Heart and Soul: A Story of Pilgrimage
  
Larry Russell, Brooklyn, New York

When I opened my journal today, the place where I had written about this year’s pilgrimage was marked by a handful of notes written to me by my fellow pilgrims walking from the Southwest. Six weeks later, I am at home, sitting at my kitchen table and writing.  I am still on pilgrimage, and I realize I am no less in God’s hands now than when my comrades wrote those words.  I tell people here at home my story of pilgrimage, but they can only grasp part of it.  It’s a different story to listeners, who know that the hundred miles is not remarkable, nor the heat nor the hills and the lack of sleep.  Those are conditions that prepare us for something more—that moment when our hearts break and we see our lives and those we love as though for the first time. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me begin at the beginning.  


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We met at Albuquerque, and we were singing our thanksgiving when Father Ed introduced us to the daughter of a woman who wrote one of our songs.  Her mother had died recently. A musician gave her his guitar, and we became a family around her.  Her mother was there with us as we sang, “Somos peregrinos de los cuatro vientos....” We were not solely the pilgrim group from the Southwest. We were part of a troop of pilgrims walking from all the directions.  We were walking in 2011, but we were part of a pilgrim band who has been walking since 1972. The next  morning our rector reminded us of where each of the pilgrim group was at that moment.  Later in the week, Father Ed brought the mail, and we were connected to what was happening in other groups.  That awareness would gather us into one great pilgrim band when we are united as one family at in Chimayó.

We were walking our second day when we reached Zia pueblo.  The sun was high, and the earth was pale, the color washing out like a photograph that is too bright. After a feast and a blessing, we were led to the church. The walk was not difficult, but my chest felt tight, and I felt a tiny, sharp pain high in my chest just below my collarbone.  Those symptoms are classic, but I was more aware of the pain in my feet and knees.  As we climbed up to it, the pain increased.  I had difficulty keeping pace.  The two horses painted on either side of the entrance welcomed us, and we walked into the shady interior.  Our rector told us to make a deep bow.  The earth felt cool on my forehead, and I forgot the pain.  Each time I have walked that route, I have felt the powerful blessing of that church.

The next day we awoke and packed for Jemez.  I was sitting on the floor, rolling up my sleeping bag when I felt the pain again.  It was a more insistent warning.  It is not easy to ask for help on pilgrimage.  We are committed to the effort, not ignoring pain so much as moving through it.  My body was asking to stop, but my spirit kept pace.  This was new territory, like the new path that the groups from the North and East would have to find as they walked around the fire in Peñasco Deacon Jones drove me back through the darkness to Albuquerque.  It was strange to be sitting in a vehicle, moving at this rate. I imagined pilgrims in formation, starting out in silence along the road, the lights on the trucks flashing ahead and behind.  For many of us, this peaceful time in solitude is the best part of the day. The pilgrims would be heading one direction as Leon and I drove in another. What was I—a  patient, a dropout? I had my own path to follow now.  Soon we arrived at Lovelace Hospital, and I walked into the emergency room. 

It was quiet here, too.  There were few people.  A woman behind a desk asked my name and address.  She asked what brought me to New Mexico, and I told her about the pilgrimage.  She wanted to know more, but we had other business.  When I mentioned chest pain and tightness, everyone moved quickly.  They drew blood and hooked me up to machines within minutes.  A physician assistant arrived and told me something was happening within my heart, but they didn’t know how serious it was. Leon returned with my suitcase.  I would spend at least one night at the hospital. 

We had talked about silence on this pilgrimage, and so I was prepared to listen and wait.  Someone announced that they would take me immediately up to the operating room. As two male nurses packed my belongings, I changed into a hospital gown.  They quickly took me down the hall on a cart, and as we waited for an elevator, I began to feel pain again. It was more insistent.  At least, the doctors would have clear evidence of what was going on.  The two men worked smoothly as a team, wheeling me down the hall and into the operating room. I was not allowed to move myself, so they used the sheet to swing me onto the operating table like a sack of potatoes and prepped me for the procedure.  The room was frosty, and I was wrapped in a blanket, leaving an opening for tubes here and there.  The surgeon arrived, and it seemed as though someone had pressed the button to fast forward.

The doctor told me to lie on my side so that I could observe my heart on a monitor.  I still have the video. It looks like a fist flexing and relaxing.  The blockages were obvious to everyone in the room, but they looked tiny and insignificant.  Everything was smaller than the model of the heart I remember from my high school health class.  The arteries looked like brooks on a map, but they were my life streams. There were three possible procedures.  The doctor recommended a simple and direct method of opening the blocked channels. After his brief explanation, I was not sure about the consequences of each choice, so I asked if I could use my “lifeline.”  I wanted to call my partner, who was the director of nursing at a small hospital in downtown Manhattan. He usually turned off his cell phone during the day, but maybe I would be lucky. The surgeon was the only person in the room with a cellphone, and he loaned it to me. 

