Finistierre: The end of the world, and the beginning of new worlds

Looking out from Finisterre

   So yesterday I visited the end of the world: Finistierre.  It was a 2 and 1-2 hour bus ride from Santiago.  I must have taken the local coming back as it was even longer, but we followed the coast all but the last 30-40 minutes... a beautiful ride!

    Finistierre is a lovely town on the coast - beautiful ocean, beaches, fishing boats, piers...   After we got off the bus some of the pilgrims who were staying went off to settle into an alberque.  Since mine was a day trip I started following the signs for "Faro", the lighthouse and the true end.  It was a 2-1/2km trek uphill with grand views back to Finistierre, down at the ocean breaking into rocks, and to the mountains at our side.  Finally we reached the end.

Almost to the end

   I´m not certain if the lighthouse is still in service.  We weren´t allowed to walk around much there.  But we could climb onto the large boulders and rocks and sit and look out at the ocean.   I was at the farthest out point of land and all I could see was the blue of the sea mixing with the blue mist of the sky to the point that I could not tell one from another on the horizon.  I sat there and could easily see why it was thought that this was the end of the earth.  There was no telling from my view what might happen farther out in the ocean.

THE END

   

So as I thought about this I thought about sailors.  I personally would not head out into the ocean beyond where I could see land - and I know that even when I see land I get confused about what I am looking at from out on water.  Things just look differently.  I use land and landmarks for guidance, but sailors use stars and a larger picture for guidance.  It is the sailors from the norse country that made it to North America.  It was the sailors that helped Paul to set out to cover a larger area as he evangelized.  It was a sailor, Christopher Columbus, who finally broke the stalemate of living with what was known at one time and set out on an adventure to see if there might be a different answer.

     Edwin Friedman writes about this significant event that broke open a medieval world and pushed the world into the renaissance, new understandings about our universe and world, and a new age of learning.  It certainly meant adjustments for the church also as it tried to remain rigid with its teachings.  And then we have the peregrinos who for hundreds of years had been traveling to Santiago de Compostela, which could not have been anything but an adventure with that same possibility of death that Columbus and his crew faced.   All along the way we have seen ancient cemeteries for the burial of pilgrims.  But we have also seen crosses all along the way commemorating the death of modern pilgrims who died on their journey.   What was it like for those peregrinos - what courage they had but there must have been many fears.  But just as now, death can come at anytime, not just on a pilgrimage.

    In that way I guess I´ve always thought of life itself as a journey.  I don´t know when mine will end, but I can make choices about how I will live within this life.  Along the Camino I have learned a lot about what I can tolerate (cleanliness is greatly overrated), I learned about my own impatience and the great blessing of those days when I remembered to be patient with others.   I have learned that each person has a story - a reason for the fear, sadness, joy, peace in their face.  I have learned that the aches and pains of one day can heal with a good night´s sleep.  I have learned that we can communicate with others in many more ways than language.  As I continue to process my five-week Camino I continue to harvest other lessons.   I´m sure they will continue to come throughout the following months.

    So how shall I live in the years remaining?  I hope that I will look for and find the blessings in each day.  I seek to be patient with others and to encourage rather than criticize.  I hope to be one who will listen to the stories of others, walk with them in times of happiness and sorrow.  I seek the courage to speak out when I see injustice.  I pray that love and joy will lace through each of my days - and I know that it will be my own choices that will help to make that happen.  I will seek other adventures, pilgrimages, ways to break myself from my own routines, fears... those things that might keep me from changing and growing. 
   I´ve been to the end of the world, and I´ve returned.  The Camino is finished, and now I begin.  Thank you so much for traveling with me, I can not express how much it has meant to me to be held in your thoughts and prayers.  May your own Camino be a very special story - I know it already is for it is yours.  May God´s peace and grace go with you until we meet again.  Bueno Camino!