A Spiritual Awakening

 

I began my camino with only two intentions: First, to be fully present to each step and experience along the way, and second, to ponder the question “Existe Dios?” (Do you exist God?)

It was ironic then, that the route on our very first day, was so long, so hard, and so confusing that when we finally reached our place of lodging that afternoon I collapsed on the bed and said out loud to Anne “Shoot, I completely forgot to ask God if He exists!" It turns out that this was to be the way of things for the first five or six days. We put so much energy into trying to find our way, our aching feet, and the beauty surrounding us, that there just wasn’t much room for pondering deep theological questions. We talked about this; both of us were surprised at the turn away from “The Spiritual” that our pilgrimage was taking. Finally Anne said: “Well, I’m just going to quit worrying about it and trust the walking.” I decided to do the same. I could at least stay committed to my first intention (to notice every-single step) and hope that the walking would take care of the rest.

 

On about the fifth day we woke up in the beautiful harbor town of Baiona, Spain. I left our room and went downstairs to a sidewalk cafe to journal and drink my morning cafe con leche. It was a quiet morning. As it turns out it takes a while for things to get going in small Spanish towns;  I had the street largely to myself. I was facing the harbor and watching boats of all shapes and sizes rest on the calm, sunlit water. Directly in front of me, only about fifty meters away, was an authentic life-sized replica of The Pinta, one of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his 1492 voyage to “discover” the New World. It was sitting alone, shrouded in a mist that slowly receded as I absently watched the day grow brighter. 

 

I was feeling discouraged; five or six days into this journey and it wasn’t feeling like much of a pilgrimage, more like a long walk with a good friend. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it wasn’t all I’d been hoping for. I remember writing in my journal: “Well God, I’m not sure I’m going to find you on this journey, in fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever had less time or energy to search for you!”  But, even if I couldn’t find God, I told myself, at least I could keep my commitment to my other intention and even that morning stay fully present to my surroundings. I made myself look up again and focus on what was right in front of me, The Pinta. 

 

I didn’t know much about The Pinta, only what I’d read the night before in my hotel room. Apparently the real Pinta was the smallest and fastest of Columbus’s boats; she was the first to reach the Americas and the first to return and make landfall back in Europe. Her voyage home ended in Baiona, in the very harbor where I now sat, over five hundred years earlier. “The Pinta” wasn’t even her real name. She had originally been named for a saint but that name has long since been lost to history. As I began to be present to my imagination I tried to envision what a scene it must have been on that morning she had arrived so long ago. Smelly men, dirty streets, excitement in the air. No internet, cable news, or even postal service to precede her. The men’s account of a New World was truly news. Fresh. Amazing. I wondered how many present that day believed their story. I reflected on these men, sailors who had ventured off because they needed a bit of cash or adventure. Fearless or fool-hearty enough to sail forth, in search of something they just hoped might exist.  Why did they even go? I wrote about my theories. There were probably as many motivations as there were men, and one thing was for sure, not a single one of these men had been “certain” that they would, in fact, discover a new land. How could they have been? 

 

That word, “Certain,” kept knocking around in my head. I remembered the words of the theologian Paul Tillich who said “the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, but certainty”. Still, I love certainty. I was the child that secretly unwrapped every one of my Christmas presents early so that I could be certain of what to expect. I belong to a twelve-step recovery program where I stumble on the second step: “Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.” It is my lack of certainty that trips me up. I feel intellectually lazy and dishonest if I don’t question that of which I don’t know for “certain.” If I question God’s existence almost every day of my life, how can I allow myself to ask Him for help running my life? Even when I do ask for his help, and then experience miracles, I feel like a fraud, or worse yet, like a spiritual freeloader. What right do I have to even ask minus the certainty so many others seem to feel?

 

Earlier in the summer I had traveled to Turkey. Five times a day I watched as hundreds of men listened for the minarets and answered their call to prayer. I entered mosque after mosque and saw what looked like so much certainty. Here in Portugal and Spain I gazed at what millions of man hours, in the last two hundred years, had constructed in cathedral after cathedral. So darn much certainty and everyone so “certain” of something different.

 

The church authorities, five hundred years ago, had been certain as well; They were sure the world was flat and that Spain was the center of the universe. They were certain that the voyage of Columbus and his ragtag group of men would end in disaster. Those church authorities were dead wrong.

 

The men of the Pinta could not have been sure of anything, but apparently certainty was not the stumbling block for them that it is for me. They took their next step without certainty; and when they did, miraculously, they found what they were looking for. 

 

The deeper I went into my imagination, and the image I held of these rough and uneducated men, the more touched by them I became. I began to cry. Their faith and courage made no sense to me but I was grateful for their example. The parallel was striking, between my understanding of their journey and my interpretation of mine through the twelve steps: They had enough faith, or were simply desperate enough to move forward even without certainty. It seems “certainty” didn’t need to be part of their equation. Does it need to be part of mine? They trusted their lives to a “new land” that they weren’t even sure existed because they had nothing left to lose, and everything to gain. Just like me.

 

It’s an educated gamble at best for me, this business of believing that there’s a God and I am not foolish, ignorant, or naive to move forward “acting as if” it makes sense to turn “my life, and my will” over to His/Her care. I know that’s what most people call faith. Not me. I call it a gamble. Until that morning I hadn’t realized that it isn’t intellectually lazy, or dishonest, for me to set forth on a journey minus certainty. Really, I think I had been asking the wrong question all along: Existe Dios? (Do you exist God?) I'm skeptical of anyone who thinks they can answer that question with certainty. Much more to the point for me is the question: “Is it OK to move forward in hope, even though I’m not sure you exist God?” That’s what I ended up asking that morning. The answer I received was not the one I had been looking for: “Those men did Dana; they sailed forward on only a gamble. If they did, you can. You’re allowed to. You won’t be a fraud.”

 

I still don’t know for certain whether God exists, though I do know, as I’ve always known, that I do better when I “act as if” I believe He does. Maybe one day, from the perspective of my rear view mirror I will be sure. The men of the Pinta have become my inspiration, the ones who will forever receive credit for a powerful spiritual awakening on a sidewalk in Spain. They are the ones to whom I dedicate this writing and the ones to whom I owe a deep debt of gratitude.

 

    Reflection:

        When I remove the need to be “certain” I feel freer to explore my ever changing image of God. Sometimes that feels uncomfortable, especially when I know that, deep down, the “certainty” I once felt has been replaced by doubt, curiosity, and sometimes even skepticism. But, where does my discomfort with doubt come from? What am I afraid of? Sometimes fear leads me to simply avoid exploring my changing beliefs even though I know that it’s only by pushing through the discomfort that I can have honest dialog with myself and my God. Minus that dialog there is no hope for real relationship.

 

1. How comfortable are you with honest conversation, even with yourself, about your changing image, or maybe even doubt of God?

2. What, if anything, stands in the way of honestly exploring how your beliefs about your notion of God may be different from what they once were?