having driven back up from his home in Ourense, about an hour away. We had an important invitation to attend to. Father Alejandro Barral, the retired director of the Cathedral Museum and a relative of a friend by marriage, invited us to lunch and an entertaining and energetic afternoon of talk about the Cathedral, Santiago and the historicity of the tradition of his burial here. Most people disregard the tradition as clearly unfactual, but Don Alejandro held out the possibility that there might be some historical truth in the old story; the attestations from ancient sources go back way beyond the 9th century when the saint´s relics were "rediscovered" and the archeological evidence shows that the site under the Cathedral altar was an ancient Roman cemetary, and that there was a Christian cult there of significant importance from very early on. He made a pretty convincing case for at least holding out the possibility that Big Jim´s bones really might have found their way from 1st century Palestine to this remote corner of Galicia. Anyway, it was great fun sitting at the feet of one of Compostela´s most learned experts in the history of Santiago and his cult through the ages. He is the one who got us into the tour of the Cathedral rooftop, by the way!
Toni and I passed the rest of the evening talking church and religion over a couple of beers in a tapas bar. Then it was back "home" to my hostal and now its almost time for bed. I plan to stay here another day or two, then see a few things more, perhaps going on to Finisterre myself before the week is out. On Friday, I´ll head down to Ourense to spend the weekend with Toni and his family.

