This article has been written on request of my good friend Julio Fuertes Moral, editor of the Year Book of the Fraternity of Saint James in Valencia, Spain.

Buen camino Julio, gracias!

Silbo apacible y delicado sobre camino cv-193-34 

(Gentle breeze on road number cv-193-34)

It was the day after. Outside Burgos I visited the monastery Cartuja de Miraflores. Carthusian Monks seldom speak. They seek silence. The previous day, I had said goodbye to my Italian friends, and to Sara and Chelsea. The loneliness I felt since their departure necessitated this silence. Perhaps, I could say, desired it.  Was it the camino's path, to lead me towards such friends as these, and, once found, to take them from me? I allowed their  friendship to walk on past me, and take a divergent path from my own road. It was the only way, and yet, I could  make no sense of the pain that this loss had brought me.

Leon brought for me a second lesson in loss. There, I  met more friends, and a long fiesta proceeded from our encounter. Again, I had to move forward on my own. At first, the camino meandered along fields. “This countryside is a mirror”, I thought, as I stared across a landscape that was losing colour, and falling into an increasing emptiness. I crossed the famous bridge of Hospital de Orbigo, and headed into the barren land.

Of course the cathedrals of Burgos and Lėon had been impressive and of devastating beauty. The parties and the jokes, the friends and the rioja wines had been many and good. But there I was, in the middle of nowhere heading for Astorga and hesitating. Why was I there, taking this meagre, small road, neglecting the comfortable one along the highway? For that modern road was surely the path that would lead to Astorga with greater speed.

“You great fool”, I thought myself, for while I could not fathom how I had come to make this decision, here I was,  on the small country road winding a slow and lonely pace towards Astorga.

Just before Villares de Ōrbigo I went along a corn field. The crops were still unharvested; a show of  sun burnt yellow and brown leaves. At that moment, I felt a sudden breeze come up, and a whisper travelled through the leaves. “ God!” I thought. “God lives here.” That's why he wasn't home at the cathedrals, that's why he wasn't home in the golden altar of Carrion de los Condes. He's taken some time off to meet me here, in this corn field. He took me by surprise. Just at the moment and the place where I would expect him the least.

I felt I had company. The heavy loneliness I had been carrying along my path disappeared and I felt that, inside me, I had found the peace I had been looking for all those long miles. Here it is, I thought, it's not to be found in the big things, It's to be found in small things, on little roads along corn fields. It is here and now, on road number cv-193-34.

It reminded me of the film Into Great Silence (El Grande Silencio). It is an intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian Monks of the Grande Chartresuse, high in a remote corner of the French Alps. The film was made 16 years after the director first requested permission to make it. Then he lived at the monastery for six months, and filmed all alone, behind the walls no 'outsider' had ever been allowed to enter before.

The introduction of the film starts with a bible text from the book of Kings:

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

Was it meant to be that here, walking along a corn field, God would like to meet me in this gentle whispering breeze? To find me here and to comfort me? Something had happened in my thinking and I felt that to find love and friendship, at last, I had to start with myself. I had to consider myself as my own friend, I had to start loving myself again. Not the big things, the laughter and the jokes, not my big mouth hiding this little uncertain man. But small things, breezes, flowers, friends. My wife and children. Things that are close and on little roads. Things inside of me. I felt like meeting myself. It felt like going home.

Moving on half a mile further, I came upon a road sign, which, in three languages, welcomed me in the small village of Villares de Orbigo. The text on the damaged road sign overwhelmed me as I read it again and again. It said in simple words: we know you feel lost but be welcome, stranger. Here's the text:

I'm writing down these words while spring is coming. Soon the Dutch tulips will flower once again. In Santiago I bought a copper shell that I am going to screw on the gate to our garden. I will put a text plate underneath it, giving the translation of these simple and beautiful roadsign from Villares. In Dutch it starts like this: "Welkom Pelgrim …".