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Something to chew on!

Ian Holdsworth

Active Member
In May I am due to walk from Leon with a few friends. I have been asked
to prepare a few 'quotes' concerning the Camino, pilgrimage, the Christian
life, life evaluation, etc. So Peregrinos I need a little help :!: What 'quote'
is your all time helpful saying to chew on as you walk :?:
 
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The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
I have two that really stick :

1. Point n'est besoin d'espérer pour entreprendre, ni réussir pour persévérer (There is neither need for hope to begin nor succes to persevere) - translation by the author..... :wink:

2. A Santiago, nunca se llega; Solo se va

Buen camino
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
OK so I'm not religious myself but here are a few religious ones that reasonate with me ..........

"all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Mother Julian of Norwich

"There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim." From the Hymn - He who would valiant be - John Bunyan

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

from the Hymn - The Lord is my Shepherd (Psalm 23)

Aah - a Churchof England education has a lot to answer for ..........

Also see my previous post "The Journey" which contains CP Cavafy's poem - Ithaca


Mercury
 
Aah - a Churchof England education has a lot to answer for ..........

:lol: So does a Church of Rome education (maybe for most religious ed :?: ). :!:


Also see my previous post "The Journey" which contains CP Cavafy's poem - Ithaca

Ah yes, so so beautiful.

Thank-you
 
...and ship it to Santiago for storage. You pick it up once in Santiago. Service offered by Casa Ivar (we use DHL for transportation).
PEREGRINO BLANCO said:
In May I am due to walk from Leon with a few friends. I have been asked
to prepare a few 'quotes' concerning the Camino, pilgrimage, the Christian
life, life evaluation, etc. So Peregrinos I need a little help :!: What 'quote'
is your all time helpful saying to chew on as you walk :?:

Do you just want short quotes or a few passages more of paragraph size? I probably have a few.
 
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I know of no better camino book of wisdom that Joyce Rupp's "Walk in a relaxed manner". 25 thoughts that will spear your soul as you walk. Ultreya, John
 
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post subject

An apt passage,I think from W.H.Murray,
Quote,
The moment one commits oneself,
Then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
That would never have otherwise ocurred.
A whole stream of events;
All manner of unseen icidents
And chance meetings and material assistance come forth,
Which no one could have dreamt would appear.

I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

"Whatever you can do,or dream you can,begin it.
Boldness has genius and power and magic in it."
unquote.
Buen Camino,Les.
 
Come to think of it, this could make another interesting section on the forum: CAMINO THOUGHTS 8)
 
A poem by Machado:

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada mas
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar,
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atras
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en el mar.

Traveller, the path is your tracks
And nothing more.
Traveller, there is no path
The path is made by walking.
By walking you make a path
And turning, you look back
At a way you will never tread again
Traveller, there is no road
Only wakes in the sea.
 
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"Hay días, momentos, que saben a eternidad" (del libro del albergue de Güemes)

"There are days, moments, that taste like eternity" (from the book at the albergue in Guemes)"
 
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Great link!

Hey xm, please stop by the panhandle and pick me up on your way!
 
Get a spanish phone number with Airalo. eSim, so no physical SIM card. Easy to use app to add more funds if needed.
Give me a couple of minutes to throw some things in my backpack and I'll be ready to go. :)
 
Perfect memento/gift in a presentation box. Engraving available, 25 character max.
Patient Trust

Here is a quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We would like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet, it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability -
and that it may take a very long time."

I found it on a blog by Steve Bogner, and I find quotes there regularly that give me food for thought. There is more in this quote than I have posted.
http://bogners.typepad.com/church/

A few more bits from Steve's blog:

"Only knowledge gained through experience, the fruit of living and suffering, fills the heart with the wisdom of love, instead of crushing it with the disappointment of boredom and final oblivion. It is not the results of our own speculation, but the golden harvest of what we have lived through and suffered through, that has the power to enrich the heart and nourish the spirit. And all the knowledge we have acquired through study can do no more than give us some little help in meeting the problems of life with an alert and ready mind."
Karl Rahner, from Encounters with Silence"

and:
" Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

I have recently seen some blog quotes from Thomas Merton that might be useful as well, but can't find them just now. Will keep looking!
 
Depends on your age really. Bullet-proof usually when young, you can become really introspective when older and looking back at your life and decisions made.
If you are 34 articled and over 50 then you will most likely fall into one of two camps, either certainty that all is well and you have nothing to apologise about, or certainty that you have failed so often you are not really worth loving.

If you are of the second type then ponder this as you walk.

Your life so far ... has it been a bad hand played well, or a good hand played badly?

or, just for fun .. why should you never take moderation to excess?
 
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"
 
Agnostic's Prayer

An Admission

Being modern and agnosticated I don't possess a God to push and pull about to match fate' s idle motions.

