"Penance"

[Andrea Innes-Michailov]

well if you put it that way, then yes, I am "turning back" from the path my
choices took me down and am trying to get re-aligned with better energies.
I am repenting in that I choose this pilgrimage to help me re-align myself.
I like that idea, and I see that repenting is powerful stuff even in this
modern world of ours...
Andrea

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Road to Santiago Pilgrimage [mailto:GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU]On
> Behalf Of Felipe Sanchez
> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 2:18 PM
> To: GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU
> Subject: Re: Giving and Receiving
>
>
> Good Morning:  Well, here I go again.  My aplogies to detractors, my
> sympathies to the rest.
>
> I also am not immune to the the sufferings of others.  But after having
> lived in the "third world" and Manhattan I conclude that among
> human society
> our needs and wants far exceed our abilities to minister to them.  Several
> times a week I walked from 42nd Street in New York to 63rd.  If I had
> stopped to assist each person in need along the route I would never have
> arrived at my work which was charitable by the way and part time.  In
> Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico, Haiti, even Spain, if I had
> contributed time and
> money in an unrestrained manner I would have exhausted my
> resources and been
> busy all day every day.  So in an exercise of eleemosynary triage
> I chose a
> few persons and causes and I administer to these as best I can which is
> considerable in terms of hours and cash. Lamentably, then, I do
> not let the
> remainder of a needful world distract me or by so doing I would
> be rendered
> incapable of assisting my elected entities. Such is the reality of an
> overpopulated, complex, materialistic world.  I am not responsible for the
> creation of need and paucity.  I am responsible for my adaptation
> to a world
> replete with both.  More than this none of might be expected to so do and
> short of becoming another "Mother Teresa" I deem my attitude
> justifiable and
> humane.
>
> And to make my comments germane and relevant, I must admit to having mused
> along these lines while on the Meseta Leonese.  What is my place in the
> world?  How ought I administer my presence here?  What responsibility do I
> have to society? To the environment?  Years ago I chose a partial
> answer by
> deciding to be sterilized and not produce progeny.  This, perhaps, is the
> most significant contribution I have made in an overcrowed world with
> diminishing resources.  As I traversed the Camino and experienced the
> multitudes and decried the trash, my interpretation of that
> experience as a
> microcosm of a macrocosm in crisis seemed totally congruous and valid.
> Felipe Sanchez
>