Reflecting

I went away for a while.

First to Perth, on the banks of the Swan River, at the edge of the Indian Ocean. Another Finisterre – the most isolated city in the world, they say.

It’s where I went to school, and where I still have childhood friends and a sister; two brothers, a stepfather and a father; and other relationships that are complex and enduring.

It’s where I walk under a sky of a particular blue, my feet locating themselves on known, but now strange, earth. I smell childhood fantasies on the breeze and catch glimpses of teenage willfulness around corners. I taste the longing for movement I’ve known all my life.

I always want to be my best self in Perth, to make an offering that is pure and generous. I have moments of success, but too many of failure. My patterns run deep there. I settle into them without knowing, then try to escape them. I struggle to create new shapes, new ways of being, and to lay those over the old patterns.

I succeed. I fail. I walk away again.

This time I went to Ubud in the hills of Bali, in the shadow of Mount Agung.

Agung…

Three thousand metres of volcano, rising out of the mist and smoke. It last erupted in the sixties, changing the island and its terrain. It is worshiped and revered. It wears pale cloud to great effect.

 I slept in a house made of bamboo, looking across ripening rice and paradise flowers to palm trees and kites. I woke to footsteps on stone, treading a path to the temple outside the window.

 As frog croaks gave way to cock-squawks, and before whirring motorbikes on the road took precedence, they would come, those gliding dark-haired women, preceded by the smoke of incense sticks. They placed offerings at the door, at the family temple opposite, and at the compound gateway. They placed them on the paths to warungs, and at intersections of three roads. Kadek told me that she makes dozens each day. They are like birds’ nests made of bamboo fronds, filled with flowers and rice, fruit and biscuits. The air fills with perfumed smoke as the neighborhood is dotted with these gifts. At every doorway, statue, shop entrance and tree.

They are infinite in variety and content.

 

 

They make me wonder about the offerings I make; the moments when I pause in the day, as they do, to stop and acknowledge ancestors or history, or to give thanks. Kadek told me that the Balinese “work so we can have enough food and make our offerings.”

 Last Saturday, friends cooked lunch for six of us at their home in the rice fields. We sat at their table and ate a mix of Balinese and western flavours. We laughed and told stories. We spoke of gratitude for such beauty and good luck; for peace and generosity.

As ducks went about their business, filling the neighbourhood with racket and making me laugh out loud, we shared news from the wider world. Boats of refugees. Casualties of war. Carping and insults in western politics. Intolerance. Vindictiveness. Such things seemed impossible, at that table. Unthinkable.

 On the narrow path home, the women ahead of me carried tiles and cement to a construction site. They all smiled and greeted me as I passed. A Balinese man who had worked in Dubai for two years spoke of his relief at coming home. In Dubai, he said, they told him not to smile all the time because people would think him foolish, or grasping. For a Balinese, he said, this was heart breaking. He was relieved to be home where his smile could be free.

 Overhead, elaborate woven banners swayed in the breeze, ready for Galunggan, when the forces of good and bad do battle. Good will win, Wayan told me, as he plaited palm fronds into intricate patterns. The tall banners arched like the backs of the elegant women bearing building materials.

I took myself on snail-pace caminos, hours of early morning hills and ridges. Everything thrives there. Grasses sway and palm-trees tilt. The green got higher and deeper as I walked. I kept stopping to marvel at the bigness of their bumblebees, the scale of their snails, and the wealth of species. The density of the undergrowth. The patterns. The beauty. The growth….

 There seemed to be order among all that wild sprouting. As though the winds had worked in concert with the grasses to produce artworks to rival any old master’s. Wisdom at work in the landscape spoke, as it always does to me, through my feet. Again I heard it, the repetition, in all languages, of the mantra I must try to remember….

 Tidak apa apa. No pasa nada. No worries.

Of course there are problems. And things must matter out in the wide world where people are disputing boundaries, rights and entitlements. But for a brief interlude, I de-twitted, read few newspapers and listened to another kind of broadcast. I walked and walked at the pace of a tropical snail, and when I returned to Perth, old patterns could be seen for what they were. Building blocks. Attempts. Offerings. Steps toward understanding – of self, family, friends. Of journeys and mistakes made.

 And now I am back in Melbourne, where the air is chilly and the magnolias are showy. Home. Reflecting…

 In Ubud, I looked into a rice field and I saw the sky. Sometimes, if we go slow, we can look into the past and see the future – or at least a glimmer of what might be possible.

