Coimbra, Portugal: It Ends Where it Began

It’s been 24 hours, I’m pale white and it hasn’t stopped. Sofia has no choice but to take me to the hospital.

– The following events occurred the 2nd week of June 2013

The theme of this 4th and final post on Portugal is:

Forgiveness: A Love to Free Us

How Does She Look Like?

I’ve been asked why haven’t I shown Sofia’s picture in these blog posts. Due to the sensitive nature of what I’m sharing, especially what will be told in this post, she has asked me to not include any pictures that show her face. (I also apologize for the lack of pictures in this post. I was sick most of the time and didn’t take many.)

Goodbye… But Wait, There’s More

Sofia drives me from Lisboa to Coimbra, where I would catch the train to Salamanca. I go to the train station and It’s too late; I have to wait until the next day. She goes back to the car and asks me to find a hotel while she sleeps in the car. She is exhausted. I ask God why is he keeping me with her longer and longer. What is he calling me to do?

A Broken Love

That evening we went to see a live Fado performance. She is angry because of the hour or two I spent writing in the hotel instead of paying attention to her. I remind her that I am not her possession for her to be reclaiming my attention. Her love for me has been twisted into having a need of me and my attention. She realizes that her behavior is not love and starts to weep as she faces that reality. She is so emotionally overwhelmed it becomes nearly impossible to talk with her as we walk the streets of the old town of Coimbra. Maybe she was feeling helpless or embarrassed. We finally sit down in a square, just the two of us. “Sofia, I’m here for you now, I just can’t be your everything. You are expecting me to be what only God can be and my heart is not big enough for that.” I said. “I just don’t get this whole deal about welcoming God into my life. It’s all so abstract. I don’t even know how to start?” She replied. “Ok. Let me ask you a question. When did you begin having these attachments to other men in your life?” She thinks for a few minutes. She starts sharing more about her father’s death when she was a child, and how she started rejecting her mother’s affection afterwards. She also shared about a traumatic event where she was abused by her boyfriend when she was an adolescent. The wounds run deep in her and I am overwhelmed by what I can do, it’s too much for me. I ask the holy spirit for guidance in this very delicate situation. Sofia felt God’s healing love for the first time in her life during the conversion experience she had in the Camino. But now, I started to sense that was just a crack on the surface. God wants to go deeper and he calls me to assist in this process.

Facing the Hurts From the Past

In life we are hurt by people: our co-workers, our friends, our family, our mother and father. It hurts the most when it was undeserved, when there was no justice. That is when it becomes the most difficult to forgive and we sometimes fool ourselves in believing that by not forgiving the other we are doing what is just, what will hurt the other and bring order. Yet, when a person does this it becomes like poison slowly dripping inside one’s veins. By not forgiving we are judging, and by judging we are taking away from God what doesn’t belong to us. I suggest to Sofia that the reason she may be struggling so much with attachment, love and faith is because of this. Yes, making a profession of faith and a commitment to Jesus was an important step for her, but the journey must not end there. In fact, if it’s left there we risk that the person has a superficial faith, one that can be hypocritical in the eyes of others, a “Jesus saved me and He can save you” faith that lacks substance. I explain to her the exercise on forgiveness.

As I explain this exercise we are on the edge of a quaint square. As it gently rains the cobblestone floor seems to shine as do her teary eyes. Live jazz is heard from above us, it is a music with soul, with agony, with ups and downs. It is the soundtrack to this moment we are sharing. It is not easy and it requires strength from God to truly forgive and let go. Many people, instead of forgiving, they try to overcome. To put themselves above the person or the event that happened, to claim power that they are beyond it all. In our individualistic, success driven culture I’ve known many proudly say something like: “I’m strong and what you did has no power over me”. This is nothing more than confronting violence with more aggression. Jesus calls us to respond differently. When Peter asked how many times he should forgive someone who hurts him, Jesus shared the following parable.

Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him 100,000 dollars was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him 10 dollars; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free

and…

Realizing you were the prisoner

Forgiving is the call to be the image and likeness of God. God forgives us freely even though we don’t deserve it, and we are called to do the same. One cannot truly forgive until we realize that God loves you the same as he loves a person who dedicates their whole life to God, and that He also loves you the same as the person who is a rapist. Not any more or any less. When we forgive we don’t make an objectively wrong thing ok, or justify the other person’s actions, but we do free ourselves to receive God’s own forgiveness, and the healing that we need. We let go of the need for justice. We let go of anger and choose to love even when it is not deserved. Much like I wrote about love in the previous post, forgiveness begins with a choice, an act of the will that you make even if you don’t feel it. When we make that choice then we can then put it in the hands of God and let Him do the work.

