IN THE KITCHEN by the Kitchen Madonna :: Let this be a place where those who hunger can be fed.

In the Kitchen

From the KM's Pilgrimage to
Santiago de Compostella Memoir
On the Road to Signs and Wonders
July 17th, 2006

Prologue

When I was in Northern Spain, I could not stop looking up. In the plazas, civic gardeners ruthlessly cut back the trees after the sap recedes in the fall. This pollarding concentrated the tree's growing power, and the branches and leaves come back thicker in the spring. And then I saw, with not a little wonder, how the overarching branches had been grafted to grow together. One tree is no longer distinguishable from the others. There are no tall trees standing in splendid isolation.

It occurred to me that this pruning creates a social space that shelters the Spaniard from the enervating heat with arching spandrels as architecturally sound as any thousand-year-old cathedral. No wonder the Spaniards are a warm, sheltering people. Because they are so joined, I was able to find shelter from more than a relentless sun.

These trees say everything of my experience of the lovely people who helped me along my pilgrimage and not just the one to Santiago de Compostella. Without the varied and persistent obstacles I experienced, I would not have lived into a powerful spiritual truth: in apparent weakness there is strength. In a solitary journey, there can be community.

A pilgrimage is a longsome, often meandering road. We struggle to find the true Way. There are always dead ends and wrong turns But what grace to turn a corner and find a signpost, to discover that those who go before have left us a marker. And when we least expect it, someone offers us a cool cup of water. We learn to do the same. Along the way, we behold the signs and wonders. And when we get to the holy place, we are finally ready for it.