In the old Age of Faith all the pilgrimage trails to Santiago de Campostella converged at Puente Reina, a stone bridge in northern Spain-- but from Puente Reina, only one “official” path continued following the southern foothills of the mountains. This one grand route was called “The Starry Way to Santiago de Campostella”.
In some religious traditions, making a pilgrimage to a holy place gains some sort of spiritual merit and I was making this pilgrimage for a German lady friend who thought she was too old and weak to do it herself. She believed that having a proxy make the pilgrimage for her would gain spiritual merit and so I hoped to find and follow this ancient Starry Way and be a twentieth century pilgrim on her behalf.
My German friend had given me an old bicycle for the trip and introduced me to some of her old friends who helped me with traveling directions to the old pilgrimage way to Santiago. I started from her old home in Bavaria.
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As I pedalled slowly up into the Pyrenees Mountains out of France I silently repeated the traditional pilgrimage “Jesus prayer” in Greek: “Kyrie Jesu Christe, eleson mas” so I would feel more like a real pilgrim and not just another tourist.
.The modern highway I was following out of France got narrower and narrower as it climbed into the mountains and the motor traffic was extremely heavy. For sure, there were no other bicyclists on the highway-- but swarms of cars and an occasional bus or truck rumbled by, literally brushing my sleeve as they passed--though I rode as far to the right edge of the pavement as I could get. This mortal danger made my prayer more purposeful and focused since I wasn’t sure if I would be alive to pedal and repeat it many more times.
Then I heard a different kind of noise coming up behind me and was soon overtaken by a man on a motor scooter. I had been passed by many other kinds of vehicle that morning, but this was the first motor scooter I had seen on the highway.
I noticed as he passed that he had a long white beard and long white hair blowing around the edges of his motorcycle helmet. He went on ahead of me for a minute but then pulled over to the side of the highway and waved for me to stop.
I was towing a little yellow plastic cart with my bedding and a box of tools behind my bike and I had decided to help anyone I could since I had been helped so often myself on the road—so, though I didn’t much care to stop with all that dangerous traffic whizzing past, I pulled up behind him and dismounted.
The scooter-man appeared to be ancient, but fit and happy—and when he took off his helmet, lots of beautiful, white hair waved in the breeze from the passing traffic.
He greeted me cheerfully. He didn’t need my help. He wanted to help me! I don’t remember what language he was speaking, but I had no problem in understanding him. He said that I was riding on a very dangerous stretch of highway for a bicyclist and that I should go no further on it––but if I would turn back I would soon find a little country road leading off from the main highway. The destination of this country lane was also the top of the mountain-- the same pass the highway reached—but was completely removed from all the hazardous traffic.
I thanked him for his advice and immediately turned back. He also turned around and, waving to me merrily, scooted back the way he had come.
Directly I found the quiet country lane he had mentioned and followed it--- first down into the valley, then beside a pretty little stream and so on up the mountain, by farms and fields, until the path joined the main highway near the summit pass where the highway widened for the border crossing into Spain.
After my anxious morning ride, this detour was delightful—peaceful and refreshing.
Later I got to thinking that the happy, helpful old geezer on the scooter probably saved my life.
Was it just so I could finish the pilgrimage for my German friend? Could he have been my guardian angel—or maybe hers? Or was he just some old guy trying to help a fellow human being in trouble?
Tomasito, 2008
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