…INTO MEMORY…

Stage 73 / Wednesday 7 July / From Murias de Rechivaldo to El Acebo / 33 km

 

The mountain, finally! The mountaineer that I am whistles loudly on the first slopes that lead to the Cruz de Ferro pass. There, traditionally, the pilgrims put down a little stone signifying their willingness to put down the burden of their past at the foot of the Iron Cross which domine towers above the pass. This simple gesture is a vibrant homage of gratitude and especially confidence in the One who wanted to give His all to humanity! Humbly recognizing himself as the son of Man, and at the same time being designated at several key moments (and before witnesses) as beloved Son of the Most-High, He was given the supreme mission to show to what unthinkable degree God loves the conclusion of His creation, this mixture of inert and thinking that constitutes humanity.

 

This “anointed of the Lord,” the Messiah long-awaited by the Jews, the Christos (Χρίστος) of the Greeks, carried his cross to Golgotha and died there in saying, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing” (Luke 23:34) revealed to what extent the divine love transcends human death. For dead in human form, because of humans, with humans, his Father in heaven elevated him to His side and attributed to Him the supreme recognition of a life beyond time, after He had raised Him from the tomb where they had laid him.

 

Unction (applying perfumed oil) was the symbolic sign that Yeshua (Jesus), the son of Myriam (Mary), had been chosen for that. But for Jesus, this was an anointing by the primordial breath. Here is the translation by André Chouraqui of the passage where Jesus explains his anointing in the gospel of Luke 4:18-19: The breath (spirit) of IHVH-Adonaï (God the father) is upon me; he has messiated (anointed) me to announce the message to the poor, to proclaim to the captive: “Liberation!” to the blind: “See!” to free the oppressed, and proclaim a year of welcome by IHVH-Adonaï.”

 

Is it the effort of carrying my pack up to the pass that brings back to me the memory of Christ carrying his cross? Yesterday, in the stage from Hospital de Órbigo to Murias de Rechivaldo, I stopped with my hiking companions in the parish church of la Trinidad (Trinity), in the village of Santibáñez de Valdeiglesias. There was a via crucis, way of the cross. Here is one of those stations, which greatly moved us, as much by its sobriety as by the quality of the expressions carved in the wood.

 

The way of the cross is a way of keeping “in memory” the final moments of the life of Him, whom so few people today want to admit his coming on earth 2015 years ago. The date is approximate, of course, for neither watches nor newspapers existed yet. Nonetheless, his companions at that time, terrified, witnessed His death for us and because of us. What they told about it, what was left in writing in what one called the “good news” (εὐαγγέλιον), merits meditation just as much as a treaty on cosmology or quantum mechanics. The good news is that He resuscitated, that He came back to life! And the memory of this passage of His life to death, but also of His life “resuscitated” continues to be palpable in the church on Sunday and in Church among Christians.

 

Yesterday, in dissecting what the electron can do, I also realized how diverse forms of light can be physical carriers of memory, light which, from inert material in fields of black matter, surges up by the immaterial of energy fields until it forms living matter and ultimately thinking matter! And also light which reaches my brain bringing information there. Thus, there is little reason to worry about which came first, brain or thought, from matter or spirit. Our ancestors had understood in circling with a halo of light the head of those who were filled with “Spirit” and helped in understanding who was at the origin of all things!

 

In propagating at the speed of light, does information not subtract itself from the grip of time? Can it not thus make me appreciate a foretaste of eternity? Am I not as much “in-formed” in material as in spiritual forms? My “me” is built by my metabolic food certainly, but especially by the sum of information which feeds my little brain and makes me capable of fixed memories (photographic type) as well as dynamic developments (memory of stories or tunes of music). Two types of memory, one which me rend capable enables me to appreciate ornithology (recognizing bird species) and the other ethological (knowing about their behavior), and which finally enables me to build a certain reputation for imitating the song of this or that winged creature !

 

Receptor and emitter, my little brain (probably through sleep) knows how to filter what is ultimately going to establish the distinction of me myself « Pierre Angleys » from every other person. These two types of Memory give me as much the sensation of time passing as the assurance of the construction of my personal “me.” And if I appreciate more and more the joy of life, it is because I feel more and more that my carnal envelope is only a little compared to this all-loving imprint come from elsewhere, capable of “magnetizing” my “me” as far as engraving it forever.