Carrion de Los Condes - further reflection

The Albergue we stayed at was serviced by nuns attached to the parish church. In the early evening they invited any pilgrims who wished to join them for an hour in the garden. We were asked to introduce ourselves briefly, name, where we were from and what expectation we had or reason we had for walking the Camino. As you may expect these varied a lot. There were many nationalities represented. This experience turned out to be a whole lot more moving than I guess had been expected. When the lady next to me spoke giving her name and Ukraine as her country of origin there was a slight pause and then spontaneous applause. I wonder what that sign of solidarity meant to her? A few minutes later the nuns asked if anyone had a song to offer. A guy from Texas offered and took a guitar from one of the nuns and began to play " By the rivers of Babylon" in a blues style. He taught us the tune and we sang it several times. He had no idea what the origins of the song was. One of the nuns explained that it came from the Psalms. A people in captivity, in Babylon yearned for their former lives and could not sing for grief. I wondered how our Ukrainian pilgrim felt. Would she see her family again? Would her home still be there? How could she sing for joy with the war in her homeland raging? A better song could not have chosen if he had tried to pick one. My eyes were wet then and are as I write this. Hers doubtless will be all cried out at some point. Her heart aching. Sometimes the Spirit of God moves in ways that help us understand things, help us share a burden in some small way or help us give strength to others. I thank the nuns for helping this to happen and man who was led to sing that song without a clue what he was sharing. 

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