A POSTSCRIPT OR TWO

For Melburnians…

On the 16th September, I will be reading at Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire’s latest Women of Letters afternoon. They sell out almost immediately, and raise money for a wonderful charity, so do get in quickly if you are keen. Marieke wrote…

For your records, the breathtaking lineup is as follows:

Intrepid writer, actor and walker AILSA PIPER
Esteemed playwright, thespian and all-round awesome lady KATE MULVANY
Doyenne of Australian literature HELEN GARNER
Editor of Meanjin and associate publisher at MUP SALLY HEATH
And adored chanteuse SARAH BLASKO.
Doors open at 2:30pm for a 3pm start.  Rock up early and have a glass of wine and marvel at the mirrored walls in the Theatre’s downstairs ballroom.
The topic of your particular letter for September is ‘A letter to my unfinished business’.
Get in fast to get your tickets!
And for all visitors….
If you want to share these posts around, click on the icons below. If you want to subscribe to get them delivered, go to the SUBSCRIBE button up on the top right and enter your email.
GRACIAS. That’s the most important post script.

For the Sake of a Few Lines…

Constantly I give thanks.

I’m holding a copy of the reprint of Sinning Across Spain. I may be a long way from having a publishing phenomenon on my hands, but I feel such gratitude that the book has found people who have enjoyed it and told others about it and given it to friends. It’s such a wonder to me that it has made its way into the world – and that now, with this reprint, it can continue to do that. Thank you with all my heart for support and encouragement.

It seems a long time ago that I set off to walk the Camino Mozarabe. There are moments now when I think I am another person. But then I open my mouth to speak about it, and I am back there again, walking the dusty white trails lined with poppies, smelling the neroli in Córdoba or tasting the heat of a sip of sol y sombra at day’s end.

Recently, I found this piece of Rilke.

I know. I always seem to be finding Rilke.

But I wanted to pass it on, because it is such a spur. It reminds us to trust that it’s only by living, sucking up every bit of the juice of life, the sweet and the sour, and then letting it distill and transform, and waiting, waiting, waiting…that writing will come.

That all good will come.

And so I’m trying to heed Mr Rilke. Living, tasting, waiting. Being patient and grateful.

And offering this up to you. I hope it fills you as it does me.

“For the sake of a few lines one must see many cities, men and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the small flowers open in the morning. One must be able to think back to roads in unknown regions, to unexpected meetings and to partings which one had long seen coming; to days of childhood that are still unexplained, to parents that one had to hurt when they brought one some joy and one did not grasp it (it was joy for someone else); to childhood illness that so strangely began with a number of profound and grave transformations, to days in rooms withdrawn and quiet and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the stars-and it is not enough if one may think all of this. One must have memories of many nights of love, none of which was like the others, of the screams of women in labor, and of light, white, sleeping women in childbed, closing again. But one must also have been beside the dying, one must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the fitful noises. And still it is not enough to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many, and one must have the great patience to wait until they come again. For it is not yet the memories themselves. Not until they have turned to blood within us, to glance, to gesture, nameless and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves-not until then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of a verse arises in their midst and goes forth from them.”

And in my memories, in my blood, in newfound gestures and glances, are pieces of every person who has helped or listened or written to me, or offered advice or consolation or encouragement. We are still making a road together. You are making the road for me.

Gracias. Into the blue sky we go…

Breathing in and breathing out

This morning I walked along Port Philip Bay in Melbourne in icicle air. The sun was out and the water was glassy. Clouds bobbed on the horizon, and in the foreground pocked rocks were exposed by low tide.

It was a morning after.

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for a shining, sixteen-year-old, fair-haired sprite. It is not for me to try to tell her story here. I didn’t know her – hadn’t seen her since she was a toddler – and it would be presumptuous of me to write about her. But her mum talked afterwards about how her daughter had changed people’s lives, and I realised that her death had changed me in the past week.

Death does that. It forces us to face that lurking truth – the inevitability we ignore in order to skip through our living days. But we are also offered an opportunity to realign our priorities, and to see with eyes that are open.

In recent weeks, I’ve been so grateful for the professional adventures I’m having. I love hearing the stories and reflections people tell after they have read the book. I love meeting readers – we are compañeros, we of the book. I love the thrill of all these discoveries.

