A Good Model

So the place I stayed last night (in Grañon for all you map-checkers) is a nearly identical model of what I´d like to create in the Camino somewhere. They had a communal supper that was prepared by the hospitaleros and several pilgrims, a prayer for dinner, everyone helped clean up afterwards, we sang my Irish friend "Happy birthday" in French, Spanish, English, Portugese, Danish, German, Korean, and Italian, and they had a very solemn prayer service for all of us to attend as we pleased. Oh, and it was donation-only. I would have appreciated the hospitalera explicitly stating "the Lord Jesus Christ" just once instead of constantly saying "the one who is above," but otherwise it was a very good model of what I´d like to do. They defintiely are committed to caring for the pilgrims´spiritual needs as well as their physical needs.

After that I treated and prayed for an older Danish woman´s very sore and blister-y feet, which was good. I also got to pray for my younger Italian friend´s foot and knee (after which she gave me a hug and giant smack on the jaw. She has to be the most Italian person I have ever met, because I´m the third person I´ve seen her do that to, and she is constantly petting all the guys on the head and gives out hugs like a broken ATM spits out bills) and my French friend´s knee and foot (she´s from Toulos, by the way). All of them were very grateful, though I wonder if my French friend is a Christian. Need to follow up on it.

I mentioned last time that there was a piano and a guitar in Grañon. A Quebecan guy who´s been part of our group for a while played it really well, and the Australian I met in Los Arcos also played. The Quebecan was also quite the guitarist, so I taught everyone listening the blues version of "Amazing grace." My French friend and I both lacked the practice to play most of the piano classicals we learned as teenagers, but she was quite good once she got less timid (it helped when there were only 2 other people in the room). She enjoyed learning the "Heart and Soul" duet as well, so we had good fun.

Today I´m in a similar place that has a communal, prayed-for dinner and is donations only. They have a visit to some historical chapel up in the hills before dinner and a prayer service after dinner. I´m hoping my Nebraskan friend makes it here because he has very swollen tendonitis in his right ankle and I´d like to pray for him if he´ll let me. My other Quebecan friend had to take a bus today becaus of her infected blister, so I would like to pray for her as well if she´ll let me.

A couple of insights I have to share with you to help process. First, it seems that for a lot of the pilgrims the idea of having a steady job for a long time is out of the question. My male Quebecan friend is 33 but seems to always be on the move and travelling, bartending and the like to support himself.

Also, whereas even Americans who shack up seem to generally want to get married, people seem to think of it as an unnecessary hassle in the rest of the world. (Well, maybe not in Asia, but I have only talked to one Korean so far, so I hardly have a good sampling.) The phenomenon of the "Camino couple" has also reached my ears several times through the Santiago grape vine. I even heard one rumor that there´s a girl from Alabama with a boyfriend back home who has been travelling and hooking up with a European since her second day or so. These pilgrims desperately need the Gospel!

One other thing I´d like to let you all know is that I´ve been in touch with the bishop of the Anglican church in Spain and should be meeting with him on Sunday afternoon, June 26. That means I´ll take an overnight bus or train from Santiago to Madrid the day before and join them for their Sunday worship that morning as well, which will be great I´m sure. My Spanish is still a little hazy, but his reply to my email seemed to be very encouraging and I expect he´ll be glad to give me any advice he can. We´ll see for sure on the 26th, anyway! God bless!