One of the first things I discovered in Muxía was a huge stone monument named “A Ferida”, or “The Wound”, created by artist Alberto Bañuelos after a large oil spill off the coast in 2002. The enormous gash through the stone created such a powerful visual of the universal wound of brokenness and pain. Both personal, like the loss of a husband, a marriage, and corporate, like massive amounts of oil polluting and killing our oceans. Wounds throughout history, across generations and continents and cultures, across governments and institutions. Wounds in you and me, causing sorrow and suffering and longing.
This biblical passage came to mind as I looked at the Wound: “All creation groans- the whole of creation- groaning as in the pains of childbirth for redemption, for things to be whole and as they should be.” (Romans 8:22-24)
I could still see “La Ferida” prominently facing both the ocean and the earth as I climbed a hill and came upon a stone cross at the highest pinnacle over the town.
How comforting to be reminded that we have a God who took on flesh, an incarnational God who wanted us to know that God is with us in the Wound. The torturous wounds and suffering met by Jesus on the cross let us know that God is a God of solidarity and compassion. In fact, compassion literally means “to suffer with” us in the brokenness and pain.
As I looked out over the magnificent ocean, I considered its saltiness to be the very tears and grief of God for us and with us. I meditated on God as the ocean…deep in mystery and wisdom, powerful beyond measure, vast and infinitely great, unspeakably beautiful, wave after wave of healing mercy, love, and grace repeatedly crashing over us.
From the top of the hill, I spied two other important symbols. One was a pair of hiking shoes left on a rock, likely by a pilgrim who had finished the Camino and decided to leave his or her shoes here, at the end of the Earth. These shoes represent well the pilgrimage of our lives. We all are walking our own Caminos along this pilgrimage of life. Below, off to the left, was The Wound, reminding me that none of us gets through this pilgrimage without wounds. The brokenness cuts through our Caminos and becomes a part of our journeys.
Secondly, I could see a church down below to the right. This particular church, perched on the edge of the ocean, seemed to gently invite people to look out- out to the deep and the expansive love of God. It’s noteworthy to recognize that the Church has done its own share of the wounding in the world, and too often, we mistake the church as God rather than what it is…this broken and beautiful mess and mix of humanity and divinity.
As I stepped back, I could see in one frame the Wound, the shoes, the ocean, the church. It was such a clear and powerful picture of the Camino, of life. In all of its brokenness and beauty, this picture represented so well our universal pilgrimage. A mix of sorrow and joy, struggle and celebration, hospitality and service, needs and gifts, solitude and friendship, revelation of both God and The Wound, with pilgrims bearing witness to both along the path.
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