64: another night in a picnic area

Anabel and I got to one sort of picnic area after a while. It was a bit like the rest stops along a highway, but it was mostly for cyclists and pedestrians. There was a rancid smell in the air though, probably from a garbage bin or something, and so we kept walking. I did not want to eat my dinner and go to sleep in an area that smelled like that.

Shortly before dark we reached a similar parking area. There was even a gasoline station just a stone's throw away. We sat down and unpacked some food. Anabel had a baguette that, she warned me, would be "algo chicle" because it was already a few days old. I got her to try some of the pumpernickel that I had found at a shop in Bilbao, because she was completely unfamiliar with it. It seems that dark bread is not so popular in Spain. Between the two of us we also pulled oranges, cheese, chocolate, salami, tuna and yoghurt drinks out of our backpacks.

There was a view of some apartment buildings, and there were people on the street in front of them doing some sort of Basque dance. Anabel told me that she had a Basque flute with her. I don't even have a harmonica, I thought, even though I'm the one who studied music. But for the most part I was glad to be taking a break from music during this time, even though I did a lot of singing along my trek. I was thankful that I had gotten rid of my guitar, and was trying to imagine what that walk from Gernika to Bilbao would have done to my knee if I had had that extra weight on my back.

"Are you OK with sleeping here?" I asked Anabel, pointing to the grass and bushes around us.

"Yes", she said. She had been carrying an isolation mat with her for the whole pilgrimage, and had been hoping to make use of it at least once in an outdoor setting.

I was experiencing something very typical for me: the feeling that the spot I was at wasn't perfect for spending the night. In my various trips -- whether I'm hitch hiking, cycling or whatever -- I start getting into this mode where I keep thinking I'll find something better further along. This means that I usually end up collapsing beside the road around 2:30 AM, sleeping next to some junk pile or in the dark corner of a parking lot because the grass in the field that I passed four hours before was a little too long for my taste, and I had walked on into the darkness hoping to find something more ideal.

But I knew that we wouldn't be likely to find anything better than this. There was some garbage lying around, but I could live with that. I walked over to the gasoline station and used their bathroom to brush my teeth and refill my water bottle, and was again surprised that no one was charging me money for it, like they would have in Germany or the Netherlands.

A lady was walking her dog past the picnic area as I returned, and I hoped that people wouldn't be walking their dogs past my sleeping body all night long.

Anabel had spread out her isolation mat and sleeping bag beside, and halfway under, a large bush. I went around to the other side of the bush and lay my trenchcoat in the grass. It wasn't an isolation mat, but at least it doubled as a coat, cape, and a whole bunch of pockets. I crawled into my sleeping bag, stuffed earplugs into my ears, and went to sleep.

63: steps towards despair: a burden to practically everyone I've ever met

I remember as a kid, looking out my bedroom window at a few other kids playing in the street. One of them was overweight and I yelled something like, "hey, fat pig" at him.

For no reason.

I remember saying "hey stupid" to a new kid in school, because he was, you know, the new kid. I remember mocking my classmates for their spelling errors or for getting questions wrong. I remember contradicting and interrupting my teachers, to the extent where I probably still hold some sort of record at my old school for number of times I got kicked out of class.

For a while I went through a lying phase. This was mostly in fifth grade. Not only would I lie in order to worm my way around getting caught (for homework I hadn't done, for example), but I had a bad case of one-upmanship whenever someone told a good story or joke. I made up some adventure of my own, unverifiable to anyone in the room.

I'm far less comfortable with lying today, but my one-upmanship remains, in some more socially acceptable forms. It isn't necessarily even one-upmanship -- my stories are not always as good or as exciting as the ones the other people tell -- but it's a form of self-validation. "Well, I guess that was a pretty good story, but I'm here too, I have stories too." Sometimes I even feel that I can only move a conversation along by contributing a similar experience of my own to it, instead of continuing talking about the other's experience. This may seem like a minor thing, but it is symptomatic of my entire life: even in my apparent attempts to connect with others, to help someone else along, it is really all about me. I live by theft.

