matamoros

[Donald Schell]

Dear friends,

Is it possible a little historical reflection on the contradictory
experiences and symbols of the pilgrimage itself would serve us here?

I remember reading that the Matamoros legend, Santiago on horseback, sword
drawn riding above the heads of the belaguered Spanish, was a piece of
monastically generated medieval propaganda.  The 'vision' appears in the
account of a battle that never happened.   But it captured the imagination
of a people needing divine sanction for their war and it created a
non-pilgrim iconography of St. James.

What's fascinating to me is that experience of pilgrims seems to push
Matamoros to the side, and the wayfarer St. James, the dusty pilgrim with
the big hat, walking stick, and water gourd seems to replace the warrior St.
James so steadily and relentlessly that we can watch that other image
re-shaping the imagery of other saints and even Jesus.  I'm remembering a
12th century French resurrection play in which Jesus is walking with 'two
pilgrims' on the road to Emmaus (the story is in Luke, but the details are
peregrino) and from his appearance they address him as a 'fellow pilgrim.'
Any of us who have walked the camino can imagine how that scene was played
in Paris.

Thousands and millions of people actually walking the pilgrimage re-framed
Santiago back to imagery that fit their experience.  James, an ordinary man,
a disciple of Jesus who taught peace and died for it, shed the incongruous
warrior garb that had been thrust on him.  What is about walking together
that strips from us our ability to hold one another enemies?  I don't mean
no conflict.  The stories of anger and violence, theft and even murder on
the Camino go back to the beginning.  But there is a spirit we have learned
from walking that pushes hard on us, a spirit that makes us want to work
toward friendship.  How do we sustain that spirit in our electronic refugio?
How do we live it in a world that is grieving, frightened, angry and asking,
quite legitimately, what justice looks like and how we stop people from
killing other people in the name of God.

love,
donald