Santiago, Day 2

This morning, Saturday, I began my first full pilgrim day in Santiago by heading down to the Cathedral office for pilgrims, the place where we pilgrims display proudly our "Credencial," or pilgrim passport with the seals in it of all the places we have passed through on our Way, and receive then an official certificate of completion called simply, the "Compostela." I walked through the great old doorway, headed up the old staircase and into the wide office with happy expectation of fulfilling this official act of recognition with a certain satisfaction and even joy. I announced myself, displayed proudly my Credencial, and handed it over to the nice lady behind the desk. She looked at it, noticed that the closest Spanish towns and villages were not on it, so I cheerily explained that I had begun my pilgrimage in Belgium and walked most of the way across France, just 200 kms shy of Saint Jean Pied de Port, when my foot gave out and I had to come the rest of the way by train and bus. She responded,¨"I´m sorry, Señor, I can´t give you the Compestela because you did not walk the FINAL 100 kilometers into Santiago." I was a bit stunned but surely she would relent and so protested, "But I WALKED more thatn 1,000 kilometers, there are the seals, surely THAT has to qualify me as a pilgrim!" She was unbending, "Lo siento, pero NO. The rules of the Cathedral are very strict." A weary pilgrim had come in after me. He interjected himself into the miserable situation by saying to me, "Don´t worry. You know what you did. You are a pilgrim in your heart and you don´t need a piece of paper to prove it." His words were a sort of "Go in peace!" to me, like at the end of the Eucharist. So out the door I went, remembering as best I could that pilgrims always are grateful, so I said "Gracias" as I left the office, headed down the old staircase and outside into the fresh air of this Saturday morning.
The disappointment of that event hung with me, even with the kind and true words of the other pilgrim also finding a resting place in my mind and heart. One bitter thought occurred to me, "Well, I guess I just won´t go to the noon Pilgrim Mass today if I am not a pilgrim for these people." I spit it out almost as quickly as I thought it and wandered about until 11:30 or so, then went into the Cathedral, which was already filling up with tourists and pilgrims and filling the Cathedral air with an excited buzz of whispered conversations and prayers. I made my way over to the sacristy on the other side of the nave and found a nun sitting at a desk. After my previous "rejection" I was prepared for this meeting, I had my official "priest papers" with me from my diocese documenting my status as a bona fide priest in good standing...that I CAN prove! When I asked to concelebrate the coming liturgy, she just said, "Be here at 11:45." "Do you need to see my documentation?" "Oh no; just be here." So I went back into the nave and took up a standing position near a vast stone column to take some quiet time before returning to the sacristy in a quarter hour.
So there I was, just leaning up against my pillar of stone, taking in the scene, talking to Santiago about everything, when who should walk in front of me, no more than two meters away, but our seminarian from the American College, Edmon, who began his own pilgrimage to Compostela the prevous month. At first, it seemed too good to be true so I took a second look, recognized the sky blue hiking shirt I had given him back in August, then saw him smile at someone he recognized and KNEW it was our Edmon! I called to him. He didn´t hear me above the din of the crowd. I called again louder, he turned towards me and spotted me and we both walked around to the more empty aisle to the right of the nave and there gave one another a hearty and heartfelt pilgrim abrazo. Gosh, he looked good: happy and tan and brimming with happiness. He, too, had done it: he had walked to Compostela! I told him I was very proud of him and asked about his plans. He had been intending to leave by bus after the Mass for Finisterre (the medieval "End of the World"), as many of the pilgrims do, but he changed his mind and decided then to spend the day with me and Toni. We agreed to meet after the Pilgrim Mass at the "0 kilometer" stone in the middle of the plaza in front of the Cathedral, and with that, I returned to the sacristy to vest for the liturgy.
The Pilgrim Mass was well done and the prayerfulness of the several thousand people within the Cathedral was impressive; what a collection of humanity: young, old, infirm, healthy, women, men, white, brown, dirty, scrubbed . . . here is the Body of Christ in all its splendor!
There was among the priest concelebrants one other English speaker, a priest named Robert from somewhere in England. After the liturgy (and the swinging of the great censor like a silver clad trapeze artist!), I introduced myself to him in the sacristy, then on an impulse, saw my opportunity to fulfill one further pilgrim obligation, go to Confession. So I asked him then if he´d take a moment from his own pilgrim group with whom he had been walking, to celebrate the sacrament with me. He agreed and so we found a quiet place in the courtyard just beyond the sacristy and so I began. I confessed my pride on the way, sometimes feeling better than other pilgrims who were having a harder time than I was, my bit of jealousy of those who were having an easier time than I was, and most of all, my failure to make the most of this opportunity to show forth the Way of Christ to those I met, to proclaim in some way or other the nearness of the Kingdom to us all. At about this point, something triggered in me the interior faucet that had already let go once, my eyes filled and my voice choked and I started crying again. How embarrassing! But what a relief! He put his hand on my shoulder and offered me his prayer of absolution, and then after I had gotten control of myself more or less back, we returned to the sacristy, chatted a bit more about our lives and work, then went our separate ways, me still wiping the damp from my eyes as I took one more moment in front of Santiago to kneel and thank him, then walked out the great doors to the sunny plaza outside to meet up with Edmon, and a bit later, Toni, again.
A while later, Edmon, Toni and I enjoyed a massive Spanish mid-day meal, then walked about the city and out through the great gardens beyond the old center of town, snapped a few photos, took a while to lay about on a grassy area next to a gurgling creek in the late afternoon sunshine, then had a beer and some "tapas" and the day was pretty much done. Toni returned by car to Orense, his home, and Edmon and I to our Hostel LaSalle for the night. Another pilgrim day, even without a certificate to prove it!

