{"id":541,"date":"2012-09-22T05:26:24","date_gmt":"2012-09-22T11:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/?p=541"},"modified":"2016-05-02T11:21:03","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:21:03","slug":"the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html","title":{"rendered":"The Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Not every encounter on the pilgrim path is with Christ and his saints. Not every experience is a mystical insight. Not everything you learn has spiritual significance. But it\u2019s all part of the road.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth taking a breather to note some of the things we\u2019ve learned and experienced and encountered on this pilgrimage. They weren\u2019t necessarily on the agenda, but they\u2019ll stay with us at least as long as the dates of the Spanish Reconquest or the number of dining rooms in the Royal Palace of Madrid.<\/p>\n

What We\u2019ve Learned<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s different over here.<\/strong> From mastering doors that push out instead of pull in, to having to put your room key into the slot to turn the lights on (and plunge your roommate in the dark when you go downstairs for a drink, because they\u2019ll only give you one key), to staying clean while avoiding death by scalding or hydraulic pressure from strange shower arrangements or falling out of a too-tall bathtub with no grab bars, to oh-my-goodness the food (black pudding, sardine paste, lots of fish, no ice, coffee that curls your hair in the morning and isn\u2019t available at night), we learned to adjust.<\/p>\n

We aren\u2019t on a German<\/em> tour.<\/strong> So nothing is ever precisely as described, or at precisely the time we thought it was, or as efficient as it looks on paper. People are people the world over, and they\u2019re a lot more flexible about time in siesta lands. Plus, rounding up 85 people is not easy if you are not an Australian sheepdog. Plus, we never did learn to listen, so scheduling is often a matter of asking \u201cWhat time are we meeting?\u201d right as we are being told what time we\u2019re meeting. We are learning to catch up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We aren\u2019t as religious as we thought we were.<\/strong> So much of the lore and legend of Western Christianity is lost to us as Americans, not only because of the Great 30-Year Catechetical Drought (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa)<\/em>, but because we live in a secularized society. We pooh-pooh the EuroZone for its lack of piety, and cheer efforts at a New Evangelization, but in the places we\u2019ve been, Christendom and Al-Andalus and the Golden Age of the Jewish Diaspora are still alive and well and running through the landscape and the conversation. Nobody bothers to separate Church and state. The Zaragoza soccer team comes to the Shrine of Our Lady of Pilar to touch the statue\u2019s mantle and pray her blessing as each season kicks off. Professional guides speak with absolute credulity of Mary\u2019s bilocating between Jerusalem and Spain, or of the miraculous properties of St Teresa\u2019s teeny tiny arm. Led through richly decorated cathedrals and the Prado\u2019s plethora of religiously themed art, we can\u2019t tell one saint from another, even with<\/em> a playbook. We learned how much we still have to learn.<\/p>\n

What We\u2019ve Experienced<\/strong><\/p>\n

Homesickness.<\/strong> No matter how great our longing to have our feet set on the pilgrim\u2019s path, there comes a point when we all yearn for home. We miss not only family and friends and shower nozzles we can figure out, but the dailyness of our lives. French fries from Burger King. The Reds scores. The hometown paper. White wine that\u2019s chilled, and more than two tiny cubes of ice in a drink. The first signs of autumn in our gardens. Stores where we understand the prices. Our home parish, which, while it doesn\u2019t having soaring Gothic cloisters or an ornate reredos in the platenesque<\/em> style, is lovely in its own way, and home. Homesickness is an important feature of the pilgrimage experience, because in it we are reminded that all of us are homesick for heaven.<\/p>\n

Miracles.<\/strong> Whether it\u2019s remembering you left your purse hanging over the back of your chair before<\/em> you leave the restaurant, or having a priest to break (most of) your flying fall from an invisible step, or finding a moment\u2019s peace in a quiet courtyard at midday, or seeing a winged creature soar from the breast of the crucified Christ at the fraction of the Mass, there are wonders on the road. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, though, it takes keeping your eyes open:<\/p>\n

Earth\u2019s crammed with heaven,<\/em>
\nAnd ev\u2019ry common bush afire with God;<\/em>
\nBut only he who sees takes off his shoes\u2014<\/em>
\nThe rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.<\/em><\/p>\n

Challenges.<\/strong> Knees that don\u2019t hold us up while we\u2019re holding everybody else up. Lost wallets. A malfunctioning C-PAP machine that turns 3 nights into a hell of sleeplessness. The elevators, or the lack of them. Delayed luggage. Not enough room in the suitcase (or Euros in the bag) to buy everything you want to buy. The heat. The food. The lack of sleep. The information overload that makes you scream if you hear one more date or are asked to identify one more trend in church architecture. They\u2019re nothing like what pilgrims endured in the Middle Ages, but they\u2019re our blisters and we cherish them, as we should, because they mark us forever as members of the fraternity of road warriors called pilgrims.<\/p>\n

