33 posts tagged “santiago”

Well, I thought I'd post a few photos that I think sums up my hopes for my work in Spain, both the retreat and the interivews.  Also, the opportunity I had to spend a few days with folks who run albergues on the way - to share notes and ideas.  I'm ever so grateful to have reflected on my role as a deacon this first month since my ordination by taking time to attempt both practice for and research on hospitality to pilgrims.

They speak to my own sense of lingering.

I think I may already have posted one or two.  The third and fourth I've left unblogged.

One is of pilgrims at mile (or click) zero, just in front of the Cathedral.  Next, the blessed opportunity to wash the feet of those who have walked in faith.  Third, a picture of a threshold I took soon after my arrival in Spain, but that speaks to me also of my leaving and the sense of having stood near the Holy while sitting next to pilgrims (perhaps like a veil, as I contemplate my Uncle's journey through death's dark veil to the City of Light Eternal.  Finally, a photo from standing in the same spot, with a shift in perspective, because holy lingering is in part about taking time to see things from different perspectives.

so I'm signing off from Spain, and will reconnect somewhere in Kenya, God willing, or when I return to the States.  I'm not sure I can go a full month without bloging!  After a summer with almost no rain, Galician weather caught up to me, and I got a little damp on the feast day.  Yet, just before 11:30pm last night, right when the fireworks were set to start, the wind pushed the rain away, and we had a star-filled night punctuated with the extravangaza of lazers, fireworks, music, and fiesta.

I did buy one "recuerdo" from this excursion.  I've been wanting a Basque hat to wear, because they are solid black (always appropriate), and very similar in style to my personal favorite, the "golf" cap, in teh Scottish and Irish tradition.  I wasn't going to, but I passed a hat shop, and they had one with the cathedral imprinted on the silk inside, so I decided this would make a good alternative to the mortar board if I finally get done with this DMin., so it's something I carry with me from this project to the celebration that emerges from completion of my research and reflection.

Now, a VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to the Evangelical Education Society.  Not only did they enable my work in Spain this summer through one of the educational grants, but I also received an award through the previous grant cycle to go to Kenya.  Having postponed that trip from last January, it's now time to follow up and follow through on that grant. 

I am very excited, a little nervous, and very hopeful.

Of course, I will continue (if not in Kenya, then certinaly in the many months following my return) to reflect on and grow from this experience in Spain, as I will I am sure of my time in Kenya.  Thanks to all who have kept with me in reading this far, for your comments and prayers.  I hope you will enjoy what may come in the future!

Though I hate pics of myself, typically, I thought I'd give you a little treat and humor, so here is one of me and my hat:)  Maybe this will help prevent skin cancer!  And no, it's not a French beannie.  They are quite different

I think I've kept my blog relatively positive, avoiding complaining (though I've done plenty of that in my head!) and over-grandizing obstacles.  However, there have been roadblocks and un expected challenges.  And, there is a part of me that relishes in them, because I have learned as much or more from those experiences than from the "pleasantly holy."  The "unpleasant" holy is just as important in our growing and learning in life.

I'll write more when I've had a little time and distance enough to write as fairly as possibile from my own perspective.  In the mean time, I think it's safe to sum up some of the attitudes and forces one can run up against in offering a ministry here.  I don't think you'll be surprised to find Pharisees and Ceaser as main challenges (that's a negative way of putting it, a more positive might be to say that both the government and the Church have an interest in conserving, but also in preventing people with mal intent).  And of course money, which is where I will begin.

Economics.  Moving into a place, it is important to understand the economics of the place, and how it interacts with other systems, like religion and politics.  Everything from proper permits, advertising, rules and regulations on services provided, are part of the picture.  Perhaps more important is the real impact of moving to a place and offering services.  Consider WalMart.  How does Walmart take into consideration existing businesses, and their economic impact on those who have always lived there, and always provided the services you are bringing. 

The kinds of services I've been providing short term here in Santiago are low impact.  If I was to come here permenantly, I'd need to consider people like the woman who runs the pension I'm staying in these last few days.  A single mother, working very hard all day to find people to fill the few rooms she has, then working many more hours to clean and launder the place each day.   What is the economic impact of my offering a few beds for free to pilgrims that could have paid to stay with her?  I've asked her to let me interview her so I can get her opinions on what I'm doing, and find out exactly what the financial impact would be, if she will share that.