But this week of death, as well as near-death and illness, made me realise that it is the “ordinary” things that cut deep: looking into the eyes of an old friend as she talks about her new venture, both of us warming our hands on coffee cups; watching as rotten weatherboards are torn from our house, and being glad of the banging of the hammer, knowing I will once again feel protected within these walls; pruning the ends off winter roses, in expectation of a flush of red and white in summer…

 

Breathing in and breathing out, trying to stay aware of the ordinary miracle that is life. Sitting here, tapping on a keyboard, planning to put the kettle on when I’m done and make a cup of tea, and stretch my back in the afternoon sunshine.

 

 

Breathing in and breathing out,  as I whisper words of Spanish under my breath in preparation for an event at the Cervantes Institute this coming week, where I hope to speak about stranger-kindness and friendship.

 

Breathing in and breathing out, listening to the scratching of birds’ footsteps on the tin roof, watching shadows move across walls, feeling the pleasure of only one layer of clothing on my skin, and anticipating the baring of my arms in a month or three…

 

Breathing in and breathing out. Assuming I will be here tomorrow. Next week. Next month.

Aware that it is not a given.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Glad. So glad.

For life.

 

Thanks too, to you who read these words, particularly if you visit regularly, and even more so if you are a subscriber. They are offerings in the ether, and I am grateful when they land. Thank you for your indulgence, and for walking this camino with me.

Leaving The Room
I’m at the desk, hunkered down, feeling less than inspired. It’s cold outside and the trails are not kind.
Slippery, and not conducive to flight.
So I go inside and sit, looking at the screen.
And wait.
Louise, my dear friend and fellow walker, sent me this quote. I thought you might take solace from it, as I do.
You do not need to leave your room………
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen,simply wait.
Do not even wait,be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.
It has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Franz Kafka.
I hope inspiration breaks through from behind the clouds for you.
Thanks to all who braved the chills to come along to Saturday’s Bayside Literary Festival conversation. That inspired…
Info and pics for that and other events are over at the Facebook page. Click on the little Facebook symbol on the top right to get over there.
Keep warm.
Keep walking.
On, on…

Credo…

It means “I believe.”

Not something to proclaim without thought, but there most definitely are things in which I do have faith.

I believe in the power of forgiveness to transform, in the ache to be better, and the impulse to serve.

I believe in the wispy promise of mornings like this one, when the fog lifted itself to reveal a fierce, determined sun.

I believe in confession with all my heart, telling the true story of ourselves, eye to eye with another human being.

I believe our stories shape our lives, so the more honest we are in those stories, the more freedom we will gain.

I believe in personal accountability, staring down my self in the personal mirror that is an unflinching and constant observer.

I worship in churches where silence prevails: barren plains, rocky hilltops, burnt-out forests and squelching paddocks. Places where the hush of humility has fallen.

I believe in kindness. I believe in kindness. I believe in kindness.

And in the goodness that wants to prevail.

I know there is nothing more sacred to me than the act of putting one foot down on a dusty road, and then putting down the other.

Again and again.

For as long as it takes.

Turning up and doing the work.

And I know that the work never ends.

 

I know there is beauty in effort.

I believe in betterment via example.

I know snails are gurus.

I know that via example!

I know we are all connected, whether we like it or not, and we owe it to this astonishing planet, and those we hope might come after, to acknowledge that fact in our actions as well as our words.

I believe in possibility over certainty.

I believe in the hope of rain on parched soil. When I smell that unmistakeable waft, I am reminded that miracles have occurred, and that they will again.

Paso a paso. Step by step.

That’s my mantra. My rosary.

And “buen camino” is the prayer I make for you.

The wish.

Good road. Good way. Good path.

May it find you, especially on the hard days…

Those pictures were taken on a long walk last Sunday along the Great Dividing Trail and back toward Glenlyon, near Daylesford, in Victoria. Country that makes my heart sing. Thanks to all those who came along to the Glenlyon General Store for the Tapas night. It was a celebration of the warmth of community amid the chill of a goldfields winter night. Gracias Tania and David – and all in that humming kitchen.

Gracias, gracias, gracias.

Gratitude is another prayer…

Overland

Last Sunday I talked walking on ABC Radio’s Australia All Over, and was reminded of the brilliant walking opportunities we have down under. This post is by way of a reminder that we don’t have to go to Spain to make a camino, or to be a pilgrim.

