Day 079b: A brittle bread for Breakfast … (July 02, 2019)
After a few peaceful hours of waiting alone in the hostel foyer, other pilgrims began steadily filtering in in anticipation of eating a fine pilgrim’s breakfast before yet another fine day of pilgrim’s walking. I will gladly state that breakfast is by far my favorite meal of the day, and that this is true whether I happen to walking a pilgrimage or not. And far more often than not, that favored repast consists at least in part of another of my personal favorites – bread, in whatever flavor or form. This was true when I was living on the Big Island of Hawaii (where my status as a Peace Pilgrim was finally reborn), this was true while I resided in Germany (where that status flew so far under the social radar that almost all of my German friends & colleagues had no idea who I truly was), and this was true on this particular pilgrimage (where, as an avid vegan, bread proved to be one of the most reliable forms of cruelty-free sustenance available). It bears noting that most of the time – almost always, actually – the bread that was offered proved to be as fulfilling as it was delicious. On this morning, however, the opposite proved to be the case – with the baked loaves being so devoid of nutrients that I would probably have been better off eating nothing, and with them being so hard that they actually hurt to bite into. This didn’t stop me from eating a fair share of the same anyway, of course, and I found myself easily grateful for it all regardless – maybe it was the warmth of camaraderie at my table (and indeed in the entire room full of fellow pilgrims, most of whom would be setting forth on just their second day of walking) that made it so easy to be thankful for it all.
“Friendship & love are never manufactured or achieved by any act of will or intention. For real friendship and true Love are always an act of recognition – of the sacred in every profanity, and the Divine in every other … A s such, while it is true that friendship has no intrinsic survival value on its own; it is just as true that friendship – and especially the unconditional Love at its core – is one of the few things what give value to our surviving.”~ via John O’Donahue & C.S. Lewis
;