Santiago de Compostela

Well, today, I reached the Field of Stars, not quite the way I expected, but good enough. My big day actually began last night. After crawling into bed in my Santander pension room, I put on my iPod earphones with the simple desire to listen one more time to one of my favorite hymns over these past months, Fernando Ortega's simple and moving "Grace and Peace", which meditatively sings the opening words to Saint Paul´s Letter to the Thessalonians. Even as the first chords of the guitar and his gentle voice began to sing the words, "Grace and peace to you, from God, our Father..." I found myself choking up, not just choking up, but weeping, and weeping uncontrolably. The walls of the pension were very thin and I was afraid people in the next room or down the hall would hear me so I wrapped my face inside my sheets and blankets to muffle the sound of my gasping and gulping of air. It wouldn´t stop. This is crazy, I said to myself, sort of out of myself. But out it all came: the mourning of an adventure ending too soon, the gratitude for all that has been, the joy, the beauty, the loss, the gain, the grace of it all, out it all came for perhaps ten minutes, and then, after a couple final sniffles, it was over, and to peaceful sleep I went.
I had to get up early this morning to catch the 7:15 bus to Santiago de Compostela, a ride that would take eight hours, with only stops in a few bigger cities to load and unload passengers. I had a small bottle of water and the bus provided a few snacks to nibble on as the hours passed. I watched the countryside go by, including some spectacular views of the seacoast, alternated bettween reading my "light" book, Bill Bryson's Thunderbolkt Kid and listening to my heavier book on the iPod, Paul Elie's The Life You Save May be Your Own. In the final hour, I just dozed and imagined Compostela and tried to prepare myself interiorly for the hours and days to come.
Even as I stepped off the bus in the Compostela station, my great friend, Toni, was there to meet me and give me a welcoming Galician abrazo, or embrace. I introduced Gregory the Great to Toni, then unceremoniosly threw him into the back end of Toni´s Peugeot. Toni drove me first up to the Monte de Gozo, the Mount of Joy, to see the city and the Cathedral in the distance, the Monte de Gozo is where pilgrims for centuries have caught their first glimpse of their long-awaited goal, their dream, and were filled with joy at the sight, hence the name. He and I and other friends had been there before, four years ago when I first walked the Camino across Spain and it felt good to be back. It was a clearer view today. We then drove a short ways, stopped for a hearty lunch (pork chops for me), then leaving the car, walked together the final two kilometers into the center of Santiago and the Cathedral. My bishop phoned from Rome just as I was arriving at the Cathedral to wish me well. Perfect timing, Bishop Skylstad! Thank you!
We then went inside the Cathedral, and there I climbed the stairs behind the main altar to give the great silver-clad bust of Santiago the traditional pilgrim abrazo, then went under the altar to the relics of Saint James and said my first prayers for all those I had promised to pray for over these many months. After dawdling in the Cathedral a while, Toni and I went to find lodging for myself, with the help of his Salesian friend, I got a room at the Hostal LaSalle, part of a Catholic school complex just a few blocks from the center of town.
One extra pilgrim event in the day: while on the Monte de Gozo, a newly arrived pilgrim asked Toni to take his picture standing in front of the great sculpture dedicated to Pope John Paul II that now dominates the Monte hilltop. As we walked together back down the hill, I asked him if in his travels he had come upon a Filipino pilgrim by the name of Edmon, (one of our American College seminarians who has been on the Spanish Camino since mid-September. He said, to my great surprise, that indeed he had spent several days walking with Edmon and that he should be in Santiago already. I was thrilled with the possible opportunity to share a bit of these days with one of our own sems and have tried to make contact with him, but as of this moment, we have yet to connect. Maybe tomorrow.
So now it is bedtime again. Tomorrow I will check in at the Pilgrim office and get my official certificate, the "Compostela", then go to the pilgrim Mass at noon in the Cathedral; hopefully, I still look enough like a priest that they will let me concelebrate. Toni will return for the afternoon and evening together and we'll just have to see what more happens in this beautiful, holy, long-dreamt-of city.

Santander, Day 2

Today is the feast of Saint Luke, Evangelist and Apostle. I just returned from Mass at the Cathedral here in Santander (where I also got my passport stamped one last time!) and the Gospel reading was particularly poignant to me; Jesus sends the disciples out two by two ordering them, among other things, to bless each house that receives them with peace and to accept graciously whatever is set before them by those who welcome them in. Of course, they are also to proclaim the Good News that the Kingdom of God is near. I hope, I hope, I so deeply hope, that in some way I have followed those commands over the past months on the Way. I certainly haven´t lived as free of 'stuff' as the first apostles did, I carried more than 30 pounds/14 kilos of personal possessions on my back, but I have tried to be kind to all, greet peaceably those I have met, be grateful for every kindness extended to me, especially gestures of hospitality, and in some small way, preach and teach in word and deed that the Kingdom of God is not far from any of us. I certainly have felt the closeness of that Kingdom throughout these 70-plus days on the road, in the many people I have met and befriended, in the blessings of nature, in the solitude and prayer. I am and will always be profoundly grateful and humble as the Way continues in my life, wherever it leads.
Tomorrow, I catch an early bus out of Santander and seven hours later will roll into Santiago de Compostela. I will meet up with my great friend from my first pilgrimage four years ago, Toni, and we will eat, drink, tell a few stories, then, as pilgrims have been doing for 1000 years, I will ascend the great altar of the Basilica of Santiago and embrace his statue there, and more importantly, I will then descend below the main altar to his bones and say there my prayers for all who have accompanied me on my way, my family, friends, seminarians, brother priests, diocese, and all the good people who have taken me in and cared for me over these months or asked me to remember them when I finally got to Santiago. Most of all, I will thank James, Jacques, Santiago, Jacobus, for the privilege of being one of his pilgrims during this life.
Well, I'm finally getting to Santiago, not quite the way I had hoped, but good enough. I intend to hang around and help out in some way at least for a few days, so I expect pilgrim adventures will continue and I will continue to share them on this blog as they unfold. Pilgrim grace doesn´t stop rolling through our lives just because we stop walking, that´s a lesson I'm learning now.
So, on this feast of Saint Luke, I say to you all, Peace be on you and your house!

