From the Camino: The morning I woke up in Pola Allende, I was nervous. I had taken a day off, allowing my blister just one day of recovery. I had given it the best care I could in the circumstances.
I was ecstatic to find, that morning, that, after I put my new blue shoes back on, my feet didn’t hurt. The blisters had dried nicely, and the skin underneath the bandages has toughened up. The human body is amazing and can recover with extraordinary quickness. This was important, since, on my way to Berducedo that day, I was going to ascend almost 2,000 feet to reach the summit of Puerto del Palo .
The morning was misty and beautiful. The Camino made its way up a deep valley, shaped by a ferny brook, with paddocks for cattle in the valley bottom, their cowbells ringing through the mist. Above them, across the valley was a wild-wood, lush and green. Rock walls lined the path on my right, with occasional farm houses.
After all the weeks of walking, the trail didn’t strike me as steep, but it was a constant uphill hike. A good way through the day, the path moved above the mist, and the forest and farms fell away, to be replaced by a cropped hillside. The trail wound it’s way up a series of switch backs to pastureland, where a herd of horses grazed in the distance. As I approached the highest ridge-line, I looked out on an incredible vista that stretched out for miles. Fittingly, somewhat had placed a flecha, a yellow arrow, special in that it was shaped as the infinity symbol, perfect for the location. The clouds and fog hugged the lower valleys, while the Cantabrian mountains rose up like islands in a sea of white water rapids.
I was overwhelmed and exhilarated by the beauty of the view.
So many theophanies have occurred on mountain tops, and I knew why, standing there in the sunlight. It was splendid…and holy.
From the life of St. James, Mark 9:2-8 – 2 After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. 4 Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. 7 Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; then from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” 8 Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.
For reflection: We see Peter, our James and his brother John, again this close fraternity with Jesus, alone with him at an incomparable moment.
They have no idea, as they journey up the side of the “high mountain” what awaits them at the summit. How could they have expected to see this manifestation of God?
We never do either.
When we manage to ascend physical heights, and we can actually see into the distance, unblocked by hills or mountains, dwellings or high rises, trees or any other growing thing, the opportunities for transcendence are built into the moment. It can be exhilarating. It’s easy for us, in those moments, to accept how theophany’s happen in such places.
The same thing can happen to us on Camino.
If our spiritual and emotional vision is blocked by life’s scars, fears of the present and future, unresolved relationship problems and the like, it can be impossible for us to lift our head to take in the future with hope, or to experience God in the present moment.
The Camino offers us an opportunity for healing. It’s not guaranteed that it will happen, but we are set up, both in the silence and the companionship, to find both healing, and the transcendent experience of God. The more we heal on the way, the higher our chance of not only seeing God in the world around us, but hearing his voice.
May it happen to you. Be willing to stumble around like Peter when it occurs. And may you find, in the end, Jesus standing with you, and the Father speaking to you. Be blessed.