No Room

Gradually, step by pain-wracked step, we ascended the Pyrenees, though my ‘puir-knees’ were screaming STOP with every step. One was taped and had begun the ascent with significant issues, and I guess the other was coming out in sympathy.

I thought we’d never reach the top. Every bend in the road was sure to be the last, I would think, only to be greeted by the sight of another stretch of ascending terrain. The skies seeped a steady drizzle, but that was the least of my concerns.

At last we arrived in Roncesvalles, 5.45 pm, 9 hours after we’d set off. With a huge monastery and an overflow dorm in the town, in addition to other accommodation, we’d never imagined that there would be ‘no room in the inn’, but that was what we found.

Resourcefully, Don signlanguaged a taxi driver, who booked us the last two bunks in a hostel six miles away. Rather un-pilgrim-like, we sank gratefully into the cab and were whisked away to our overnight bunks.

I thought of another couple, two thousand years ago, struggling into a town which was totally ‘complet’. No taxi came to whisk them off. They settled down in a draughty cave with the lowing cows, rather than in an airless room with snoring pilgrims.

I thought of others today, on the run from violence, carrying everything they own. I remembered ‘our’ own dear Bosnian family who came to us like that, all those years ago.

Overwhelmed by gratitude to God for our privileged situation. Today’s Syrian, Eritrean, Afghan, Rohingya refugees are on my heart. Lord, have mercy.