Santander

I feel a bit more like a tourist today than a pilgrim. After a morning coffee in a small café in San Sebastian, I and ever-faithful Gregory the Great headed down the street to the local bus station. The plan: to head to Bilbao, about an hour away to see the Guggenheim Museum of Art, the first of architect Frank Gehry’s titanium buildings that have so captured the imagination of the world.
Upon seeing it with my own eyes and then listening to the audio description of it I was really quite impressed with the building, though not as surprised as I might have been if I had not already seen other Gehry buildings in the same style elsewhere. The building trumps the collection it holds; much of the contemporary art left me unmoved and uninspired, but a few pieces did intrigue and even delight me, like a series of rusty barrels I walked through, intricately designed like a series of strange mazes.
From Bilbao I caught another bus to Santander, still on the coast, where I am spending two nights so that I can take time tomorrow to try to visit some nearby caves with their wonderful paintings by primitive people who lived here many thousands of years ago. (It’s not clear which ones I might eventually get to see; the most famous caves, at Altamira, near Santillana del Mar, seem now to be closed to the public. The ones at Puente Viesgo apparently are open. Hopefully this will all become a bit clearer tomorrow!).
I arrived in Santander about 6:00 pm so I had some time to walk through the streets of the city before the rain began to fall; in the sidewalks were the Compostela shell and arrow indicating the direction of the northern route. I walked it for only a couple of blocks, but enough to feel like I had walked it – at least a little. Riding through the mountainous country between San Sebastian and Bilbao on the bus I was rather happy I wasn’t having to conquer those ups and downs; they were much tougher than those of France.
In spite of that hesitation and even if I am indulging in a bit of tourism I am trying to keep my pilgrim attitude and values in place as I roll along towards Compostela. That holy city is still my goal and I look forward to praying there with the multitude of pilgrims who have done so over the last 1000 years and continue to do so in their thousands.

San Sebastian, Spain

As I write, I sit on the stone porch of the Cathedral of San Sebastian, a world that seems a million miles from the small towns and countryside of the French “Chemin”. This place is brimming with life, and I have not seen so many children at play in ages. Paloma, a little 5 year old, just made friends with me, asking me all kinds of important questions, like:”What are the names of your mama and papa?…Oh, Cecilia is just like my tia Cecilia!”.
It is a nice balance to a difficult morning. Once I got onto the train in Bordeaux, I entered into that strange anonymity and invincible strangerhood that so many of us westerners impose on ourselves when we travel: minimal eye contact, conversation, or engagement with the other, as if none of us exists to the others. It reinforced my sense of leaving not just France, but a whole world of pilgrims and hospitaliers and cheery “Bonjour, monsieur’s!” and “Bon courage’s”. I especially felt alienated from the non-alienation of the pilgrim life as my train slowly nudged its way across the Spanish frontier and into Irun. As I looked at the dismal train station I almost felt like asking the Lord to send one of his angels to grab me by the hair and drop me back into Saint-Ferme, so I could be again a pilgrim as before.
I caught the much smaller train into nearby San Sebastian, and found myself walking into a beautiful city, filled with life.
I was feeling hungry, so I stopped at a sidewalk café, but got restless about finding a place to stay for the night as I sat there waiting to be waited on for a half hour or so. Feeling still quite “culture shocked” inside, I got up, walked down a street, any street, saw a sign for a pension and headed for it. As I limped along the street, a girl on a bicycle overtook me, looked over, and with a big smile, called out to me:”Buen Camino”, the universal pilgrim greeting along the Spanish Camino to Compostela. It unfroze me, and I became a pilgrim again...and a human being again. It was a new day from then on.

