Camino Frances: Day 9

In Genesis 16, we hear the story of Hagar, the slave of Sarah (wife of Abraham), after Hagar is made pregnant by Abraham. Hagar, distraught and bearing the child who will become Ishmael, flees into the desert where God comes to her and speaks to her in her distress. God tells Hagar that She will “greatly multiply [Hagar’s] offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.” In another moment of crisis when she has been cast out into the desert (Gen 21), God and Hagar again speak and God tells Hagar Ismael will live and will be the father of a “great nation.”

As few in the Bible are recorded to have done, Hagar sees and speaks directly with God. No burning bush, no pillar of cloud. Just a woman and her God. Amazed that she has seen and spoken with God Herself, Hagar calls God by Her name, El-Roi, “the one who sees me.”

Although the circumstances may differ from those which took Hagar into the wilderness, the Camino is also a journey. Unlike Hagar’s, it can be a shared experience of God. Today I travelled for a while with a group praying the rosary as they walked up the trail. It was beautiful and holy and I felt blessed to bear witness to their devotions.

At other times, the Camino is an individual and inward journey, an interior conversation with oneself and one’s God. A discovery of self, a discerning of call, a deepening of one’s relationship with our Mother. But regardless, El-roi — “one who sees me” — is with each of us on the Camino, just as She is every step of every day wherever our lives take us.

(For more of the story of Hagar and her conversations with God, see Gen 16 and 21).

– Amy Brown