I remember how a friend and I would wrestle with the other kids living in his building. It wasn't exactly brawling, but it was more serious than play-fighting. Once I groped a girl inappropriately during such a fight (she was just reaching adolescence). What is incredible to me in retrospect is how naive I was about it. There was no thought of getting a cheap thrill in a sexual way out of this; I simply considered it a valid move in a semi-serious skirmish with a girl.

But her reaction, the look on her face and the sound that she made, has haunted me all these years.

What is the use of my life? Some guy out there might have an eating disorder because of the way people called him names when he was a chubby kid. God only knows what psychological disorders some girl is carrying around from a grope in a hallway fight. Who knows how many of the cruelties on my part have seriously injured others. And what have I done in return? Have I done anything good of which one can say, "well, of course you'll do some damage along the way, but you're doing something good as well"?

Nothing comes to mind. It seems like so many empty words. Even the better things I have done have been like the stories I tell -- a form of self-validation. Whose life is enriched because of me? Where have I even neutralized the damage I have done? I can't even apologize to most of the people I've hurt, because I can't track them down anymore.

Part of being a Christian means that you can't drag this stuff around with you all your life; you must accept God's forgiveness for it and move on. But far from uplifting me, this discourages me even more. For one thing, even in my more willing moments I can't surrender it, and so I continue to feel like a failure for carrying this around with me anyway. For another, it often seems like such a scumbag's way out;I'd like to pay back the damage somehow.

But of course I can't. Even my most determined efforts to do some good in order to compensate for the bad I do have only resulted in more bad.

And that, too, is a miserable realization. Where else can all this lead but to despair? What conclusion can possibly follow other than the conclusion that the world would be better off if I hadn't been born?

62: Leaving Portugalete

It took a long time for the photo store to get Anabel's pictures from her digital camera. During that time I went to two different bookstores, neither of which had a pocket-sized New Testament which I could take for the rest of the pilgrimage. I had a small booklet containing the four gospels -- a Spanish man at Taize had given this to me -- but I wanted to read around in the Epistles as well.

As the process in the photo store was delayed and delayed, we met a man who immediately began to talk to us about the Camino. He was one of the "Amigos del Camino", who dedicate themselves to promoting and improving the pilgrim ways to Santiago. He said there was another pilgrim shelter near Muskiz, but it wouldn't be open in April, and to walk it would take more hours than we still had daylight for. He walked with us until we were out of town, talking incessantly to Anabel with a million words of advice for a pilgrim. I was starting to tune out what he was saying, but Anabel kept asking questions.

Once outside of Portugalete, we started off at a brisk pace towards the lowering sun. Anabel had two large walking staffs, which looked sort of funny. There was something spider-like about the way these slender legs helped her walk.

"So why are you taking this trip?" I asked her. I asked this of every pilgrim I met along the way, although I eventually learned that it was not such a good idea to start a new acquaintanceship with something so personal, even though it would seem like the most natural question two pilgrims might ask each other.

"Turismo ecologico," she answered. "This trail has the infrastructure of essentially one long series of nature hikes. Also, I thought that crossing the entire country on foot would be a great way for me to do something, you know, get a feeling of achievement, to be able to believe in myself."

The words "believe in myself" usually just bounce around inside my head looking -- unsuccessfully -- for some meaning to attach themselves to. They must mean something, or people wouldn't use them, but I don't know what they mean. I've always "believed in myself", in the sense that I've never doubted my existence. What more can it mean to believe in oneself? People talk about it as if it were a sort of validation for one's existence.

I once wrote into my journal: "Even in my darkest hours I've believed in myself. That's part of what made them so dark."

"And you?" She asked.

It was only fair for her to take revenge by asking the same question. It is a difficult question, but I had the answers that I had been working out, even if they weren't the complete reasons for my doing this.

