Thursday 19 February 2009

A generous heart

This hill village is really beautiful, especially the views across the valleys to the mountains beyond. The Alberque as good. It has the feeling of a private house. It is well appointed and the owner/hospitaller is warm and welcoming. The only disturbing thing is that I cannot find anywhere to have the evening meal. I have already paid for it, but a Comidor is not to be seen. All is revealed later. We are told to assemble at the front of the A. The lady takes us behind the house, through a door and into another set of rooms below the house that must have been the cellars of the building. There we eat a well prepared meal of the usual type. This is somewhat spoilt by a French woman who sits at the shared table near me. She takes sometime to berate me about the English; always expecting everyone to speak their tongue. I am uncomfortable with this and rather wish that she did not talk to me at all, either in French or English. But I hold my tongue. It maybe that I will meet her many times in the days ahead. For that reason, to keep things sweet. I accept the rebuke. The day is over I am lying in bed thinking about what I have learned in the pilgrimage. I have gone over and over the great big problem. There has been no resolution and I have no ideas how to solve it. I have prayed into and out of the issues without any result. I have spoken on the phone several times and things are not any easier. If anything they are worse. My mind and heart are tired. My body is tired from all this walking. I have learnt that I have brought too much stuff and I am in the process of leaving it behind. I have removed stuff from my bag every night now. And the bag gets heavier and heavier each day. What a picture of life. I can see that my life is crowded by stuff.I have become a carrier of things I do not need.I do not know why I am here. In some ways it all seems rather pointless. But I am pleased with the distances that I am walking. I can do far more than I had ever expected. It has been a delight to learn that I'm was wrong in my thinking. I had been allowing the thoughts to distill in my life that I should not and could not expect to be able to do what I had done as a young man. A pain here and slowness there, this was to be expected in an older man. So 'Take it easy, soon be dead'. What a blasphemy. I have been wishing myself to an early grave. I have learnt that body and soul should not be separated. I am rejoicing in a new found vigor of spirit and body because I have pushed laziness and lazy thoughts aside. So all is not bad. With those thoughts I go to sleep. I sleep the good holy sleep of the pilgrim.

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