It is reminiscent of the Mona Lisa. Opposite this is the alter area of the chapel overlooked by a statue of Saint James on a war horse with sword in hand tramping moors and slicing off heads. The irony in the scene is the placement to a modern statue of the flogging of Jesus. The eyes of Jesus communicate sorrow and one can't help but wonder if the true sorrow is the use of his name to glorify violence just above in the figure of st. James.
I wonder if it was done on purpose or did the Spirit speak in the placement.
The irony is oblivious but is the same true of our lives and in our church? If one person is hurting in our community the the irony is there. On a wider scale: How many of us live in luxury compared to the rest of the world? In Canada we worry about 7% unemployment while there is 25% unemployment in Spain. I walked with local Spanish man out for his morning walk run for a kilometre or two. He told me he had been unemployed since 2008 and since he had no debt and owned his home he was able to live off savings. He is fit, intelligent and seemed very capable but there is no work in his region.
We might whine about housing prices, and employment in Canada but we have it much better than most of the rest of the world. Meanwhile our better world isn't shared with all in our communities. On July 31st, the homeless in Abbotsford were once again evicted from their camp just blocks from our church and just few hundred steps from the door of my office. We still have the food banks started in the 1980s. They were suppose to temporary.
Where is the irony in this? Well, while we still must give food to the "needy" we have grown our economy and our wealth has multiplied. New houses our bigger, and modern kitchens are a wonder and today's low end cars were yesterday's luxury cars. We have improved medical care, food production, houses, cars, highways and transportation, and invented whole new personal information devices but we can't feed the needy, and can't house the homeless.
More irony: we have more, we know more, we move faster in greater comfort but we aren't happier.
The message of the gospel should answer the irony of our lives. The teaching of Jesus of Peace and meaning comes from being truly together. There can be no true peace, no true hope, no true change until we overcome the irony of the wealth and poverty embedded in our cultural system. Until we let go our ego needs to have more, and control more, we will never have peace. I have with me two sets of clothing, washing up supplies and few others items, totalling 18 pounds of stuff, with this stuff and the means to purchase food and a bed for the night I have all I need.
We aren't flogging Jesus, or trampling our enemies in the name of the Jesus but how can we see the suffering in the world and not remember Jesus provocative words; I was thirsty, I was hungry, I was imprisoned, I was homeless, I was alone and you offered nothing.
Meanwhile we walk the camino and God has seemed to have decided to have us collect people in need. A lonely one needing friends and a safe place, and a hurting one, almost lame, and needing support and care, an alone one in train station with us for few hours and it goes on, a hospitaller grieving the loss of the hostel, a hospitaller struggling with a difficult pilgrim, a pilgrim wondering what to do about bed bugs. The call to compassion is placed before us and is so clear on the pilgrimage where people are challenged and pushed to there limits. and God joyously laughs as we realize that there is no vacation from the call of compassion!
In the everyday life that we all live it is so easy to miss the call and forget the desperate need for compassion in everyone's life.
So the journey continues. Peace. Bill
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