The folks at the pension, just across the street from the Cathedral, were happy to take me in.
After a fine little “Menu del dia” in a café down the street, I walked, (still slowly) to the city beach, and decided to give my plantar fascitis a touch of surf and sand therapy.I don’t know if my walk on the beach helped or not, but it felt very good, and the sound of the waves breaking only a meter away (and sometimes right under me), was restorative, and healing of mind and heart, if not of foot.
So now I await evening Mass in the Cathedral, then I’ll have a bite to eat, then to bed.
I have no idea right now what I will do tomorrow, but feel fine about that now. We’ll just wait and see..

Bordeaux, Day 3

Well, all in all, this has been a strange day. It is sort of like one of those "out of time" days after someone close to you has died and you are very busy about all the things that need to be taken care of, so busy that mourning itself is postponed. So it has been for me today. My efforts and those of my "guardian angels" back in Belgium to make contact with the local "Friends of Saint-Jacques" bore no great fruit: mostly out-of-date phone numbers; answering machines and unanswered messages. By 10:00 am I was on the street checking out bus and train schedules; bus schedules were bad, train was good, so by 11:00 I had bought a ticket to Irun, just across the French border in Spain for tomorrow morning (Tuesday), and then from Irun, I'll improvise my way towards Compostela by buses, taking several days to get there. My train ticket was returnable so if something new developed during the day, I would be free to change my mind and stay here longer or make other plans. Later in the day I went into the city center to wash all my clothes in a laundromat, and then in the afternoon, again, to buy a few items of clothing so I don't look quite so much like a wayward camper and can feel again against my skin something other than synthetic fibres, (real cotton underwear was high on my shopping list!). It has been a busy little day today; later, maybe tomorrow, I'll have to stop, take a deep breath, maybe have a little cry, and somehow say "au revoir" to the "chemin" which has been under my feet now for some 1300 kilometers.

The one thing that has come to seem obvious since arriving in Bordeaux is that continuing to walk as I had been walking just is not in the cards anymore. I spoke by phone to my brother, Bill, a physical therapist who has worked a lot with these kinds of injuries, and he was not particularly encouraging about the possibility of a quick fix; these plantar fascitis things are tough to heal in many cases. It's not likely to be good enough to do heavy hiking any time soon.
So the walking part of my pilgrimage is over for now; the pilgrimage itself continues as I now head to Compostela on wheels instead of feet. I will miss the walking, and miss it a lot, I suspect. I will miss the beautiful vistas of French countryside and its villages and the welcoming and extraordinarily kind people of France. I will miss talking to the mules and dogs and geese along the Way. I will miss the solitude. I'll miss the very special kind of prayer that is part and parcel of the pilgrim way, seldom pious, usually not so sweet, always from the heart, ("Okay, Jesus, help me out here, IF YOU DON'T MIND!!!).

In the days ahead, I'll continue to send reports to this blog as much as I am able, and when I get to Compostela on the weekend, I'll have a good talk with Santiago about this foot, and what he has been up to in getting me this far then allowing it to end so unexpectedly, and before I'm done with him I'll ask him to do good things for all who have been walking with me in prayer and through the web. I'll let you know how that goes.

Finally, I extend a special word of thanks to my Belgian "Guardian Angels," Gene and Caroline, for all they've done for me over these pilgrim months! This pilgrimage has been as much theirs as mine! And also a great "Gracias" in advance to my pilgrim pal in Galicia, Toni, who will meet me in Compostela and take me in for some days thereafter.

So, it's time to clean the mud off my boots, give Gregory the Great a bit of a clean-up, then repack him for his first train ride tomorrow; and before going to bed, say once more a not-so-pious and not-so-sweet word of gratitude to the Creator and Lord, who makes all things possible and blesses us with grace upon grace. It is an honor and a joy to be one of his pilgrims on the face of this beautiful earth...