Guidance

Written (mostly) the Saturday before Easter. 

Anticipating the camino I oscillated between two extremes: astonishment at my arrogance in presuming that I was still up to the challenge of walking a third the diameter of Spain and contempt for my fears that anything could go seriously wrong.

The whispering in one ear: You're nearly 70, your knees are dodgy, your shoulders aren't good, a third of the albergues are still closed, the camino will be terribly crowded and you won't find a bed, the camino will be totally deserted and you won't have anyone to talk to and you'll go mad, it will be too hot, it might be too cold. 

The whispering in the other ear: Even a nearly 70 year old woman is not in fact risking anything very great in attempting a camino sola. This is modern Spain, civilisation is never more than a few stone throws away - even in the remoter parts you usually cross a major road once or twice a day, a phone call and a taxi will take you within the sphere where a credit card can solve most problems.  You are risking nothing beyond your comfort and your pride.  You can always ring for a taxi, get on a bus and go home. 

So were my thoughts in anticipation. Once on the camino anxieties focussed into more reasonable day-to-day concerns. The concerns - a tough climb, uncertainty about the route, doubts about the weather, the state of legs and shoulders, the availability of food and lodging for the night - were not of great significance, and could all be solved with a telephone and a credit card. 

But within this scale of insignificance challenges and attendant anxieties still dominated my considerations. There were decisions to be made and attendant uncertainties and associated anxieties. Learning to accept the uncertainties, trusting that I need not fret to consider in advance how to meet whatever might arise is part of the training the camino provides, a training that is important living in a world facing far more significant uncertainties than the provision of a bed for the night. Trust that that there will be help when needed, there will be guidance, the little yellow arrows of life. 

Thus I begin each day’s walk with the Lord’s Prayer - as I do my walks round the fen at home, but with a bit more urgency. The repetition of the words steadies me, reminds me that Someone Up There really is watching over my steps and i won’t go too far wrong.  Or that’s what I like to think. I repeat nothing really bad is very likely to happen.  It is a tiny anxiety to conquer.

But it’s there. So it was one grey morning, a second day of rain.  There was a pass to cross, and the route was uncertain. Rumour had it that it was no longer necessary to go along the road, the old path had been re-instated.

To go along the road was “safe” in that I wouldn’t likely get lost.  But the purpose of the trip was to submerge myself in a glory of footpaths, and that did not mean stay on the main road. It should be ok, yes, if I can keep with the arrows?

The first departure from the road in the rain the day before had been mildly sobering.  The day before it would have been fine, and mostly it was fine, but definitely muddy. But what would have been damp patches yesterday were young streams today elbowing each other and giggling, “sharing” my path. I stepped carefully from rock to rock in those stretches.

The second departure from the road did not happen. Yards from the road the track crossed a stream.  The bed of the ford was firm, clear, and presented no problems, but the the stream here was definitely a teenager, surly and defiant, definitely intent on invading my shoes.  No. My feet did not want to be completely sodden.

That day no evident obstruction blocked the third departure from the road, but I followed the path and its accompanying streams with a dry mouth and a mix of hope and determination. I can do this.  I will do this.  I did not come here to walk along a road.

After a few miles a red shape passed me in the rain, a poncho clad peregrino making excellent time in spite of the weather.  In this stretch of the journey I usually walked all day without seeing another peregrino - we were too few on the ground. We exchanged no more than “buen camino” and he disappeared into the murk. 

I caught him up in a few hundred yards, stopped by a torrent that was no teenager; its voice had broken and it roared its defiance in a deep bass growl. No. I was not fording that stream. 

I turned sadly back to retrace my steps, but my guiding red poncho called me back. “Aqui”.  He had spied what I had failed to see, an alternative route. 

It worked.  It required a bit of scrambling, it was not always a clear path, but it took us over a footbridge further up the stream and got me/us back to the main path beyond the stream.

And what a path. It wound on up the hill, through heather and broom in bud, on ancient tracks, leading out at last to the pass.  Sometimes wet, sometimes rocky, but other times a delight to the feet. A path such as I had come for. But for the vision in a red poncho, I would have missed all that, and had a much longer and rather depressing walk.

This vision in a red poncho has provided a recurrent theme for thought.  First, the vision was no vision, he came to be one of my peregrino family, an earnest young man from Costa Rica named Juan. There is nothing mystical about him, although he is a very devout young man.

Second, it was not an important matter; it saved my legs and my delight in the day, nothing more.  But at just exactly the point I needed help, help arrived. 

Of course it’s just coincidence. That’s what they all say, and I say too, and have done on other occasions over many years. But to me, over many years, such coincidences have come to feel like someone looking after me.  They add up.  I started thanking him, for such little signs of guidance, and then I started asking Him for guidance (and even getting a little bit cross when I ask and I don’t hear the reply). 

Over the years I have come to be very grateful indeed for the path He has led me along, call that guidance what you like. For that I am deeply thankful; expressing that thanks for that guidance (and for the gift of legs that can walk) through the soles of my feet is the purpose of this Camino. 

Faith steps in where reason hits the wall: that step is to acknowledge that this Guide is God. As my Guide he is as real as Juan (now debating something with Jose in Spanish I can't quite follow). Through these small interactions God comes into my life, and I am learning to let Him take charge.

There is lots more about this God, this Guide, that I have yet to understand.  These long patches for thought this Holy Week have given me a chance to think more. To think about what His return from the desert must have been like, for Himself, for His family, His disciples. I have thought a lot about Mary, I can understand her better.  For her, that day Holy Saturday, must have been dire.  I can imagine her shocked into numbness and hopelessness. What was James doing that Saturday?  Mending his nets amid the ruins of a dream and nursing a hole in his heart?

There is a lot I don’t know, a lot I don't understand.  But I am glad, very glad to have this time to think about it, and time too to say thanks to Him, through the soles of my feet, for guidance even way back through the years when I didn’t dare acknowledge the Source.