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30. The Santiago Sing-a-Long

Writer's picture: cherylmurfincherylmurfin


When we arrived at our destination last night I walked over to the church at the center of town. It’s become a ritual: Wake, walk, first breakfast, ache, whine, make gratitude list, second breakfast, a few more and different aches, arrive, give thanks in the local church.


Just outside the door I met a woman from Ireland who now lives in the town after meeting her Spanish husband on her own Camino journey several years ago.


“I didn’t even know I was looking for him, but there he was so here I am,” She told me. She also offered this tip:


“You don’t want to miss the pilgrim Mass here. Ours is known as the sing’n priest, he is.”


I’d been skipping the pilgrim Masses after the first few. There’s one almost every night somewhere. But this felt like a personal invitation, so I decided to attend the service a few hours later. When I arrived the Irish gal was nowhere in site and there was exactly one other pilgrim in the pews sitting opposite four elderly local women.


They all reminded me of my beloved grandmother Julie. Short-haired and round, with sensible shoes and sweaters that didn’t quite button. I found myself teary, wishing one of them were my grandma — this is a road of miracles after all. How I miss her cooking and chatting over scrabble and singing in church, slightly out of tune, but committed.


The Spanish Mass was conducted by a youngish and very enthusiastic priest. Despite the tiny group assembled before him, he bellowed the reading and sang the service. Afterwards he asked pilgrims to come forward for a blessing. The two of us stepped forward, side-eyeing each other, and the priest raised his hands and gave his blessing in broken English. Apparently something about the way we were dressed betrayed our language. We turned to shuffle down the road toward our beds when the priest flapped his hands and thrusted them toward the front pew.


This, as it turns out, is the universal signal for “sit, sit!”


“U.S.A?” He pointed at me. I nodded. Was it my smell? My trail runners instead of boots?


“Sing something! Sing something USA!” I was confused.


“You want me to sing something . . . American?” I asked.


“Si! Si! Sing USA!”


Baffled I was not sure what to sing — Beach Boys? Madonna? Metallica? And then for no reason I can think of “I Like Big Butts” popped into my head and right back out again as the priest beamed down at me. Perhaps sensing my block, the father busted into a rousing if hard-to-understand version the contemporary Christian singer Matt Maher’s “Lord, I Need You.” I looked it up later.


From there he moved on to Dona Nobis Pacem, which is not an American hymn (It’s Latin), but I didn’t want to begrudge him his musical ecstasy. He was so invigorated, so robust. He turned to the other pilgrim, who was from Malta.

“Sing Malta!” he begged. But the Maltese pilgrim was at a loss and the priest apparently knew no hymns from that tiny island.


Well, I thought, that’s it then. The Maltese and I stood up, ready to shuffle. But the priest was not ready. He reached out his blessing hands and clasped one on my shoulder and the other on my fellow pilgrim. And then, I kid you not, he broke into as passionate a rendering of Kumbaya as I have ever heard — in church or in jest.


KUM bay YA, my Lord, kum bay yaaaaaa;

KUM bay YA, my Lord, kum bay yaaaaaa;;

KUM bay YA, my Lord, kum bay yaaaaaa;,

O Lord, kum bay yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . .


I held inappropriate laughter in check. He was truly moved. It was rather beautiful to watch.


I thought “Maybe if I join him, he’ll let us go.” So, I jumped in:


Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya;

Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya;

Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya,

O Lord, kum bay ya.


The song came to a triumphant end and with it the service, or so the other walker and I thought. We zipped our coats and turned toward the door before the priest had a chance to dive into Jesus Loves Me or Michael Row Your Boat Ashore, the full lyrics to which I, and I’m pretty sure the man from Malta, did not know. We made our apologies and turned for the door.


“Buen Camino,” the padre called after us. I could see his disappointment that we weren’t staying for another round. In lieu of a donation I considered offering up an Amy Grant tune I loved (and honestly still love) before I divorced Christianity. But I was hungry.


“Come back sing with me!”


I hobbled to the albergue for yet another community dinner, with a smile on my heart from the strange blessing, but expecting more bland “vegetarian” lentil soup with sausage.


But no. There in the kitchen, miraculously, appeared my grandmother. Or, a grandmother just like her. The woman in the kitchen smiled at me, patted my hand, and sat me around a table with Joe and our fellow walkers. She fed us the most delicious meal of our walk to that point and cheered us on for the journey.


As I sat there, it came to me that this could be a version of god: a jovial singing priest in a tiny Spanish town and my grandmother reflected in the mother of the hostel.


After dinner I hugged the woman and said a prayer of thanks for knowing all the words to Kumbaya.

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