"Well, I wanted to travel again, see some new part of the world, but I hate traveling in countries where I can't communicate. I haven't been in Spain before, but I do speak Spanish, so this is ideal. And, as you say, it's a great infrastructure for walking, which is a travel mode I wanted to explore a little more. And I wanted some away time to come to peace and learn how to pray."

"So you're a believer?"

"Yes. Aren't you?"

"Well, I'm Catholic, but I don't believe any more."

"Yes?"

"When I was a child, my cousin became very sick. My mother told me to pray for her, so I was praying, praying, trying everything, you know, but she just kept getting worse. And then," her voice started failing her a bit, "and then she died. But my mom said I should keep praying, so that her soul would be set free from Purgatory, and I continued praying..." she was fully weeping now. "I'm sorry..." she said, trying to breathe normally again and wiping her eyes. We walked on for a while. I was experiencing the helplessness of every man who is confronted with a crying woman. The natural impulse is to put your arms around her or something, but I've learned that giving in to this impulse is not always a good thing. "Don't hold on to me" and all that.

"And then," she said a little more calmly, "later on I saw what this whole thing had done to me, and I decided that there is no one up there. No one who cares, anyway."

We walked in silence for a while. The evening sun made everything golden. The pilgrim trail here went alongside a bike trail, and cyclists in training raced past us.

This, I thought, was the kind of Catholicism I've grown up being taught to reject. This idea of appeasing God by praying enough, of spiritual blackmail and perpetual uncertainty. Every brand of Christianity can play such power games, but what is it about the Roman Church...? I was fully intending to discover my own spiritual connections to Roman Catholicism on this pilgrimage, the ones that I had never known as a child because I grew up in the sort of context in which Catholics aren't even considered Christians.

"Have you tried telling Him?" I finally asked.

"Telling whom?"

"Telling God. Tell Him He doesn't exist. Tell Him He's not fair. He can take it."

"Why should I do that?"

"Well, what can you lose? If you are angry at Him, you're not making it better by keeping your anger to yourself. Even if there is no God, any psychologist can tell you that there's value in releasing your emotions. But if God is there -- well if He's really unfair then you can at least tell Him so, but if He really loves you then He'll be glad to communicate with you, even if you're afraid that He won't like what you say." I started babbling. I often get this way. I tried to explain to her that God actually likes us. I told her of how long it had taken me to understand this, because I had been told all my life that God loves me, but had taken that to mean that He's forbearing with me, gets frustrated at how hard it is to change me, suffers when I do bad things, and is just generally burdened by my existence -- everything except the most obvious characteristics of love, such as "enjoys spending time with me" and "is more interested in freeing me than in controlling me". I tried to say that Jesus loves our friends even more than we do, loved Anabel's cousin, loves us more than we can love ourselves.

I don't remember what I said and how trite it may have sounded, but I remember the feeling. I'm not sure what it means that I become a babbling idiot when I speak about the love of God. It is interesting that in those moments I have so much conviction -- not pretended conviction but true, deep confidence -- in what I am saying. I can wrestle with God all night long and accuse Him of everything, can blame Him for creating me and thwarting me and tormenting me, can ask Him to take away my life because I have no desire to keep going. But when I start talking to someone about the love of God, I believe strongly and passionately in the love of God.

What does this mean? Does my own talking convince me? Does my conviction awaken in time for me to talk to others, and then wane again when I am left to myself? Is the love of God more credible to me when I am in the presence of someone who I wish were experiencing it? Do I subconsciously force myself to believe something because I want someone else to believe it? Or do I live in the conviction, but forget about it too often and need reminding? Do my words to others serve as a reminder to myself?

Many things I do not understand.

61: Meditations on the resurrection, Part 7: "Do not hold on to me."

When Mary Magdalene rushes to embrace the resurrected Jesus, he says, "do not hold on to me, for I have not yet gone to be with the Father." What strange words. I think the Greek text in the gospels can even be translated as "stop touching me."

