Day 10c: Shelter from The Storm … (04/24/2019)
As I wobbled into the village of Elzach after another arduous day of walking, an ominous storm was seen rapidly approaching along the near horizon — a storm that inspired me to seek shelter in a number of locales (the town hall, a nearby visitor’s center, a library, and a retirement home lobby to name a few), all ultimately to no avail. Of course, the town’s Catholic church (as was almost always the case in Germany and Switzerland and France) was still open, and I entered to serendipitously find a ceremony called a Totenrosenkrantz in progress (a series of prayers uttered in unison for one who had recently passed). With no other recourse readily available, and with the edge’s of the storm already lashing the town’s outskirts, I embraced the moment as a gift and chose to make this sanctuary that night’s home-away-from-home …
It really wasn’t that difficult to do so. The thirty or so black-clad worshippers were sitting near the front of the church’s quite large main hall, and were so intently reciting their mourning litany that they didn’t at all notice me as I quietly (and respectfully) climbed the staircase up into the building’s balcony. Neither did anyone give notice when I just as quietly (and just as reverently) lay down to hide there until all had finished their prayers and headed homeward. The steward of the church then arrived shortly thereafter to turn off all the lights and lock all the doors, and I was left alone and in peace as the storm finally arrived and raged in full outside the sanctuary’s thick walls …
And yet while I was in truth immensely thankful for the refuge it provided from the latter, the gift of sleep itself was not so readily received; seeing as how the stone church was incredibly cold and its pew cushions discomfortingly thin. So, after waiting awhile to be sure that I had truly been left alone for the night, I crept down to the main sanctuary floor and began looking for a place to rest that was warmer &/or softer; eventually finding the same in the cathedral’s elevated pulpit — an evangelical eerie made of much warmer wood, and an oft-pious perch that snugly housed my 6’5″ body, small satchel of belongings, and two of the aforementioned pew cushions … 😀
“A true pilgrimage requires letting go of the very things most desired; the very things most people try to hold onto the most fervently. And so it is that in seeking instead after what the Soul desires, we become pilgrims with no Home but the Here & Now — no goal but the path already underfoot — no yearning but for that which the all-giving Soul itself would have us attain.” ~ inspired by Michael Meade
;