The Camino on September 11

[newfydog]

Ten years ago we were just about to start our first Camino. We arrived September 10. Our baggage arrived September 11th. No more planes flew for a week.
We watched the second plane hit the towers live, on the TV at a gas station. We scoured the media for news---did they say 40,000 worked there, or 40,000 died? Derrumbo’….does that mean the buildings collapsed?

A few days later, leaving Pamplona I read in my guidebook:

“On the plains of arable land between Pamplona and Cizur….the Moslem army led by Aigolando, met the Frankish army lead by Charlemagne, who came for the third time to rescue the Apostle’s tomb. ..A hundred thousand Arabs and 134,000 Christians camped on the plain. The final battle was won by the Christians, Aigolando was killed, and “such was the rout of the pagans that they all perished”.”

We stopped, overlooking the plains and dwelled on how such horrors could occur, and how they could continue today.
Since then, we have done pilgrimages every other year. Thousands more people have died. Relationships between cultures are worse than ever.
Maybe with the Arab spring we can reach out and make some progress. We couldn’t do much worse than our past history. There must be some way to do better.

 

[kaylfrazer]

Hi Newfydog..

In many ways the world does seem a sadder place than 10 years ago.

You must have been just a week behind me. I was in Viana on September 11 at a running of the bulls. A German peregrina I had met a few days earlier told me what had happened but I didn't really believe her for several days until I was able find an English language newspaper. I did see the images on the TVs high up in the smoky bars, and heard the words "Estados Unidos" over and over but it just seemed incomprehensible.


Later the German peregrina became a good friend and we have now emailed back and forth for 10 years in English and German (with a bit of help from Google translate!) and visited each other in our home countries. Two months ago we were able to meet up again for a weekend in Paris after I had walked from Le Puy to SJPP.

Kay

 

[newfydog]

I watched some of the memorial services here, and thought about the enigma of St. James. He is often depicted as the gentle apostle, but also as Santiago Matamoros, the great Christian on a white horse chopping up Muslims. I wasn't aware that one of the statues depicting that was nearly removed in 2004:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... tatue.html

We all get our own impressions out of the Camino. One that I can't get away from, visiting all those historic battlegrounds, is that while all religions teach followers to be good people, all religions have also been the source of an awful lot of war and strife.


I don't much care to glorify St James. San Roch is my guy on the Camino.

How do others reconcile St James' violent side?