This is the 27th of 42 posts about the poems which carried me along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Aug-Sep 2016. On this (the 27th) day, I walked 26km from El Acebo to Camponaraya.
Frequently, I wonder why I do this. This, being pilgrimage, but also things like meditation and therapy. 'This' seeming to involve a lot of pain (think: the trauma and vomit in Rabanal). What I tell myself is, 'I am opening. Opening to feel what is there. Opening to life. And yes, some of that will be hard, very hard. But there is also the beauty - you get to open to that too.'
This day was testament to that promise. I was astonished by the joy of walking and talking with my new-found friend. Remember the dawn? The descent through the mountain shadows? How our words were so alive that we did not so much walk but glide?
That afternoon, I sat in the hostel room, stunned by the life between us. Disorientated. Not sure how to hold the fact that she was leaving to go home the next day (some pilgrims walk the camino in stages, doing a week or so every year). A good time for another poem.
She chose this, the first of two psalms in the bundle of poems given to me by friends and family. Despite the fact that I was on a Christian pilgrimage trail (Santiago is so named because St. James - St Iago - is said to be buried there), I do not identify as a Christian. And yet I often find so much meaning in the teachings, the churches, the services.
In this psalm, I hear: Trust. And: Love. Trust in the love that is always there. Always. In the astonishing joy of soul friendship; or in the darkness of Rabanal ('even the dark will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day'). A love that is beyond comprehension. Awe-some.
Psalm 139
1 You have searched me, Lord,
Frequently, I wonder why I do this. This, being pilgrimage, but also things like meditation and therapy. 'This' seeming to involve a lot of pain (think: the trauma and vomit in Rabanal). What I tell myself is, 'I am opening. Opening to feel what is there. Opening to life. And yes, some of that will be hard, very hard. But there is also the beauty - you get to open to that too.'
This day was testament to that promise. I was astonished by the joy of walking and talking with my new-found friend. Remember the dawn? The descent through the mountain shadows? How our words were so alive that we did not so much walk but glide?
That afternoon, I sat in the hostel room, stunned by the life between us. Disorientated. Not sure how to hold the fact that she was leaving to go home the next day (some pilgrims walk the camino in stages, doing a week or so every year). A good time for another poem.
She chose this, the first of two psalms in the bundle of poems given to me by friends and family. Despite the fact that I was on a Christian pilgrimage trail (Santiago is so named because St. James - St Iago - is said to be buried there), I do not identify as a Christian. And yet I often find so much meaning in the teachings, the churches, the services.
In this psalm, I hear: Trust. And: Love. Trust in the love that is always there. Always. In the astonishing joy of soul friendship; or in the darkness of Rabanal ('even the dark will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day'). A love that is beyond comprehension. Awe-some.
Psalm 139
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when
I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and
my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my
tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and
before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too
wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your
Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens,
you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are
there.
9 If I rise on the wings of
the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will
guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the
darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not
be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost
being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am
fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden
from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of
the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed
body;
all the days ordained for me were written
in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your
thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
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