[Gocamino] Fw: Re: Pondering

[wanda at cybermesa.com]

Hi Kathy,

I have often read Ms. Blaroli's articles and reading her current writing is 
like another chapter in an untitled book. It takes courage to write ones 
story....I salute her with praise and good will. 

So here I sit with a cup of Jasmine tea, a lighted candle and reflect on why 
I took the chance to be a camino participant.  Knowing that without the 
encouragement from others who walked before me.....I would have never started 
the camino. Alone in a country where I had never visited and barely speaking 
the language, I realize now that the journey has yet to end. Pondering this 
issue is another extension of the camino. Reading the experiences of others 
makes my experience more vivid and memorable.
 
The fear of starting the camino overlapped religious or spiritual 
reasons.  Spirituality grew in the doing..... one step in front of 
the other. My fear slowly subsided given way to trust. Trust trumps fear. 
Trust has become a lasting residue for me and has substantiated my 
spirituality and is currently carried on within new activities, new thought 
patterns and is the supporting factor for future journeys.

Many thanks for providing the opportunity to ponder, express and appreciation 
the identifying on-going camino outcomes.
Wanda

---------- Original Message -----------
From: blaroli at aol.com
To: kathygower at hotmail.com, GoCamino at oakapple.net
Sent: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:39:03 -0500
Subject: [Gocamino] Pondering

> Hello you all,
> I lost my father when I was three months old, and my mother a few 
> months later. While they took good care of me materially,the aunt 
> and uncle that brought me up were in their fifties, childless, 
> reserved and undemonstrative. Except for visits with my Granadine 
> grandparents my childhood was isolated and lonely. As those who 
> survive serious misfortunes will do, I found a substitute for my 
> profound needs.In my case the Catholic church became my family; 
> through and with it I had the perfect mother, Mary, a big beautiful 
> and wonderful  Brother, Jesus, a kind and superpowerful Father and a 
> Holy Ghost that went with me everywhere. Moreover, they all were 
> (are) perfect and gave me absolute and unconditional love. Through 
> the difficult years of my childhood and the harrowing ones of my 
> adolescence I thought myself to be, at least, very fortunate having 
> been born into the Catholic Church.  What a family! Open churches 
> everywhere all over the world. People in them kind of doing and 
> feeling the same in whatever language.  And what rich means of 
> expression. One can take flowers, light candles, pray alone or 
> together, sit quietly and admire the myriad ways in which others 
> have expressed their idea of Mary and the saints through the images, 
> and the profundity of their love through the incredible Cathedrals 
> and that music that brings the soul out of the self to express love 
> for that which is incomprehensible, yet understood. My Catholicism 
> has not been dogmatic or ritualistic. The pronouncements of men have 
> never superceded, for me, the overflowing of feelings of love and 
> connectedness of one's soul with the wonder of Jesus and Mary which 
> floods the heart when one sits quietly in a church, or listens to 
> vespers, or kneels to pray.  All my life had been cushioned and 
> protected by the Catholic church. I even became a lawyer influenced 
> by Saint Francis of Assisi's plea to "let me be an instrument of 
> your justice".  I've enjoyed to the full the weddings, the First 
> Communions, the Baptisms, the Rosaries, the Masses, the rituals and 
> those apotheoses of human love for the divine, when your soul 
> trascends the body and floats above, on angelic wings, as a 
> procession passes during Holy Week in Seville. As an adult I was 
> well settled and spiritually comfortable in my church and looked 
> forward to live the rest of my days in such manner. Yet, I had never 
> heard of the Camino until 1999 when my sister in law, Liz, who is an 
> Episcopalian and did not speak a word of anything but English ,
>  surprised all of us by having a bicycle made to go to "The Camino". 
>   The vision of a blond, pony-tailed, attractive woman bicycling 
> alone in Northern Spain in short, a la Savannah Georgia, concerned 
> the family and I was pressed to go to keep an eye on her and to 
> "protect her" with my knowledge of the language and the country. I 
> thought it an imposition on my time but I agreed to go because I,
>  too, was concerned about Liz' safety.  My plan was to follow her by 
> car, or bus, and wait around for her from town to town reading books 
> or seeping wine with the locals. We arrived at Pamplona and stayed 
> at a lovely little hotel called "Leyre". When I asked, I was told 
> that Leyre is a famed thousand-years-old monastery nearby famous for 
> its history, art, architecture, wine and Gregorian chants.  Since we 
> were going to take 48 hours off to de-jet lag and to made the 
> bicycle ready, we decided to go visit the monastery.  (Its riches 
> and magnificence I will write about some other time). When we got to 
> the Monastery I was overwhelmed by an atmosphere of intensity and 
> profound devotion.... and the chants fairly paralyzed me.  It turned 
> out that on that day the monks were commemorating th beheading of 
> seven of their brethren in Algiers six years before! The martyred 
> monks had written farewell letters which were read at the service. 
>  They had had a school-cum-hospital at the foot of the Atlas 
> mountains for many years, and when militant revolutionaries began 
> killing nuns in the area it was a matter of time until they came 
> after the monks. After the m! onks' premises were taken over they 
> had several opportunities to leave; indeed, their own abbot went to 
> tell them that the church needed workers, not martyrs... but the 
> monks felt that leaving would betray the example set for them by 
> Jesus. They were beheaded in front of each other. The youngest was 
> in his early twenties, the oldest in his seventies. When I heard all 
> that a storm of shame and self doubt unleashed in my heart.  I felt 
> fake as a Christian and selfish and abusive as a Catholic.  I knew 
> that I had used the church as a cushion for my comfort, ignoring the 
> sacrifices and the intensity of commitment that others were so 
> vividly demonstrating.  I was so ashamed of myself and my wasted 
> life that I did not want to get off my knees or even felt worthy of 
> coming out of the church onto the daylight. For the next two days I 
> neither spoke, nor ate, nor slept,and was pretty much suspended in a 
> vacuum of shame and sorrow.... unable to deal with it ... I did not 
> even feel that I had the right to pray. In that state, I went with 
> Liz to SJPP, and not knowing what else to do, I got a small backpack 
> and a walking stick and started walking up the mountain. A few days 
> later, arriving at the Padron peak, outside Pamnplona,... the stormy 
> waters in my heart began to calm down a bit. By the time I got to 
> the Meseta, and particularly after it, I felt that I could look at 
> myself on the face again, spiritually speaking. When I reached 
> Santiago and fell on my knees for confession the priest told me that 
> I had already confessed to God and that I had already served the 
> penance. He blessed me and told me to keep on walking, always, 
> because when Jesus said "I am the Way (Camino), the Truth and the 
> Life" He was speaking of a human trinity of existence. He said that 
> just as we could undersgtand the Trinity of God the Father, the Son 
> and the Holy Ghost, as being expressions of the same thing, in the 
> same way as  steam, ice and liquid water are expressions of the same 
> substance, the  "way, the truth and life" are one and the same thing 
> for us mortals, and he cautioned me about the arrogance or trying to 
> comprehend the ineffable. Ever since I've been a much humbler 
> Catholic, and I keep walking....walking....and finding a soft 
> fulfillment in doing so.
>  
> Big Hug!
>  
> Rosina 
>  
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