Walking in Darkness

   I left the alberque about 6:45 this morning.  It was the darkest morning yet.  I was very thankful that I had purchased a new flashlight yesterday in Sarria to replace the one I dropped and broke.  The darkness is interesting.  I used my flashlight at first to see where I was walking and to follow the yellow arrows.  Then on the Meseta with its endless horizon I found all the stars, the Milky Way and the full moon.  The brightness of the full moon combined with the white stone of the path made it possible to follow my way with no flashlight (except when paths intersected and I needed to find arrows.
   But the moon has been waning over the past 10 days or so.  A couple of days ago it was just a sliver in the morning sky.  No more moon to guide.  And this morning there was cloud cover - no stars, simply pitch black as I stepped out of the light surrounding the alberque.  My flashlight on, I noticed a few things.  First, I could see nothing beyond the two feet in front of the circle made by my light.  I really had no idea what was ahead... and I didn´t really like that.
   Secondly, I couldn´t tell if the path was inclining up or down by my eyesight.  I could tell be the sensation of walking on it.  Now this was okay, I couldn´t glance ahead and see if it was going to be straight up for a long time, short time, or however it might change.
   Thirdly, I was very glad to have my little flashlight.  When I turned it off so I could check and see if there might be a star somewhere in the sky, I could see nothing... nothing!  I was so glad to have that light.
   But the night doesn´t last forever.  The first light finally came.  That´s the light that allowed me to make out the dark form of trees against the sky.  But the path itself was still dark.  Then the earth rolled a little more towards the sun and I found that I could see the path when it wasn´t covered by limbs of trees.  When it was, it disappeared once more.  The earth rolled a little more and at last...  I could make out the path even when under the trees and more importantly, I could see the dark mounds of manure (lots of cows in this area) enough to avoid them.  That´s when I turned my flashlight off.
    No wonder there are so many references to the "light of God" in scripture.  The darkness isn´t bad, its just...dark.  Nothing can be distinguished from something else and even after letting eyes adjust, things are still just different shades of dark.  But with light, even the soft light of the moon, forms start to appear and with the light of the sun we can distinguish objects from one another and see colors.  The light helps us to live together. 
    Yes, the sun came up this morning on a cloudy day on the Camino.  It´s been raining lightly all morning so I´m going to try to push forward a little more and take advantage of the coolness.  May the light of God shine throughout your day, rain or shine!  Bueno Camino!