Back in the summer of 2009, I walked the Overland Track in Tasmania with five friends. We had blistering heat and snowdrifts, wallabies and platypus, chocolate and saffron, and adventures with camp stoves.

We had our breath taken away by vast vistas and miniscule insects.

It was a week of Australian wonders.

Do it if you get the chance.

Here’s a mosaic. Little images of big country.

 

               

Thanks Carl NP for your photos.

And for the miles of walking wonders we have shared.

 

Hot off the presses!

A review/write-up of the book on the Taste For Travel website. Click here. Do!

http://www.tastefortravel.com.au/blog/8853/walking-a-hard-but-beautiful-1200km-across-spain/

Why is lust so seductive?

First things first – I survived the monologue! After twelve years off the theatre’s stages, I got through it intact.

In fact that smiling face on the left is me after the event, still in “costume,” signing books and enjoying myself.

Who’d have thought it?

Thank you to my dear friend Nina for taking the photo and proving to me that I really did have fun.

The response has been overwhelming, and has made me very grateful that I pushed myself to do it. I’ve honoured my original intention, as well as the promise I made to my sin-donors – to write a monologue for performance. The question now is whether it has another life. I’ve had lots of encouraging – even determined – calls and emails suggesting it should have a life of its own.

I’ll see how the dust settles. I can now see a way to write it, and am tempted by the possibility of expanding it to about 75 minutes. But I’m really not sure about performing it. That was a strange experience. I remember standing in the wings about to go onstage, and then I remember tucking happily into my sleeping bag and feeling such pleasure that it was done – and I recall nothing in between! A bit like the days when I walk and am able to see myself from outside myself.

Anyway, I think a script could be given over to one of my many wonderful actress friends, but some people have suggested it needs me in it. That makes  a kind of sense,  coming from those who were part of that invited audience and who knew the “Ailsa” they were watching was the Ailsa who had walked and written it, but I think that other audiences would simply watch the story unfold and, hopefully, enjoy it as a full-blooded performance by a wonderful actor – if it can be made theatrical, as I hope.

SO…that’s the news.

And what of what I learned?

For me, the most intriguing conversations I’ve had as a result of the performance have been about the issue of lust. For the monologue, I chose to focus on particular sins and characters that could fit together to tell one coherent strand of the book, because I knew it was impossible to cover everything. That’s why there is a book!

Part of the strand I dramatised was my battle with desire for the amigo character, because his story spoke to so many of the sins I carried.

Several people have commented that they found my expressed desire confronting, both onstage and in the book – particularly on my husband’s behalf. That they would not want their partner or wife putting those admissions into the public sphere. That my husband is brave for being able to hear it. That it is too much.

That intrigues me. It ignores the fact that I state very clearly that I didn’t act on the temptation. It also ignores the fact that my husband was potentially just as likely to have such desires in my absence – after all, marriage does not stop us from feeling our natural human urges. Or did I miss something? And it ignores the fact that I attempted full and frank disclosure, since confession was at the root of the story. That one of my core beliefs is in the power of confession and its potential to free us, to offer us space to be authentic and to live large.

Was I to let myself off the hook? Surely that would have defeated the point? Surely it would have been a lie not to confess? And that would have been the sin!

What perplexes me most, though, is that the mere possibility of sexual betrayal is more compelling than the actuality of my lived incidences of pride and anger – my real “sins”. Pride in particular (my great “sin”) is a nasty, mean-spirited thing. It shuts others out, refusing to allow them to offer assistance or knowledge. As I learned at the very beginning of the project, it is a sin that sets itself up as the strong/smart/more experienced/more capable one. It is the sin that says “No, thanks, I know way better than you and I’m just fine without you.” It’s hurtful, and doesn’t allow others to share their wisdom or strength. It is arrogant and cold.

I could go on, but I suspect you get the drift of my ponderings.

What is this fascination with sexual desire? With lust? It seems such an ordinary thing to me. A normal thing. If we didn’t feel it in some small way – whether simply admiring another’s physical beauty, or recognising a powerful urge – would we still be fully alive? See, I don’t think that the thinking or experiencing of desire is – of itself – a bad thing. It’s a mark that we are awake, isn’t it? Like anger, it’s not the response or emotion, it’s what we do with the response. Well, I reckon…

Anyway, I’m mulling over it, but thought I’d float the idea and see if others find it curious. What say you?