“It’s Larry.”

“Hmmmm, you can’t use your cell on pilgrimage, so is it good news or bad?”

David knew that I was having trouble with my knees.

“The walk has been OK, but I’m in the hospital in Albuquerque and trying to decide which heart procedure to choose.”

There was a moment of silence while he absorbed this information.

“We need to take care of clogged arteries.  I know there’s been a question about the effectiveness of one brand of heart stent. Maybe bypass surgery is a better choice in the long run.”

“Larry, let me take a breath. There’s a lot going on here. I just stepped out of the auditorium during a lecture so I could check on the tour they’re giving Senator Guildebrand [spelling?].  You caught me at the right time.  Can you wait a couple of minutes while I ask someone?  There are three cardiologists meeting down the hall, and I’ll go ask them.” 

In Albuquerque the nurses are bringing equipment and setting it up.  We laugh about how casual it is to borrow a cell phone in an operating room.  They tell me they’re going to insert a tube in my arm.  If the vein is flexible enough, they can thread it into the heart.  If not, they’ll have to use a vein in my leg.  And was that different from the work of peregrinos now walking in the sun as they climbed the elevation?

The phone rang.  It was natural for me that David’s voice and presence would be there with me in Albuquerque. We had been together for thirty years.  This test was no different than others.  The cardiologists at his hospital in New York recommended the same procedure as the doctor in Albuquerque.  That made the decision easy.

“Bye.  I’ll call you when it’s over.”

“Wish I was there with you.”

“It’s OK.  I’m fine with what’s happening.”
I relaxed as I lay on the table.  I was not alone.  My fellow peregrinos were near in the morning darkness. By now, Deacon Jones had returned to them, and my need for help was folded in their hands with the other prayer requests.  So this was how the villagers felt when we carried their burdens to Chimayó. The physical threat was real, but we were not abandoned.  I turned away from the screen as they worked on me.   My task was to face the road ahead of me.  I lay there as a pilgrim. 

This event and the day seemed inevitable.  My clogged arteries and struggling heart had reached this turn in the road.  I was lucky I was not on a plane to Albuquerque or in the airport in Dallas.  It was happening in the midst of the prayers of peregrinos and guadalupanas. It would not be a bad time or place to die.  I had returned to Albuquerque, but my spirit was on the road to Chimayó.  Even if I made it no further, their prayers would carry me home.  I was far from David, but I wished to be in no other place than that operating room.

They tell me it took an hour and a half. I had no sense of time, just as time is irrelevant on pilgrimage.  Soon they were wheeling me down a hallway and into a room.  The other patient in the room was waiting to hear how his procedure had gone.  He was restless and kept switching the channels on his television as he whistled the same tune.  I missed the silence and the singing of pilgrims.

Life in a hospital is a suspension of everyday life, but unlike pilgrimage, the rhythm is mechanical.  Perhaps it had saved my life, but I did not feel dominated by it.  I was following another guide, even though our guía was not in sight.  It was like that week after pilgrimage when we still hear the songs.  I could still feel the rhythm, the gait of a pilgrim. It lived in my legs just as the songs lived in our ears. Why not continue as a pilgrim? I had intentions to pray.  Some were folded and in my pocket.  We had promised the people at the pueblo that we would pray for the canonization of Blessed Katiri (spelling).  A woman had asked us to pray for her health.

I felt fine.  If I wasn’t connected to wires and tubes, I would have walked up and down the halls.  In the middle of my prayers, the doctor arrived. The bustle and commotion in the hospital were similar to the cars that pass us on the road.  We are a part of their fast-paced world, but we are outside it during pilgrimage.  The measured pace of pilgrimage provides a viewpoint, and we see what they miss as they speed by.  That viewpoint helped me to appreciate the gift of this experience. I felt no loss of energy.  My pain was slight. My body had warned me to not take my heart for granted.  In the past day I had three slight heart attacks. 

By now, it was mid-afternoon, and the bus would be waiting along the road to take us back to Jemez.  I, too, needed to rest after the day’s journey.  I listened to my telephone message.  It was brief and to the point.

“Larry, this is Sister Emilia.  We heard you were ill.  We are worried.  Call us.”

I tried to remember if this was the day she would greet pilgrims from the South at the Cathedral.  No, today she would be organizing the lunch they serve tomorrow. I thought about the women who would be preparing food for pilgrims to eat tonight, tomorrow, and the next day. They are the supporting background.  Their pilgrim gift is freely offered, and we walk because of them. With their gifts in our blood and muscles, we walk with them. 

So I called Sister Emilia and other people who had cared for me over the years that I had been walking pilgrimage.  I didn’t know how to speak of the grace of my healing.  It was no more deserved than the food I received on my pilgrim plate.  There was much I did not understand about this event. The story was not about me but about pilgrimage.  I needed the silence and the distance of our walk to hear what was being said through this experience. 

