Reunions

As our rest day in Bilbao wore on we were able to rally for a walk towards the world famous Guggenheim art museum (designed by Frank Gheary).  We crossed Bilbao's famous bridge of glass and lo and behold--two French chaps we had met three days ago on Camino, but who seemed to disappear yesterday are there!  Pete and I had even bemoaned their absence.  We commented on both the intensity and the ephemeral in relationships along Camino.  So we were very surprised to see Christian and Jon Luc strolling down the avenue.  We shouted with delight and just had to sit down share a beverage and some olives (spainish olives are not cured with so much salty brine--they go very well with my favorite beverages).
Christian has a fair to good command of English, Jon Luc knows pigden English and phrases like "super hero", "scandalized" (spoken with a comic turn of the head--imagine Yves Montand with the soul of Jerry Lewis), Pete took French in high school and I know a bit of Latin, so we communicated just fine.  I've been asking others "Why Camino?"  Christian said his wife made Camino from Brittany in France to Santiago in 2008 (over 1750K!) .  Thereafter she would take Christian to reunions with her travelling partners and he enjoyed and envied their esprit.  Jon Luc told a story of suburban emptiness--he said he was married with a handsome 15 yr old son, but he took off his wedding ring when he was away from home--and as he put it, " it was Camino or the psychologic."   We told them we made pilgrimage out of devotion, and they were quite surprised.  Europe is so unlike America in that regard. Europe is full of churches of great beauty, but they are little used.  America is still teeming with people of piety like Pete and I.  In any case there in the warm afternoon sun of Bilbao, we agreed that meeting as we had was, "buen camino".
We met Christian and Jon Luc later that evening for pinxtos in the square of Casco Viejo.  They brought along a Belgian and Swiss pilgrim we had all crossed paths with earlier in the week.  It was a delightful evening of wine and laughter.  Pete and I decided to take the subway to Portugalete the next day and continue from there, skipping a day of walking along the industrial docks and suburbs.  Our friends wanted to walk "the full way" as they called it.  We promised to look for each other again in Santander in a week.  I do hope we find each other again.  Reunions are such a delight.

Over these days I have shared prayers with an anonymous, but no less blessed or in need of blessing, friend, Oma T and Homer T, Al F., Cheryl T, and Tim T.  May God grant our dreams and heal our hurts.