Meanwhile, to elevate this post above my ruminations, I was sent a magnificent Neruda poem by Andrew, who is, I believe, a subscriber to the blog (as you know I can’t tell who subscribes and who pops in), and who has sent me many wonderful offerings for which I am most grateful. This one arrived yesterday and I’m mad for it. It’s Pablo Neruda. No need to say more…

From so much loving and journeying, books emerge.
And if they don’t contain kisses or landscapes,
if they don’t contain a man with his hands full,
if they don’t contain a woman in every drop,
hunger, desire, anger, roads,
they are no use as a shield or as a bell:
they have no eyes, and won’t be able to open them,
they have the dead sound of precepts.

Thanks Andrew. It is beautiful.

Thanks also to Arts Centre Melbourne for creating the scenario in which I ultimately had to write the monologue. I’d never have done it without you and your supporters, and I’m glad I did.

Gracias to the astonishing Rachel Burke for miraculous light, and to Peter – my true north – for patience and advice in the fearful moments. And to these old friends, who were pulled out for the occasion, to give me courage and authenticity. The mighty Merrells…

Finally, a little housekeeping…

Some book events coming up. Please check the tab above – EVENTS AND MEDIA – to see if there is something that appeals. As you know, this pilgrim loves company.

Thanks for reading…for journeying…

Hace dos años…

 

Two years ago…

I arrived at Finisterre after 1300 kilometres of marvels and mud!

Finisterre.

The name has taken on mystical significance for me.

Land’s end.

The place of arrival.

Of course there is really no arrival, there is only the ongoing journey – the next road that opens. But sometimes it’s good to honour a milestone, and so today, that is what I’m doing.

After the usual washing of clothes and body, massaging of legs and feet, carb-loading and journalling, I walked uphill out of the port to the lighthouse, passing this pilgrim monument on the way.

It was about 9pm.

Bright, clear and warm.

The sea and sky – the world! – seemed to stretch to forever. A trickle of other pilgrims splayed out along the road in front and behind me, but all of us walked in our own silences, suspended between ending and beginning.

We sat and watched a hot red sun turn to orange then pink, as the sea turned from deep blue to mauve below it.

I burned the list of sins, honouring the tradition of release at journey’s end, and honouring those whose courage had kept me walking.

It felt just right.

Then, as the whole world turned pastel, I walked downhill, stopping to ask a fellow pilgrim to photograph me at this distance marker.

It reads “0.00 km”.

Nowhere else to go.

Nowhere to be.

Just here and now.

I can’t remember any place ever feeling so full, or so empty. Perfect.

The world is rather a whirl just now, as I ready myself to offer up a monologue about the work, this Wednesday night in Melbourne. I’m doing things I’ve not done in years – learned lines, pondered how to project my voice, considered my own body in space.

The road will always surprise us!

But in the midst of the fear around failure that accompanies any task I care about deeply, I took myself out onto the road yesterday and walked along the Great Dividing Trail. After about two hours, I looked up at the wide turquoise sky and began to sob with happiness – that strange, inexplicable thing that can happen sometimes when I know I am in my skin and where I am meant to be, and grateful. So very grateful.

Our neighbourhood is being photographed as a record of the 2012 residents, and as part of it we had to fill out a questionnaire. One query was what we hoped to be doing in ten years time. My answer was – still feeling thankful for a body that is strong enough to carry me along a road.

May you remember to honour your milestones.

May you feel the pleasure of here and now at 0.00kms.

May you be overwhelmed by gratitude when you least expect it.

A couple of reminders!

If you have not listened to my Poetica programme, please remember you can download it:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/poetica/2012-05-05/3967108

And don’t forget to read the comments – I love the one from the man in Santiago! Feel free to leave one if you enjoy it – the producer, Anne McInerney, did a glorious job, and is leaving the ABC. She deserves all praise.

And of course, if you would like to be kept updated with posts like this, and the guest posts like Tony’s, please enter your email and hit the subscribe button on the top right.

 

Carrying the Pain of Others: Reviving An Ancient Journey

Today we have a guest post. The second ever.

I hope there will be more, but for now, I’m honoured to offer you this moving and provocative reflection on the book. I am particularly grateful to Tony Doherty for facing head-on the horrors of sexual abuse, and how that plays out for him as a pastor in the Catholic church.

