I ´m walking the main street of Sarria still smelling the pine and wildflowers recently scattered on the road for the Corpus Christi procession. Cloud cover guarantees shade, but it is not too cool. Pilgrims amble about the town as locals can scarecly be found, some sleeping away this hushed Sunday afternoon while others are crowded around TVs in bars and homes watching the auto race.

After walking around, finding little to look at, I duck into the bar with an Internet sign, telling myself I want to get online but knowing it´s because I want to see the cute Quebecois and to be around people. I don´t really feel like praying or reflecting today; I just feel like relaxing, laughing, and wiling away this sleepy sunny afternoon.

Today was a gorgeous walk out of Triacastela. The alternate path leads to Samos, site of a large and powerful medieval monastery, along the river which has cut a small gorge into the countryside over the past few million years. The sun is up because I didn´t leave until after 7:30, but a brilliant and clear half moon is also out, just above the top of the mountain which silently observes me padding out of town on foot. I am alone.

Bright yellow wildflowers cover the mountainside, as do trees which stagger upward to a tree line. Above the line brown scrub brush hugs the rock all the way to the top. The sun hits only the upper half of the mountain, so the valley is in tranquil shade, grown over by trees as thick as velvet. Below the growth, the unseen river hurries on its way, and its rush continually fills my ears since today it and the camino are inseparable friends.

Sometimes to the right of the road, huge slabs of rock jut up from the ground, pushed slowly upward over millions of years and, recently, quietly grown over by plants and moss. It has rained a lot in the past week, so water from an unknown source high up the mountain runs down the side of the cliff and off the rock onto the road, sometimes in charming tributary trickles, other times merging streams into waterfalls. A lone bird flutters across my gaze to the rock and perches delicately in a cleft, its own miniature waterfall providing a curtain of privacy as it drinks from a tiny pool in the chink.

I walk on, enamored with the silent riot of morning beauty, until I turn around to see what is behind me. The rising sun beams into my face and illuminates the entire scene from the back. Water leaps off the rock in a fine spray, lit from behind by the sun. Several yards further I turn around again to see a tiny pilgrim against the backdrop of the gigantic mountain, transfigured entirely into silouhette by the sun. All of it is too much. I can´t help but be charmed into happiness. Today I am walking to an ancient monastery hidden in a valley, and this is only the start of my journey.

At times like this I shut my eyes with joy because nothing can be more beautiful. I close my eyes not to shut out the world but to take it all in -- to savor it and not to lose it.

But, of course, I can´t keep it. Nothing stays the same. The sun rises and becomes too hot. Silouhettes lose their romance because they lose their shade. Rivers move on. Trees cast off their leaves. A picture, or even a painting, cannot contain it. It can only be seen and appreciated now. It is a gift which lasts for the present and whatever small feeling it impresses in my memory for the future.

Today the camino is magically kind. Clear skies, pastoral paths, friendly but not crowding company, lovely village for rest, and the feast of Corpus Christi. Jesus made flesh each and every day, just like he was 2,000 years ago -- in rivers and trees, sun and moon, monastery and hamlet, men and women on the way. All are eucharist today because all are gifts received, made into the great Amen because they are not owned or controlled, but loved, and accepted with hands thrown up in gratitude. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Each day I wake up around 5am, if not earier, and leave by 6am, walking until Noon or 1 until I reach the pilgrim hostel.  There I line up to wait with other pilgrims to see if we have a bed.  Why is the Camino crowded in early May?!  Once inside, I shower, do laundry, and then eat, by which time it´s 3pm, and I´m exhausted.  So a nap follows or, if I'm lucky, I see the town.  Regardless, the early evening includes shopping for food for the following day and making plans for dinner, usually at a local restaurant which serves a pilgrim´s menu. The menu de peregrino costs about 8-10 Euros and entails a 3 course meal with bread and wine. After dinner it´s back to the hostel to take my laundry off the line, chat for a few minutes, and then bed by 9 or 9:30.  That´s left little time for posting here.

However, I thought today about the pilgrimage so far and one very lovely thought emerged.  Several times on the way, I´ve thought back over my life.  There´s nothing significant in that, since walking along long stretches of empty road will lead to that.  But for me the significant part is that when I do look back on my life, sometimes I am overcome by a grand, enveloping sense of love and peace.  I am struck that all around me is a providential love that has been present from the beginning of my life until now, and sometimes it is made palpable on this road in Spain.

