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Continuing northward, a few days in Honduras, then in El Salvador, remarkably hotter and more humid, I was walking toward the Shrine of Esquipulas just over the border in Guatemala. The last day’s walk in the thick hills of El Salvador was a particularly long hot and grueling day, having turned my direction inland to get to the shrine. The imperative is strong for me to reach a town for a safe night’s rest, but towns are not always ideally located for someone on foot. The 11,000 kilometers behind me at that point seemed less significant than the 2,000 kilometers that remained to Guadalupe. I was an overall happy pilgrim, but at the end of such days, my outward happiness gets shoved beside by crankiness. My human frailty is such that I’d gladly walk through a blizzard or push through a brisk temperate 60 kilometers in a single day, but for me nothing turns me cranky like a string of 50 mundane kilometers through sweltering humidity.
I succumbed to the undisciplined and self-destructive pattern of preempting a situation with negative thoughts before it even unfolded. I’d had a few difficult days, long hot slogs through unexciting tropical agricultural fields followed by adequate but equally unexciting hospitality in the evening. Nothing bad happened, nothing untoward, but I had fallen out of my groove. These things happen from time to time. I needed something to snap me back on track. Nonetheless, on this particular sweltering muggy Monday afternoon, I was in an apathetic funk. Monkeys that day, as many other days, had taken delight in bombarding me with unripe mangoes from their treetop playgrounds. They shout and hoot and giggle, but it’s not funny to me. I scurried ahead of the thunderstorm that struck just as I got to a church, a parish named Our Lady of Guadalupe. I had no reason to doubt that I wouldn’t be offered hospitality at the church, but the priest from the previous parish received me reluctantly and refused to call ahead to let them know I was coming. Priests who can’t be bothered, righteously retort that they’re not set up to receive guests, so dismiss me to go somewhere else; I’ve got only moments to convince them that I’m not looking for a hostel, just a safe place under a roof. I had several of these days in a row. On this day, I convinced myself that the same would happen at this parish, even though I know the behavior of one priest has little to do with the behavior of the next, but I was in a funk.
When I entered the pavilion that serves as the parish hall, I scanned it for its potential as my accommodation that night. Sure, I’d prefer walls, but I was done in and was ready to terminate the anticipated reluctance to host a pilgrim by settling for the most basic shelter. The corrugated roof provided enough for my mood. A clap of thunder and sudden rain brought many birds fluttering under the roof looking for shelter of their own. I looked more closely, bird droppings were spattered everywhere. It goes without saying lizards were scurrying in every direction as they’re a jungle fixture. Among the encroaching vegetation on the concrete floor, some crates and furniture were stored along each end of the pavilion obscuring the two offices. I went to one of the doors, taking mental note of a broom leaning beside it, and saw a secretary at a desk through the window, so walked in. Given my mood, made more sour by the resignation to my fate of sleeping with the birds and their droppings, I failed to put my smile on where it belonged and was shamefully abrupt in blurting out in a rather emphatic and uncordial continuous string who I am, what I’m doing, what I need in terms of hospitality that night, showing my pilgrim credential, making it clear before she had a chance to object or try to send me somewhere else, that I could sleep right there in the dirty pavilion. I realized I was shouting all of this to be heard above the roar of the torrential rain pounding on the corrugated roof, which only made the whole exchange seem more aggressive.
The calmness of the dear woman transfered to me immediately with the strong dose of shame that I deserved. She listened attentively, then offered a cup of coffee. I apologized for my cantankerous tone, explaining how far I had walked that day and I would be grateful for whatever hospitality the parish could offer. Her warm smile and dignified cheerfulness made my feeling of remorse persist, how could I have thought this parish would not open their doors wide for me? She was wonderful I felt like a putz.
After she facilitated some restorative chit chat for a while, cleverly getting me to speak well of my pilgrimage and experiences thus changing my outlook from within, she told me that the decision regarding how the parish could help me could only be made by the priest, who was in a meeting in the office at the opposite end of the pavilion and would be tied up for another hour or more. I told her that I would happily wait. She shook her head. 'I have an idea", she mused, 'I’m sure the priest wouldn’t object to your sleeping in the pavilion if that’s what you want, but I couldn’t hear of it. Please, if you’d like, come to my house and be our guest tonight. It’s a small house with many people, but we would love to have you. Please. That pavilion is too dirty for anyone to spend the night there. Please, accept the invitation to be our guest. We would be honored, really.'
I felt even more shamed and more humbled for the idiotic and inappropriate thoughts I had put into my own head on the way into the town. The kindness of this parish secretary was uncommon. All the angels and saints put me back on track through this woman. I was touched. Of course, the honor is mine to accept your invitation. She told me that she had a few more hours of work to do, but that she would call the house and let them know I was on my way. It had stopped raining by then and the humidity had broken a bit, steam was rising from the fields, but the sky was now brilliant blue with cottonball clouds, now the town looked like a postcard to my eyes.
I made my way the few blocks to get to the house as I was instructed. As I knocked on the heavy wooden door, I could hear noises and muffled voices on the other side. The door was opened slowly and a graceful elderly woman with beautiful long white hair was in the center of a crescent of people of all ages, maybe a dozen in total counting the baby cradled in a young girl’s arms. They couldn’t hide their collective awe, wide eyes, great smiles. Grandmother, the mother of the secretary, spoke first, ‘My dear children, help me to welcome St Francis himself into our home.’ I was speechless. Humbled. So undeserving. Shamed yet again for my unbased dejected mood earlier that these wonderful people had no idea about.
Before I could speak or even compose myself, a disbelieving little boy, perhaps four years old, blurted out in all seriousness ‘nuh-uh, St Francis wears a brown dress.’ Everyone laughed. It was perfect. There’s no arguing with a four-year-old since my skirt was a faded pale blue, I’m not at all like St Francis. All of the mango-throwing monkeys, the snakes, the nasty crocodiles, every adversity on the journey dissolved at the thought of that Grandmother’s almighty words.
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