31 dec

A good day to contemplate about things past. Did this partly by taking a walk, following the Loire river, to St. Benoit sur Loire, an abbey church that has the relics of St Benedict. How they ever got in this small village in France, Benedict spent most of his life in Monte Cassino between Rome and Naples, is one of those wonders of the medieval world.
We saw the relics, at least the bronze box that they were hidden in. A Benedictine monk was tuning the piano (organ?) in the crypt, which is perfect background music.
We’ve seen so many of these relics now. I like to think of the pilgrims of the 12th century who were told (believed) that the saints related to the relics were some kind of medium between their own sins and the ultimate verdict of God about those sins. The road to heaven was paved with a lot of relics.
I sympathize with this, although it is difficult to get what they exactly thought.
And then there are the relics of the pastor of Ars and Bernadette. In beautiful mummified form. They both died after Darwin published his Origin of Species that shook up many people s sense of what religion was about. But their shrines ar still popular. The devotion of the prayers is sincere, it seems, but I prefer the relics where one only can see a little bone of a hand, or a piece of wood. There’s more left to the imagination. These mummies in a church are a little odd. It is like the catholic church living up to the standards of Madame Tussaud’s.
All those relics, all those churches, they have certainly forced a new sense of appreciation for Christianity. Many of the sculptures we have seen are so full of energy, so full of expression, of a sense of joy of life, that it is truly inspirational to see them in church after church. It is like being lifted up to the creators level of inspiration. Rather more interesting than watching the S&P 500 move up and down.
The same is true for the churches themselves. The rounded form of the Romanesq arch is so powerful and so unfancy that it remains a joy to see the churches. One doesn’t get tired of beauty, and these churches are among the most beautiful buildings ever built.
But of course it is not enough, to just watch the sculptures and churches. I am looking forward to sculpt my own ideas about what I have witnessed in the past months. The coming six weeks, from sunday on, we’ll stay in the area of Perigueux in a house with enough wood to keep us warm and enough broadband connection to keep us busy. 45 days, with, let ‘s say, 1000 words a day. There should be something with a little flesh around the bones by the middle of february.
And then I can start my walk to Santiago. Yesterday in Charite sur Loire I was a little shocked to see that Santiago was 1750 kilometres from there. I thought my whole walk from the source of the Meuse river would be 1800 kilometres, but based on this sign I better add another 200 to that. Which makes it more difficult to walk the whole thing in two months. Might have to start a little bit earlier. Hanneke’s birthday?