Yesterday morning I left my main group of friends that have been with me since the beginning.  They stayed in a small village, but I walked on to the next town since I have less time.  Once on the road outside of town I was struck by the wide open feeling of being alone, on my own, with no one around.  My first inclination was to trek in the silence and solitude, but eventually I wanted to sing. So, since I was by myself, I began to belt out songs I know by heart, which are almost all hymns.  I started with a few poetic hymns from my Methodist days (Praise to the Lord, the Almighty and Sing Praise to God).  But then all these songs from my childhood welled up, and I sang some of them for the first time in ages -- He Lives, Christ the Solid Rock, Just As I Am.

I don´t love everything about these songs, but they are such a part of me that I remember all the verses, and I was struck that they are about trust, surrender, and openness.  For some reason, as I sang them, I could look back on my life and see a thread of grace, an ongoing presence which now, and has always, been a yes in the center of who I am.  And that, the enveloping sense of love across time, made me cry.  Silly, I know, but it was a momentous gift to be on the road alone and to feel that, from age to age, a presence of love and grace has been present, and were I to fully realize it, it would be too much for me.

Several times such glimpses into grace have happened.  They don´t tell me that I need to become a Baptist again or to sentimentalize my childhood.  They tell me that God´s love can bring together, like a drawstring, all the various parts of my life into a whole that speaks now and always a yes, a deep, reverberating, indefatigueable, irresistible yes that is so larger than I am that it brings me to tears to be caught up into it.

There is so much more to say and better ways to say it all, but in the few minutes I have I wanted to say a thanks, not only to God and the universe around me, but to all those people who have made my life such a wonderful and beautiful thing.  I am humbled, especially as I walk a road so many others have walked, to know I live in a world that has been made gracious and wonderful long before I ever arrived and which offers me the great gift and joy to be here and now, in this particular place on the road, but also in every place on the way of my life.  

I spent 15 minutes writing this same entry an hour ago, but the machine cut me off, with no chance to add minutes.  Apparently in Roncesvalles, Spain, you get 15 minutes, and that´s it.  It´s like Spain used to be a Fascist country or something...

Today was spent traveling across the Pyrenes mountains, between France and Spain. I started at 8am in Saint Jean Pied-de-Port and arrived 7 hours later in Roncesvalles, Spain, a small village made up of about ten buildings including two churches, two restaurants, and a grant total of 4 computers with public internet access.  No matter because today, sore feet and aching shoulders notwithstanding, was a superb day.

The morning began with a steep hike into the mountains, which more times than not, was a Julie Andres moment in the Sound of Music.  No, I didn´t burst into song, but yes, I did take several pictures of every possible angle of green, verdant mountains, grazing sheep and cattle, roaming horses above the tree line, and fierce winds railing against hapless pilgrims forced to walk sideways and bent into the wind in order to remain upright.

Several times I had to force myself to stop and take a break or to eat.  My body was telling me clearly that I needed rest, but my mind was telling me to keep going, cover more ground, and a better stopping places lies ahead.  Truthfully, my mind was also telling me to catch up to the group ahead and not to get passed by those behind me.  Chalk it up to being a man, a Texan, or an American, but competition and accomplishment were desires close at hand today, even though I told myself that´s not what this pilgrimage is about.  I am not trying to cover a lot of ground in as fast amount of time as possible.  I am trying to see as much of what´s around me as possible, which takes time and requires going slowly.  In fact, a wise and seasoned hiker told me early on to walk very slowly at first, and that she had seen many men do too much, too fast, and after a week not be able to continue.

So I heeded her words, kind of.  About 2 hours up the mountain, we came to the only restaurant (or any public establishment for that matter) on the whole 25 kilometer hike.  Everyone stopped for tea and a break, but I pushed myself to keep going, though my body was saying to stop, especially in such a lovely spot.  However, I didn´t make it far.  About 100 yards up, I plopped down my bag beside the road, sat on the grass, and then reclined against my bag, watching the 1000 foot drop to my right which shot right down to pastures of horses, patchwork fields, and cottages with thatched roofs.  It was breathtaking.

Right before I left, though, I made the best discovery.  A small sapphire of light in a clump of grass below me caught my eye.  As I turned, I saw that it was a tiny round bead of dew perched plumply and serenely on one wispy blade of grass.  While looking, the sun kept catching it just right so that it seemed to catch the water on fire, making it a small circle of light.  It was a faro menor, a little lighthouse, beaming a great big wink at me from the universe.  I felt it was a sparkling reminder of why this trip is not about finding anything or answering questions, but about learning to pay attention, the only way you can when you´re completely out of your element.  The small, beautiful things you may find when you slow and are attuned are indeed blessings, reminding me that rest is not just about rejuvenation but also about re-creation.

There are many more things to say about today, but perhaps the glint of the lighthouse in the grass is enough.  I almost start to tear up about that, and I´m not sure why.  It was a marvelous gift, and it came when I was resting!