Religion: A pilgrimage center that is well established has moved from what Turner noticed as a trend towards the marginal to being right at the center of the beauracracy of the religion.  Feelings of ownership and possesiveness arise.  This is not merely a problem of the institutional religion.  Each and every person associated with the camino runs the risk of such possessiveness - I know what's best, and I don't need you here.  Even I run the risk of that!  It's important to listen and learn from folks who have experience and wisdom, and learn how to operate around them or with them, depending on the weather.  Of course I have some criticisms of the closed-mindedness I see and have experienced with some in the host religion here, but there are plenty of criticisms for all kinds of people affiliated with the pilgrimage here.

Beauracracy: There is a lot of it, especially connected with the pilgrimage.  In addition to the religious beauracracy, there are volunteer associations established to support, promote and "protect" (that can be a loaded word) the pilgrimage. 

There is also the interesting way in which local and regional politics works here in Spain and Galicia.  Then, add in the influence of the Church here.  Price fixing, calling people to report vioations as a way of retaliating, etc.  These are all here (as if they weren't in America).  Learnign to navigate that system, and also earning the trust of those who make decisions, and those who are working against you, takes years, and takes not giving up.

So, these are a few places where I probably could have run into trouble already.  Fortunately, most people who inquired were cool with my project, and even supportive.  I've found a number of people here who would be great allies on the ground and who already know how to navigate these forces.  My learning will come in reflceting on how I handled or anticipated situations, and the feelings that they stir up (that's the part I learned from working in a hospital last summer), and then considering the impact of my project, were it to be come a life-long adventure, on what already exists: does the positive outweigh the negative impact?  What are the moral implications of that impact, and how do they effect my hopes?  Does it change them or outweigh them?

Enough for now.  I'll write more later on this, and hopefully more on why I think my ideas could be a contribution to what is already happening here in this fantastic center of pilgrimage.

Santiago is a decent sized, well, big city in Northern Spain.  Quite different from the mostly pastoral Camino people so enjoy.  There are a lot of reactions to it, some love it, some hate it, and a lot in between.  Here are some pics that show the scene during a recent Medieval-theme festival.  

I'm spending my last few days in Santiago wrapping up the retreat ministry with the last of interviews.  I'm focusing on interviewing pilgrims who have recently arrived, but did not participate in the retreat ministry, so I can see how differently people experience and talk about their experience of Santiago.

  

I of course took pictures of that field.  None of the purple shows up, but I´ll always remember it as a field of purple, though to most it would like like a field of hay.
   So holy lingering, then, doesn't´t mean we stop our pilgrimage.  It means we pilgrimage in a way, or at least at moments, that are different from the normal rhythm or our pilgrimage.  We syncopate, to borrow from jazz!
   It means we pilgrimage in a way that frees us (for joyful obedience!), from the agenda we bring with us or develop as we peregrinate.  It allows us to be open to the experiences in store for us, not just those we expect, far beyond the experienced we hoped for or imagined, that we dreamed of, so that our sense of pilgrimage and our sense of home are ever-expanding.
   The daily walk around a city at the end of each day´s walk, a tour of some of it´s special places, these are things many pilgrims do on the camino when they stop to rest, as if grounding them in the place where they will be for the night.  Why would we do any less... take time to "walk off" the day, in a significant way when we get to Santiago?  The daily practice of lingering is teaching us one of the patterns, one of the syncopations of life in the pilgrimge center, along with eating a communal meal, taking a shower, and washing clothes... all of these seemingly mundane things are rituals of our pilgrimage, just as rest....  Just as holy lingering.
And now, for something completely different... or rather, completely random stream:
   More than a ritual for the pilgrimage center, it is a ritual for life.  How often do we take time, or fail to take time, to linger with friends - or strangers?  The Christian faith places Christ on the plumb, square and level in the heart of others (both friends and strangers), and we need to take time to linger together.  Community is part of pilgrimage too.

I´ve discovered the joy of google reader, which gives me an aggregate of all the blogs I like to read in a quickly readable format.

   I decided to add to my blog list all of the blogs by bishops who are at Lambeth, which thankfully is not all 650 of them!  I´m appaled at some of them, and delighted in others, but mostly from a position of theological-opinion.

