…FRAGILIZING…

Stage 58 / Tuesday 23 June / From Tosantos to Santovenia de Oca / 22 km

 

“The wind that blows across the mountain will drive me crazy!” [Le vent qui souffle à travers la montagne me rendra fou !] This is a beautiful poem set to music by the singer Georges Brassens (1921-1981). He had slightly modified the text of the poem Gastibelza by the poet Victor Hugo (Guitar – piece XXII of the collection The rays and shadows published in 1837). The refrain of Brassens haunts me today, and you will see why.

 

I had a long stage yesterday, during which I debated with myself on the word “liberty.” I entered the province of Burgos after Grañón. The day, growing steadily hotter, finished with a storm. That was followed by a beautiful evening, a moment almost magical, at the refuge of Tosantos, welcomed by the “hospitaleros” (hosts who manage the refuge). These turned out to be really out of the ordinary. For all those who wanted, they led the singing of canticles in a room arranged as a chapel. Then they served us an enormous dish of pasta, which re-energized me, and I admired their free and humble choice to live simply, always smiling, in the service of others.

 

And if, yesterday morning, after having seriously questioned the reality of the presence or absence of God, I had begun my stage in the fog, today it’s the wind since I left Tosantos, which is blowing my in my face in destabilizing gusts, making progress quite difficult! Yes, as the song says, it’s going to drive me crazy, this darn wind … I struggle, I push on my poles to move forward across fields on exposed paths. Sometimes an even more brutal gust of wind makes me stagger and I must quickly replant my pole sideways to avoid falling. How fragile, how weak I feel!

 

“It blows where it will, the breath, and you hear its voice …” (John 3:8 in the translation by André Chouraqui where the word breath, God’s exhalation, replaces the word spirit). I appropriate for myself this sentence that Jesus said to Nicodemus. The latter was a “doctor of Israel,” someone important among the guardians of the Jewish Law, the Pharisees. He was fraught with doubts and had come to see Jesus at night, for fear that his important colleagues would find out about this risky step. He too felt fragile, and he needed to understand better.

 

There are some very astonishing things in Jesus’ response to him, like having to be reborn “of water and breath” (John 3:5), and “Yes, every evildoer hates the light; he does not come into the light because he is afraid his doings will be reproved” (John 3:20). He also said that “… the light has come into the universe, but men loved darkness instead of light …” (John 3:19). And to read this chapter of the gospel where everything seems complicated and simple at the same time, one rediscovers the principle of freedom given by God to man. God “… did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever holds tight to him is not judged, but whoever does not hold tight stands condemned already…” (John 3:17-18) And I who am struggling against such breath today, am I already judged?

 

To live without God is liberating, but it’s like throwing oneself into the water without knowing how to swim. The result is predictable, and this is probably what Jesus wants to explain with his “who does not hold tight to him is already judged”: he is The lifebuoy for those who want to dive into this life with confidence! And claiming to want to swim without knowing how and without a buoy leads by itself to a freely chosen but implacable result: one sinks straight down! Thus, this wind against which I’m trying to move forward reminds me that it doesn’t take much for life to become difficult or for one to make a wrong turn … I am far from feeling invulnerable: is it completely by chance that the wind is rising against me this morning?

 

But I’m not alone in being this fragile and thinking reed (cf. Blaise Pascal, already cited in Stage 11), it is all humanity that shares this feeling, humanity which knows itself mortal. Sprung innocent into the world, it discovers its fragility. Some take refuge in denial, the “darkness” according to John’s description, and decide for themselves that all is already judged. Others, for a reason that I don’t understand myself, are not resigned and begin searching. I am one of them! The proof: this decision to set off on a pilgrimage … to put myself on the path again. Not only for simple adventures, even though the path contains plenty of them, but especially to redefine once and for all what I believe. I am always torn between a Church which seems imprisoned in its dogmas, and a science which is necessarily imprisoned in the material. Between religion without proof, and science without hope, who am I? Where am I going on my path?

 

The true seekers of God discover that the existence of God is not imposed, because if that were the case, what would they do with it? They discover that the desire to find God is never finished in this life. Even more in moments of fragility than in moments of quasi-certainty! They also discover that believing in God does not prevent that, in order to escape from the despair of never being certain of His existence, one must first begin by believing in oneself, self-respect. One does not prevent the other: “God helps those who help themselves!” said Jean de La Fontaine (Fable VI, 18).

 

The first followers of Christ were rude Galilean fishermen, like Peter, James (the Compostela one) and his brother John (the one who tells the story of Nicodemus). They were the “followers of the Way” -- that is what, historically, the first Christians were called. There wasn’t too much mention yet of apostles or disciples. Later came the brilliant Saul of Tarsus, well-educated Pharisee. He thought he was doing the right thing in persecuting to death the followers of this new doctrine, until the day when the light blinded him on the road to Damascus. He then became the fragile “runt of God’s litter, the least of God’s messengers.” He took the name Paul (cf. stage 56) and he really became his new messenger through his letters and epistles.

 

One did not yet speak of the Church, nor of dogma; one spoke of the Way, that which some researchers of God who had met Jesus, or who had been inspired (ah, that breath which comes again …!) by what this man said. They gave the example on this Way, to better help others on the path! Like my “hospitaleros” yesterday, singers and cooks!

 

Tosantos! All saints! And this wind blowing across the mountain, ready to drive me crazy! Before arriving in Santavenia! The holy avenue? The holy Way? Decidedly, taking this windy path in all fragility, it leaves you disheveled!