One of the monks at Taize had spoken to us about this. He talked about how it is our instinct to hold on to the things that are dear to us, but how this then deprives these things of their essence because in holding on to something by force, we do not allow it to be itself. We end up clinging to a hull, or a shadow, or a past reality.

Jesus speaks a similar language throughout the gospels. He says that "he who tries to preserve his life will lose it". Many passages in the Sermon on the Mount seem to be variations of the principle that "you get what you want by learning not to pursue it in too immediate a way." And he tells his disciples that it is good for him to go away, because otherwise the Comforter wouldn't come.

But how is that "good"? Which disciple would have voluntarily gone through the transaction of having the Master removed from among their midst, even if he were replaced by the indwelling of the Spirit?

As I picture Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus in front of the empty tomb, I think I can understand, but I'm pretty sure I can't explain. Somehow the natural reaction of embracing someone who you thought had been taken away from you would not give you the same closeness in this moment. Somehow a much more intimate (and certainly more lasting) spiritual bond could be formed only by relinquishing the more immanent connection. Somehow a part of her heart was awakened that could only be awakened through the denial of a more immediate desire.

If walking with Jesus is nothing else, it is the progressive awakening of ourselves. He makes complete persons of us, awakening individual areas whose existence we had no idea of, areas which we cannot have any idea of unless we are deprived of our acquired habits of navigating around them. This can be a very painful process, but it is this which makes our walk with Jesus so joyful and worthwhile.

60: Portugalete

The rest of the walk was through one city after another. We wanted to find a good place to take a rest and have some lunch, but even when we did find a park there was construction work going on a stone's throw away.

Coming into Portugalete, we saw the famous suspension bridge. Built in 1893, it was the first significant example of a transporter bridge in the world. It is essentially a ferry that doesn't touch the water. I looked at the monumental work and imagined it being built in the 19th century and wondered why they didn't just put a rope ferry across the river.

We asked around for the pilgrim shelter. Many people didn't know, others directed us through town to a hall that was apparently used as a sort of school. There was no one at the reception. We asked some of the people passing through, but no one seemed to know whether Portugalete had a pilgrim shelter. We tried to ask our way to the city's information center, but that had moved recently, so we walked around through the city. Eventually we found it, but, like almost everything in Spain, it was closed for the afternoon. Lone sat down on a park bench. I found another bench, removed my boots, and lay down to rest. An hour later the info center opened.

As we walked in, a petite redhead with a backpack walked in as well. I had already noticed her at the hostel in Bilbao, partly because she walked around with two staves. It looked quite funny, since these were sticks picked up in the woods and not "professional" nordic walking sticks. She was another pilgrim also looking for a shelter. Her name was Anabel.

The receptionist at the info office told us that Portugalete's pilgrim shelter is a seasonal thing; during the summers one can spend the night in that hall where Lone and I had first been led to. But, as it was still April, we would have to spend the night in a hotel. We asked about price, and she said the cheapest was 22 Euros.

Lone decided she would go with that, but I thought I'd rather continue walking and spend the night outside somewhere. Anabel seemed undecided. "You'll sleep outside?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said. "I don't feel like paying for a hotel, and the weather report said that it wouldn't rain." I had made sure to catch the weather at the Bilbao hostel.

"But then where do you sleep?"

I shrugged. "A patch of grass somewhere. Or a beach. I've done it a few times on this trip already."

"I think I'll try that too."

"Great."

I still wanted to see if I could buy a Spanish New Testament, and Anabel wanted to find a photo store where she could dump the pictures from her digital camera onto a CD. Lone had a few things to buy as well, so the three of us went roaming the streets together.

Anabel

Portugalete is the only city I know that has motorized walkways on the sidewalks outside. There were many steep streets, so it was helpful to not have to walk all that way. But it did feel strange.

Anabel and Lone on a conveyor sidewalk in Portugalete