So I asked for the gift of pilgrimage in order to understand.  I didn’t deserve it, but I needed it.  The doctor had told me I was doing very well, and I took that opportunity to ask him if he would allow me to return to the walk.  We talked about the importance of this pilgrimage and what it does.  I couldn’t just walk in the door and say, “I’m back.”  The leaders would take too much of a risk if they decided to allow me.  There had never been a serious accident or illness on pilgrimage.  I needed a signed note from the doctor.  We would wait and see, listening to my heart.

These past years, I have learned through pilgrimage how to go about my life.    I learned how to recognize Ponderosa and Holman Hill back in Brooklyn.  I learned how to be led along the streets of Manhattan.  I waited for the strength that comes from carrying the guía. I remembered what it meant to kneel at moradas and listen to the songs of the Hermanos, who shouldered the weight of their fellow pilgrims when the going was tough. I learned about generosity from our hosts in village after village.  Most of all, I have learned about silence and prayer at the heart of life.

On Thursday afternoon I received my signed permission from the doctor, and Father Ed drove me back to my group.  I was not a medical patient or the subject of a story—I was a peregrino whose path had taken him on another route.  I did not understand the depth of the blessing until I was able to return. 

Once, years ago, I had foolishly left pilgrimage.  We were walking from the north, and when we reached Taos, we needed to take showers at the town pool. I asked the leaders if I could go to the nearby home of a friend and shower.  They gave me permission, and off I went.  When I reached the house, my friends greeted me with questions about how the pilgrimage was going. I didn’t want to talk.  As the water gushed over me, I realized my mistake—I should never have left.  The only thing that mattered was that we stayed together until we reached Chimayó. 

I think I was given the grace of returning to my group this year so I could understand the blessing. The healing of my heart was nothing in comparison to the healing of my soul.  I belonged with the pilgrim group. On Friday night when pilgrims told each other what the experience meant, I explained to the young pilgrims that my return was not an act of bravado or machismo. God had brought me home so I could witness to his grace.

The next day as we entered the doors of El Santuario, I wept as I realized how He had restored my life.  In the last ten years He had prepared me for this experience, teaching me to be a peregrino.  Every step and prayer and song had brought me to this place in my life where I could allow God to do His will through me.  I had done nothing.  God had carried me through.

Tatita Dios,
  there is so much that can only be known by You--
  the passion of our spiritual solitude,
  the suffering of those for whom we pray,
  the steadfast love of those who nourish us
  and shelter us along the road.
    Chasten our cluttered lives of all distraction in each day's walk
  that we may entrust our lives to You,
  find our place in your service,
  discover our path of sacrifice,
  and open our hearts, como la posada en Belén,
  to the birth of Your spirit.
    Guide us by your sacrifice
  in the glare and heat of the midday sun,
  and when it is our turn to carry the guía,
  help us to bear the burden
  of your overwhelming love. 
  Fill us with your presence
  when we are kneeling to bandage the feet of another pilgrim,
  when we are bearing their weight as we climb a hill,
  when we are reading petitions for prayer as we leave a village.

Tatita Dios,
  Manifest your spirit in our bodies
  from Angelus to Angelus
  until we bow  and rest our heads upon the earth.
  Satisfy our yearning for the homeland of our culture
  as we walk five paths
  in the light of sunrise over the Sangre de Cristos,
  in the smell of pine, alfalfa and lilac,
  in the sound of acquits,
  finding our way from church to church.

Tatita Dios,
  Hear our prayers for all vocations,
  and when at last we come home to Chimayó
  with our wounded feet and our vulnerable emotions,
  hear our songs of praise and joy.
  Then return us to our communities
  with a pilgrim’s sense of duty toward those You love.
  In the Name of Your Son,
  the Eternal Peregrino.
    Amen.

Story of going off pilgrimage to Penny’s house for a shower

It didn’t feel like a miracle.  There was no bright light or even a still, small voice.  But the experience did feel different.  This was not the first time I have been in a hospital for a serious procedure.  It felt ordinary because I was used to pilgrimage.  I was doing what we have learned to do:  pray and keep going.  But it was the first time I had used my pilgrim practice like that.  I did not choose to become a pilgrim in those circumstances.  I just kept on being a pilgrim.  That’s what we’re trying to do now in July—keep on being pilgrims.  I did not have inner certainty that everything was all right with my body, but I was not afraid.  I was in that place and in that body as a pilgrim, and I just kept going.  And I think that’s a miracle.  I knew how to be a transformed person because I had learned it step by step on pilgrimage. I realize I may not live up to this standard the next time.  But now I know how it feels to continue in life as a pilgrim, and that knowledge, that experience is life changing.  Miraculous.