Tradition and Reflection

Taking Portugal at a walking pace is comfortable and enlightening. This is a land to be ambled or strolled--and always savoured. Business and progress do not seem as urgent as greetings and cafe conversations. Or the past.

A pilgrim en route to Santiago de Compostela

Our path is enriched by reminders from the histories and legends swirling around St James' remains and the courageous, curious holy people who hoped to understand some of the impossibilities of life. It's sobering to think that at moments we are in their physical footprints. Steps they took without paths, roads, cafes, credit cards, and albergues.  Surely other moments we muse through their metaphysical steps--the journey is ongoing and unpredictable. The journey is being human. 

An immigrant memorialised at Castelo de Neiva

Reflecting on the very long ago and far away saints has a mystic quality. They seemed as much part of the next world then as they are now: living at the liminal edge of this material world and the needs of flesh and bones. Looking at the granite immigrant who represents the thousands fleeing war and oppression, a pattern of desperation-driven sacrifice emerges. No matter that those people fled a mere century ago: their stories parallel ours when we step out the door and have no clue where the day and path will take us; even as they parallel the cloak and staff pilgrims of the Middle Ages. 

We seek. We get distracted. Sometimes we push through. But for me, not often enough. I long for my seeking to be soul-sustaining. For my will to prove true and the way to prevail over distractions or whatever would prevent me from finally finding my way home.