I know this is hard and it takes a long time to distill but if you were to put your Camino experience into one word what would it be? Mine is hospitality and has been that for a long while now. It is in the great big definition of the word. It is in, “The Camino Provides”. It is is one of my things that I say to people wanting to go, “don’t overplan, just fall into its arms”. I have heard that the King of Spain pays some of the pilgrim doctor bills along the Way. It’s in that!
The word goes back to Old French and back farther to Latin. The Knights Hospitaler are credited with opening the first hospitals to care for beat up pilgrims on the original Jerusalem pilgrimage. These knights remain today in the Order of Malta who took me to Lourdes this past May. They sort of invented the word and are still living by it.
I can’t help but think that it is the Golden Rule in practice, in practical application. It is a practice, a discipline. It is giving in a world that mostly takes. This is one of the big lessons that the Camino has left me with. There are others but this to me is my key to loving my fellow man, an important part of the big picture.
Time to go. Ten minutes to the Thursday morning walk, just enough time to get organized. Tereating each other right loves, Felipe.
¡Hola Felipe!
Beautiful exercise and message this morning! Hospitality really is not only “The Way of Saint James”…but The Way, The Truth and The Life as taught by Jesus to James and all of the apostles. They followed Our Lord’s living example of feeding and healing as He walked His Way while on this planet. James brought that hospitality to the Iberian Peninsula for us, peregrinos, to study, learn and share with everyone…everywhere…especially on Vashon Island at Ravens Ranch!
¡Dios te bendiga Felipe!
Diego ~ always good to hear from you friend. Thanks for your perspective on this. I always seem to link hospitality to a facility. You know, I offer my home. Welcome to our albergue. I never considered Jesus’s miracles a form of hospitality. To give from the heart is the key, right? He certainly never had a facility of any sort. I will have to stretch my thinking. Felipe.
Hola Felipe,
I remember not too many years ago, but after the Camino, being in a conference room in London, in an investigators meeting, listening to a professor, a super extra specialized doctor in a pediatric rare disease that kills the children at age not older than 12, and not before having made their life pretty horrible… And this doctor, maybe in his mid 60ies, said (to an audience of investigators and other pediatricians): “These children and their families spend most of their lives in the hospital, the hospital is their home, but who of you would like that for your or your family? Nobody for sure, but you know what? When they get to the hospital, they feel better, they know their pain will be less, the parents know they will be able to take a little rest because someone will be looking after them, they know there will be others who share and understand what they are going through. Being in the hospital is awful, but they find a shelter and understanding even if for a little while, when life for them is unbearable…”… And to end, he said something like: “Make sure you always have this in mind when you “receive” any of them to the hospital, your should instead “welcome” them.”
I think the whole audience was shocked… In these meetings, usually people are prepared to listen to complex very scientific presentations, which this professor certainly gave, but he ended with this statement of being human over all the things you can be… I met him a couple months after (I was involved in that project for a short time only), in another meeting, and I said to him that when he said those words, he kept me thinking on my years when I was still working in the hospital, wondering if I had been “receiving” or “welcoming” patients… to which he answered: “well, that doesn’t matter, you still can do that in life”!
I found unnecessary to mention to him I had been in the Camino! 😉
Welcoming and Sheltering Loves,
Cris
Cris ~ great story under a huge pile of professionalism. Does that sentence mean anything? I better have some more wine. But I get it. At the end of the day it counts to be human and to welcome another human being. Hospitality at the hospital, of course! Felipe.x
LOL! probably my comment was not self-explicative, as I thought! LOL!
What I got from these words, is how much being “hospitable” and offering “hospitality” had to do with taking care of the other. And that if I would have these words this man said in mind when offering a place in my table, or my house, or life in general, if I would do it as if the other is in need of help, of rest, or care, or shelter, then, the whole “receiving” would be a “welcoming” instead.
Indeed, welcoming someone to our home, table, life, can be a “healing” experience, if done with this “welcome to the hospital”, perspective…
Nothing wrong with the need of more wine, by the way!!!!
Hospitalero Love,
Cris
Cris ~ drinking mead right now. Jessika our other secret agent brought a bottle to tapas the other day. It’s a Viking deal made from honey. Anyway, I am loving this topic. And I get his point. We are dealing with real people and not robots. We need to be gracious. Yes Hospitalero Love, Felipe.x