Becoming!

Thomas Merton is credited with the question that guided our walk a couple of days ago. He writes, "What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are useless." 

 As pilgrims to Santiago, we are invited to reflect on a such thinking as this Merton quote. Along the way, Carly and I came across this intriguing sculpture that depicts the unfinished form of a man and a woman. The sculptures invite us in to our own souls, asking the question, 'what am I becoming?' With the sculptures before us and Merton's quote, we can find space along the El Camino to reflect on 'becoming.' 

As I ponder the question of the day, my mind recalls the words from the Psalm 8, "When I look in your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?" (vs. 3) There are many times in our life when we ask the question, 'who am I?' Our possible answers likely reflects where we find ourselves at various points in our life and our answers change over time. On our journey along the El Camino, we are walking at a time when Russia has ruthlessly and without cause, invaded Ukraine. There are still refugees from Syria struggling to resettle from a war of power and greed. The United States is as divided today as we were in the years leading up to our Civil War. We still want to separate the world by race and privilege, and we are inclined to definitively define what is right and what is good, most often reflecting our own preference and dismissing those whose values are different than our own. What are any of our great accomplishments as a nation, as a world, and as human beings created by God if we cannot see one another as made in the image of God?

As we make our journey along the El Camino, we have met pilgrims from around the world. We stopped and enjoyed water and bread with two women from Florida, we trailed through a rugged wooded pass with a young man from Sweden. We spent a rainy day walking with two women, one from Scotland and the other from Spain. We had breakfast with a couple from Denmark, and chatted outside an ancient chapel with a family from Portugal. We have passed pilgrims from Austria, Germany, Holland, the Netherlands, and folks from Switzerland. All of us created by the dust of the earth, each from different parts of the world, and all of us on a journey of becoming. Although we come from different places, our journey brings us together, reminding us that the greatest gift -- more than technology, landings on the moon, beautiful buildings that have past the test of time, or the algrorithims that guide the work of the day is the human spirit that seeks common ground, listens to understand, and desires, more than anything else, to bridge the abyss that separates us from our humanity. 

What are you becoming? A question to ponder and an opportunity to continue to break into the sculpture, the mold, the person God created you to be. Can we walk this journey with a spirit of humility and a heart that listens, a heart that hears, the laughter and the joy that brings our Creator fulfillment? Can we see each person we meet the way God intended each person to be? Becoming. The sculptor is God and the choices we make are the colors that will set us apart from all those who would choose to separate and divide God's human family.