C.S. Lewis captured it best when he wrote: “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you”

Not Ready to Forgive

It is past midnight as I finish explaining the exercise of forgiveness when a group of young tourists pass us by, drunk and screaming. It interrupts the moment. The time is not right for her to go through this exercise. With my arm around her we go upstairs to the Jazz concert. It is a soothing mixture of voice, piano, bass, trumpet, and percussion. After 1 hour into the concert I abruptly ask that we leave. I don’t feel well. Back in the hotel my body was so tired yet I grew sicker and sicker, and couldn’t fall asleep. About an hour later I get up, tap her on the shoulder to wake her up and go to the toilet to throw up. I didn’t feel any better afterwards and could barely sleep. The next morning I throw up again. I was so weak I couldn’t muster up the energy to get up from bed.

Back to the Beginning

Sofia tells me I can’t go to Salamanca like this, that it’s best for me to go back home with her in Oporto, the place where this love story began. We arrive at her apartment in the middle of the afternoon and as I get out of the car I throw up a big one on the street. Welcome home!

The Time is Right

After being taken to the hospital, the next day I would be in bed most of the day recovering. It is almost time for Sunday Mass and she comes into the room sobbing. “I know what I have to forgive now.” she tells me. It is an event that was almost repressed, the deepest pain in her life. Not only what she must forgive, but what she must ask forgiveness for. It involves the death of a person, many years ago in her life, a death that was not natural or accidental. The time is right, she must now go through the exercise of forgiveness. She sees how weak I am trying to get up to go to mass and strongly suggests that I stay. She goes to mass alone and leaves me home.

During mass she went through this exercise and was filled with peace and openness. For the first time in a long time she felt a desire to pay attention to the mass, and to be there for what she has to receive. A few days later she would let me know that since that day her sleep has been different. She feels light, comforted, loved, as if a weight was lifted from her so that she can now truly relax and rest.

Whose Bible is it?

It is my last day in Portugal. All the days since Lisboa have been grey, cold and rainy. She wants to go to the park before taking me to the train station. I ask her for the bible. She says she doesn’t have one. I go and ask her mother and she gives me one. On the way to the park I feel drawn to share a chapter that is about love: 1st Corinthians 13. She reads it out loud. Then she goes to the first page of the bible and notices someone wrote something when it was given as a gift. It was her bible, and not her mother’s. It was given to her by her boyfriend 20 years ago. She never read it of course, she didn’t even know this was her bible. On the page after the cover there was a photocopy of a bible chapter taped there by the person who gave it to her. It contained exactly the same verses she had just read out loud with me from 1st Corinthians, not one word less or more. I had no idea about that and was a little spooked by the coincidence of it all. It took 20 years for her to read a truth about love, a truth that was there for her all along.

Separate Ways

After coming back from the park it is time to say goodbye. We both know that the reasons we were brought together, and almost extraordinarily kept together have been accomplished. This chapter in my journey must come to a close. She asks for one last dance. She plays the slow salsa song by Marc Anthony called “Volando entre tus brazos” (“Flying between your arms”). It was a song not to show off dance moves but to savor the beauty of this person, of this experience, of this relationship. It is a moment of simply “Saudade”. In less than 10 days we delved into the depths of our souls, experiencing both intense love and desolation. We had moments of excitement, passion, adrenaline, confusion, darkness, and resentment. In Oporto we shared a pleasant romance, in Fatima I embraced pain and suffering for her sake, in Lisboa our love matured enlightened by truth, in Coimbra we went to the darkest room in her heart and freed it through forgiveness. We are now back in Oporto, where it all started, and its time to go our separate ways. On the train station she takes my to-do list and below “Contact health insurance” writes an addition to it: “Love Sofia Forever”. I smile, but refuse to look her in the eyes. The day after leaving Portugal, Sofia writes me a parting message:

I hope you are well My Sweet Child, My Guardian Brother, and My Dancing Man…

The End

The Next Chapter

I took the train to go back to the Camino, to the place where my Camino was radically transformed. It takes me two days to get there. This time I would be there not as a pilgrim, but as a hospitalero in an albergue. To be the one who welcomes and serves the pilgrims (and also cooks and cleans the toilets) 🙂 I will be spending 20 days there with Jose Luis, a man who would become a life mentor. Over 500 pilgrims would be staying in the house during my time there. We would experience days of sweet peace, and of sudden violence. In that albergue, many pilgrim’s eyes would be opened and a new Camino would be born for them.