What We\u2019ve Encountered<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Archbishop Schnurr blesses Connie and Mark Seiter on their 35th wedding anniversary in the New Cathedral of Salamanca<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joys and sorrows.<\/strong> Several of our group experienced the deaths of loved ones and friends either just before or while on our pilgrimage. Even when the losses are nowhere near as raw (my own parents are gone 20 years, but I wept for them this morning as freshly as they days they died), we carry sorrow with us, our own and the world\u2019s. It\u2019s what pilgrims offer at each shrine along the way, in solidarity, in memory, in reparation, in love. But it\u2019s not all sorrow, by any means. We have our joys, aplenty. We\u2019ve celebrated two birthdays and a 35th wedding anniversary so far, and a hundred small smiles and gusts of laughter.<\/p>\n

Angels.<\/strong> Our guides, Guida and Francoise, and especially our drivers, Mario and Paolo, not only made sure we survived, but ministered to us with patience and good humor. People we met along the way\u2014from cloistered Carmelite nuns on cellphones to shopkeepers to street sweepers to waiters to sacristans to fellow travelers to a Pyrenees guesthouse staff on skeleton crew who whipped up amazing paella for 75 at a moments\u2019 notice\u2014have helped us and lightened our load and surprised us with grace.<\/p>\n

New friends.<\/strong> Amongst ourselves, we\u2019ve discovered unexpected lines of connection and camaraderie, shared tastes in snack foods and beer and reading material, bonds as strong as family. The community won\u2019t dissolve when the suitcases are unpacked back home. We were especially graced to have two Polish-American sisters, Alina and Kristina, join our company from Madrid to Lourdes, after the pilgrimage they had signed up for was canceled. They were enterprising enough to recreate every bit of it independently, except for passage through the Pyrenees. Their smiles, photos (who else would dare to climb the tallest tower of the Basilica of Pilar and stand on a windswept platform to capture all of Zaragoza?), and shared bags of sweet yellow plums from the market square made the trip even better.<\/p>\n

Christ.<\/strong> Well, of course. In all, seen or unseen. Like the travelers on the Emmaus road, we are accompanied by the Risen One. We know him in the breaking of the bread once a day, and in a thousand other ways around the clock.<\/p>\n

These are just my list: everyone has one. I\u2019ll end mine with the chorus to a favorite road song, Tom Russell\u2019s \u201cThe Road It Gives (and the Road It Takes Away\u201d):<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll sing Hallelujah, we\u2019ll sing it in the morning<\/em>
\n And thank the Lord for giving us one more day<\/em>
\n And for the ones who\u2019ve passed on through,<\/em>
\n We\u2019ll sing this one for you<\/em>
\n For the road it gives and the road it takes away<\/em><\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

NEXT: Madrid<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not every encounter on the pilgrim path is with Christ and his saints. Not every experience is a mystical insight. Not everything you learn has spiritual significance. But it\u2019s all part of the road. It\u2019s worth taking a breather to note some of the things we\u2019ve learned and experienced and encountered on this pilgrimage. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1086,"featured_media":544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[171,1],"tags":[164],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pilgrimage-2012","category-uncategorized","tag-pilgrimage"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Not every encounter on the pilgrim path is with Christ and his saints. Not every experience is a mystical insight. Not everything you learn has spiritual\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not every encounter on the pilgrim path is with Christ and his saints. Not every experience is a mystical insight. Not everything you learn has spiritual\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Egregious Twaddle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-09-22T11:26:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-05-02T17:21:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/197\/2012\/09\/DSCN3769.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2816\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2112\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joanne McPortland\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joanne McPortland\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html\",\"name\":\"The Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-09-22T11:26:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-05-02T17:21:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/988428e355d44143e36a5215d7f0a071\"},\"description\":\"Not every encounter on the pilgrim path is with Christ and his saints. Not every experience is a mystical insight. Not everything you learn has spiritual\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/\",\"name\":\"Egregious Twaddle\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/988428e355d44143e36a5215d7f0a071\",\"name\":\"Joanne McPortland\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/32f1d9bc6c1a69b90e3b6e9f40141056?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/32f1d9bc6c1a69b90e3b6e9f40141056?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Joanne McPortland\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/author\/joannemcportland\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage","description":"Not every encounter on the pilgrim path is with Christ and his saints. Not every experience is a mystical insight. Not everything you learn has spiritual","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage","og_description":"Not every encounter on the pilgrim path is with Christ and his saints. Not every experience is a mystical insight. Not everything you learn has spiritual","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html","og_site_name":"Egregious Twaddle","article_published_time":"2012-09-22T11:26:24+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-05-02T17:21:03+00:00","og_image":[{"width":"2816","height":"2112","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/197\/2012\/09\/DSCN3769.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Joanne McPortland","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Joanne McPortland","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html","name":"The Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-09-22T11:26:24+00:00","dateModified":"2016-05-02T17:21:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/988428e355d44143e36a5215d7f0a071"},"description":"Not every encounter on the pilgrim path is with Christ and his saints. Not every experience is a mystical insight. Not everything you learn has spiritual","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/09\/the-road-it-gives-and-the-road-it-takes-away-egregious-twaddle-on-pilgrimage.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Road It Gives and the Road It Takes Away: Egregious Twaddle on Pilgrimage"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/","name":"Egregious Twaddle","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/988428e355d44143e36a5215d7f0a071","name":"Joanne McPortland","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/32f1d9bc6c1a69b90e3b6e9f40141056?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/32f1d9bc6c1a69b90e3b6e9f40141056?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Joanne McPortland"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/author\/joannemcportland"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}