When I was walking, I often passed shepherds with their flocks.

Hola Senor Pastor, I would call. Hello Mister Shepherd.

I think Tony’s “flock” are fortunate to have someone so prepared to wrestle with the realities of trying to live with honesty and compassion – and disgrace – inside the structure of the Church. I feel very lucky to have received his words in response to the book.

 

To what extent are we willing to carry the pain of others? In a Church which claims to be a supporting community of believers, how do we give hope, in some genuine fashion, to someone whose life is fast unravelling, asks Tony Doherty*

 

At first blush, the concept seemed frankly medieval. An idea left behind centuries ago. Not just pre-Vatican II but pre-Lutheran. Quaint theology but tinged with medieval superstition, with more than a whiff of magic and money.

The idea – a pilgrim setting out to walk the famous Camino de Santiago carrying on her back an unusual cargo – a load of other people’s sins (for a small monetary consideration). This followed the best traditions of medieval believers who paid others to carry their sins to such sacred sites as Santiago, and so buy forgiveness. Not surrogate parenting, but surrogate reconciliation.

An Australian writer, director and actor, Ailsa Piper took on a 1,300 kilometre pilgrimage walking continually for about 45 days through storms and cold, across the rough and the smooth (this woman is no slouch) to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostella.

Before leaving home, Ailsa published the quirky invitation: “I will walk off your sins. Pilgrim seeks sinners for mutually beneficial arrangement. Proven track record. Tireless. Reliable. Seven deadlies a speciality”.

In our so cool and sophisticated, post-modern culture could such an arcane invitation work? “…yes, people gave me their sins. From the first day, there were confessions, even some from strangers who’d heard of the quest.”

Hang about! Confession of ‘sin’ has been replaced has it not by more contemporary and non-judgemental counselling procedures – or have I been out having lunch somewhere?

But confessions they were – genuine admissions of sin from half-believers, once-upon-a-time believers, even acknowledged atheists. Always heartfelt, often unnervingly disclosive. “I have slept with my best friend’s husband. Not once but four times.” The ‘penitents’ left the impression they were just aching to deal with previously undealt with material.

Taking the project quite seriously, the writer-pilgrim would read the load of sins she was carrying religiously each morning, like some monastic chapter of faults. Her own struggles and sins became part of the daily examination. The honesty and integrity of the author’s description of this process is expressed with uncommon sensitivity and indeed sacredness. At some quite deep level it made totally good sense.

The book, Sinning Across Spain (Victory Books, Melbourne, 2012), tells the story in graceful and stylish voice which at times becomes quite lyrical.

The ‘Camino’ is in the news these days, thanks to Emilio Estevez’s splendid film The Way, the story of a father who, faced with the death of his son killed while attempting the pilgrimage, decides to do the walk carrying his box of ashes to Santiago and eventually the sea. The Piper story and the Estevez film contain a fascinating common thread – carrying a heavy load on the journey: the ashes of a son’s life and the wounds of other people’s lives.

Unburdening oneself of some personal load is an ancient practice on the Camino. At the highest point of the path to Santiago, on top of one of the most challenging hills, there stands a large iron cross. For centuries pilgrims have carried stones, more frequently not much more than we would call ‘gibbers’, often wrapped in paper on which is written a prayer or perhaps a promise. The stones would represent some guilty memory, some emotional wound, perhaps unhealed grief. It might represent a relationship sorely in need of repair or a renewed commitment to the future.

More enthusiastic pilgrims will bring several stones representing the struggles of those left behind at home. Some might choose instead of a stone a symbolic item which better represents what they want to leave behind. The genesis of the Piper invitation, to carry somebody else’s load of sin, probably finds its inspiration in this ancient practice.

Does it make sense? You’d better ask a weary pilgrim struggling up the hill with their heavy swag.

If I may intrude a personal story. Several years ago while walking the Camino I was at the ‘iron cross’ and there on top of the centuries-high pile of stones were two pink baby’s shoes tied together by their laces. I couldn’t get them out of my mind. What did their presence mean? No explanatory note. A pile of symbolic items as untidy as a garage sale. Left there undoubtedly as silent witness of some family tragedy. Hemingway was once famously challenged to write a short story in six words. His story: “For Sale. Baby shoes. Never used.”