   On the whole, however, I must say that I am a little concerned at the extent to which bishops are seemingly offering stream of consciousness theology, aren´t they running the risk of backing themselves into corners, or saying something that will be tacken as directive, or doctrine, that could merly have been an emotional response to a heated argument over cocktails at the bishop´s palace?

   Hardly the thoughtful, well-inked carta´s of the early church writers!

   There are some things that have been written that are obviously pensive, nuanced and thought out.  Others are clearly emotional, personal, and in some ways indicative of an unwillingness to enter into a spirit of true dialogue.  Some just seem like diatribes - the kind of bland, generalizations that show little thought into the readership or theology of their writing, not to change minds, but to harden them.  It would be easy for me to say this is one sided, but I raise the question in general, because regardless of one´s theological stance on certain issues, i.e., LGBT persons, the access and insight into the minds of bishops is great, but at the same time, a little frightening.

   Turning this back on my writing in Spain, I am conscious as I write my blog, that I have to be considerate of a number of factors.  As this work is in part for my doctoral research, I must be careful with the data that I give, preserving confidentiality as needed.  To be further responsible, not coming to hasty to an interpretation, to assuming a meaning.  As much as this work has given time for personal reflection and my own spiritual development, there is still much to learn, and I will be doing so for many months and years ahead.  So the real fruits of my labors are to be seen in the harvest, not the planting.

   This is why you are reading less about the goings on in the personal lives of people with whom I have worked, why this blog is a little more about me - it´s an opportunity to own up to what is going on inside of me, so that as I do the work of ministry with others, I can be more present and open to what I have to learn, while being a little more self awaer (thank goodness for journals, too!).  This is also why you see less face pictures of people who have been retreating with me - unless I have very clear consent, you won´t see any photos of them at all, and when I have placed pics up, I´ve avoided using face photos to the extent possible, even when I have consent.

   So, that should explain a little bit more about what´s been going on in my blog, and the shape that it is taking!

   More on what I feel I have learned in the next post.

   Both in the retreat-time and in these week of volunteering in a refugio, I have thought often about Mary and Martha, and Jesus' clear preference for the via negativa of Mary, rather than the activity of Martha.  Perhaps I am a little more confused about the matter, have seen the urgency - if you will - of the rather mundance, even having felt closer to saints and the Holy through some of these activities: preparing beds, washing laundry, feeding, cleaning up after pilgrims leave.  I think perhaps what Jesus was saying, and this is a shift for me from prior thinking, was not that the activity of Martha was in and of itself bad: Jesus himself did a lot to take care of the physical needs of people, like feeding, providing wine from water, healing and restoring sight.  He even took time from his preaching to feed a hungry crowd!

   I think what Jesus is saying is be discerning.  Perhaps, coming from an eschatological perspective, he is also saying ´Be prepared!´

   While attention to activity can be a form of love, it can be a form of avoidance, or even self-serving.  Be discerning - when do I need to get chores done (if we are watching because we do not know the hour, we will have our lamps trimmed and burning...)?  For some pilgrims, it may be a healing touch is needed, for others, perhaps a listening ear.

   C & L, my refugio permenants, are normally in the kitchen once pilgrims arrive, preparing dinner.  And isn´t that just what they need after a long day of walking uphill?  Afterwards, pilgrims are heading to bed, and need less.  But sometimes they need a listening ear - and being in the kitchen, that is impossible for them (and often for me).

   Surely there is a way to get the chores done, and also be available to folks who really need a listening ear.  I´ve often said that ministry takes two, it takes companionship (the disciples were sent in pairs).  Perhaps it takes three.  Regardless, there are a lot of chores to get done, and most pilgrims need the physical attention.  How do we meet the need of the occasional pilgrim who needs just to talk - who is carrying a problem?

  C & L have a book pilgrims can write in, and most write a line or two of thanks.  They always get glowing remarks for their hospitality, and since I am usually in the kitchen, my presence is a little less obvious.  The few times I have been mentioned by name, I have noticed, are the folks with whom I spent a little time visiting before or after dinner, who needed someone to pay a little attention to them, and hear their story.  I think this makes me a little more uncomfortable, as I try to navigate a world obsessed with details and activity, while being able to take the time needed to do a little more.  At what cost will I let details go in order to be a listening ear?