But every once and a while, not very often let me add quickly, being only human I am prone to feeling lost and somewhat miniscule. Shyly I place some sort of Being, entirely nonreligious let me assure you, above me in the firmament. I let Him laugh at my endeavors and grant myself, only at these weakened moments the grace of Someone Else's recognition of my very doubtful existence.

- Harry Chapin, singer, songwriter
 
Pilgrims' Blessing

O God, who led your servant Abraham from the city of Ur, guarding him during all his pilgrimage, and You were the guide of the Hebrew people through the desert, we ask You to protect this your servant who, for the love of Your name, journeys to Compostela. Be for him a companion on the march, a guide at the crossroads; give him strength when he is weak, defense in the midst of danger, shelter along the route, shade from the sun, light in the darkness, solace in moments of discouragement and firmness in his purpose...May the benediction of God the All-Powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, descend upon you. Amen.

Source: "Sacred Roads," by Nicholas Shrady
 
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More quotes

Various quotes taken from the blog of my blog-friend, Antony, who has many thought provoking quotes: http://tothequiet.blogspot.com/

Thomas Merton:
"Let there always be quiet, dark churches in which people can take refuge....Houses of God filled with his silent presence. There, even when they do not know how to pray, at least they can be still and breathe easily." --from New Seeds of Contemplation.

"There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town, and they are wasting their time. It is possible to be a solitary in one's mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is a solitary to live in the crowd of his own thoughts." ~Amma Syncletica

"My deepest vocation is to be a witness to the glimpses of God I have been allowed to catch." ~Henri Nouwen
 
Thomas Mereton again:
“Sitting at home and meditating on the divine presence is not enough for our time. We [must] come to the end of a long journey and see that the stranger we meet there is no other than ourselves - which is the same as saying we find Christ in him."

Jeremiah 6 (16):
Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls...

A Portuguese priest:
“Solitude is necessary and often welcome but there are times when we need com-pan-eros, the ones we share bread with; not just the edible type but also the bread of our experiences and the many insights, revelations and learning that we consume as we walk along the Way.”

Celebrating the Duke of Aquitaine (who died in the cathedral 1137 on Good Friday)

Where will yon lonely pilgrim wander,
Where will my ancient pigrim roam?
Away on the road to Compostella.
Who know when he’ll reach his goal?
His weary feet are stained with gore
And he can tramp no more.
 
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From a blog by jennifer, she quotes from Pope Benedict, "Journey to Easter".
http://et-tu.blogspot.com/2007/05/book- ... ience.html
The desert metaphor seems appropriate somehow.

"Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert...What does this surprising guide intend? Let us reflect a little on what is meant by "the desert."

The desert is a place of silence, of solitude. It is the absence of the exchanges of daily life, its noise and its superficiality. The desert is the place of the absolute, the place of freedom, which sets man before the ultimate demands. Not by chance is the desert the place where monotheism began. In that sense it is a place of grace. In putting aside all preoccupations we encounter our Creator.

Great things have their beginnings in the desert, in silence, in poverty. It is not possible to share in the mission of Jesus, in the mission of the Gospel, without sharing in the desert experience, its poverty, its hunger. That beautiful hunger for justice of which the Lord speaks in the Sermon on the Mount cannot be born in the fullness of satiety."
 
a little lighter ;-)

It is good to have an end to journey toward;
but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le Guin

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing..
Helen Keller

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
I found the following meditation at http://www.explorefaith.org/signposts/ for May 13, and I thought it pertained beautifully to the Camino:

For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
—Hebrews 13:14

It is an interesting phenomenon. What seems to feed our soul in a nurturing way for some time can slowly change until it no longer feeds us in the way it once did. Our soul seems to need something different for the next stage. Our soul seems always to be “on a journey.” No resting place, no place to be firmly planted in this transitory existence.

Truly, at the deepest level we are all pilgrims, wayfarers. When we attempt to settle in one place psychically, spiritually or even physically, we can find our lives deadened or our spirits disappointed. When we try to become “permanent,” we lose vitality, energy, future direction. We stagnate and appear dead in the midst of life. When we look for happiness in the wrong place, we find our inner self disappointed, because what we had hoped for, expected, assumed, turns out to be less than we thought it would be.

But, by being intentionally mindful pilgrims, we can find what needs to be found in each place. Embracing a pilgrim stance gives our attitude a charged energy. Our antennae are out with curiosity. We are attentive to our immediate surroundings and what can be learned from them. When the learning has been completed, we are inwardly free to detach and move on in gratitude for what occurred in that particular place. Don't sit still, don't settle in, don't hunker down. You'll miss the movement of life.

Give me courage, Lord, to take new steps, to tread new paths, to enter the unknown territory. There in the unfamiliar and fearful place, let me experience the newness of You.
 
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Steve S, thanks for sharing jennifer's blog. "The desert metaphor" is great food for thought. Best. xm 8)
 

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