So here’s the twist. To what extent are we willing to carry the pain of others? In a Church which claims to be a supporting community of believers, how do we give hope, in some genuine fashion, to someone whose life is fast unravelling?

For Catholics, facing with horror the shocking events of child abuse and sexual manipulation, how do we stop from drowning ourselves? One familiar response is denial. “It can’t be happening.” “Just a few rotten apples.” Another response is angrily scapegoating whatever easy target comes to mind, or the rather shamefully pulling the blankets over our heads and pretending it will go away.

Ailsa Piper’s strategy might hold a valuable clue. Are we strong enough to carry the pain of others – say, the victims of this terrible abuse? Or an even more unspeakable possibility – to carry a little of the disgrace of those seen as responsible.

Sinning across Spain asks the question: how really connected are we? It is a powerful and tantalising question.

 

* Monsignor Tony Doherty, a priest of the Sydney Archdiocese, is pastor of two Sydney parishes, Dover Heights and Rose Bay. His lifetime search is to find an appropriate language of faith for contemporary adults. He also admits to being a little addicted to walking pilgrimages.

 

If you would like to see the article in the context for which Tony wrote it, you can go to this link, which is on the website of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan.

http://www.goodsams.org.au/good-oil/carrying-the-pain-of-others-reviving-an-ancient-journey/

Muchas gracias, Tony. Muchas.

Following where the road leads…

This road has a mind of its own.

That may not have been clear to me in the beginning, when I thought it was my idea, my project, my monologue that I was going to write, and my decisions that would shape any outcomes.

Hilarious old hindsight, eh?

When I sent out my letter asking for sinner-sponsors, I said my intention was to write a monologue for performance. I even knew the actress who was going to play it – my friend and fellow walker, Louise. Perfect for it, she would be.

Writing a monologue, however, proved another thing.

I struggled to find ways, struggled to compress the story, struggled to feel truthful, or that I was honouring the story. I was met with NO at every turn!

Then one day I began to write prose, and about twelve months later that prose found a publisher. A book allowed me to tell all the stories I wanted to tell, to be as scrupulous about the journeys of others as I could possibly be – and to confess to my own journey, which was never my intention, dreading the “I” voice, as I did.

Publication, and the ensuing road-trip into the blogosphere, the twittoverse and the land of Facebook, as well as the adventure of talking the book at events and on radio and festivals with people I admire and respect…well, that has yielded fruits I’d never dreamed. Pains too. Anxieties and ego-dents. Minor abrasions, only! Mostly, a rucksack full of joys.

Now, here is the latest irony.

I find myself sitting at the desk, penning a monologue for performance to be given by me, the person who swore she would never act on stage again, at the Fairfax Theatre! I began writing a week ago and finished it – more or less! – yesterday. And incredibly, amazingly, it has not been torture. There is a monologue!

Putting aside the horrors of trying to learn and rehearse it in the next eleven days (AAAGGGHH!), the thing that remains a marvel is that it was possible to write it at all, after those attempts when I first came home from the camino.

But I woke this morning with a strong sense of why I’ve been able to do it.

Now that the book is out, I am free to make choices about what parts of the story seem theatrical or dramatic, because the whole story, the entirety of the journey, is in the world. I have honoured the road as fully as I was able, and now I can be selective, just as I was with the Poetica programme.

So the thing I couldn’t do, I am doing. Incredible.

But on the road’s timetable, not mine.

I can’t yet bring myself to think about performing it, but I’m hoping that somehow the road will bring me home to a place where I can manage that too, just for one evening.

I’m reminded of a poem, given to me by Louise. It is by Alice Walker.

 

When We Let Spirit Lead Us.

 

When we let Spirit

Lead us

It is Impossible

To know

Where

We are being led

All we know

All we can believe

All we can hope

Is that

We are going

Home

That wherever

Spirit

Takes us

Is Where

We

Live.

I live and work here, looking out this window and dreaming of things that might be, then being astonished to find that other dreams, bigger dreams, are dreaming me.

Sometimes, the sky confirms that.

 

If you want to see one of the great miracles of the digiverse, click on this link and then scroll down to the post by Johnnie Walker. This is what I mean by connection!

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/poetica/2012-05-05/3967108

I have been moved and grateful for all the comments there, but that one fair took my breath away. The world is endlessly wondrous.

Please feel free to download the programme and have a listen. It’s another aspect, another unpicking, expanding, re-examining of the story…