*   *   *   *

I haven’t posted anything since December 5, “last year.” One reason? This past December 27 I got in my car and drove 1,800 miles out west, “in the bleak midwinter.” (As illustrated at right. A truck stop in Grand Island Nebraska, snowed in on December 29.)

I drove out to visit my brother in Utah, and his wife. (My “hiking buddies” on the Portuguese Camino. See Just got back – Portuguese Camino!) Their son and daughter also came out – from Back East – along with my new (as of June 2018) “nephew by marriage.” (See On a wedding in Hadley – and John, Peter and Paul.)

It was a great trip and I’ll be writing more about it in later posts. But in the meantime, I need to get back to some of the themes of this post: Like reading and studying the Bible to get closer to God. And – on that note – paying more attention to Feast days.

The most recent feast day was Epiphany, celebrated back on Monday, January 6. Some previous posts on the subject include Epiphany, circumcision, and “3 wise guys,” To Epiphany – “and BEYOND!” Then came last year’s Happy Epiphany – 2018.

To start off, the “3 wise guys” post explained how the Adoration of the Magi – illustrated by the painting at the top of the page – fits in with all this “Epiphany” stuff. We know the full story better from the hymn, We Three Kings (of Orient Are). Which hymn in turn celebrates…

… the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, lay before him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and worship him. It is related in the Bible by Matthew 2:11…

And as noted, the event is remembered as the Feast of Epiphany (January 6).

The “3 wise guys” post gave some further details, like theories on the actual names of the three wise men (three kings), and a fuller, more earthy explanation of circumcision:

On January 1st, we celebrate the Circumcision of Christ… Every Jewish boy was circumcised (and formally named) on the eighth day of his life, and so, one week after Christmas, we celebrate the occasion when Our Lord first shed His blood for us. (E.A.)

The post also noted that because we are “more squeamish than our ancestors,” modern church calendars usually list January 1 – “eight days*” after December 25 – as the “Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.” And finally, it noted the practice of circumcision can be traced back as far as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which described “the sun god Ra as having circumcised himself.” (Thus making him “One Tough Monkey!”)

But enough about circumcision. (Including the circumcision knife above left, “from the Congo; wood, iron; late 19th/early 20th century.”) The point is that January 6 – the Feast of Epiphany – “celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ.” But that day goes by other names as well. It’s also known as the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas.  (And just to confuse things, the evening of January 5 is known as Twelfth Night.) Yet a third name for January 6 is Three Kings Day.

As discussed above…

But the end of an old year and beginning of a New Year is also a time to recall the events of that past year gone by, and 2019 was definitely a year of pilgrimage for me. Like my trip last May to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. (See “On to Jerusalem, On my first full day in Jerusalem, or type in “Jerusalem” in the search box above right.)

Or my September trip to hike 160 miles the Portuguese route of the Camino de Santiago, from Porto to Santiago. (Type “Portugal” in the search box.) But my most recent pilgrimage was a 15-day drive out to and back from my brother’s house in Utah.

Which included getting snowed in at a Motel 6 in Grand Island, Nebraska, with a view of the near-frozen North Platte River from my motel-room window, as shown below. But it also included a great burger and two draft beers at the Thunder Road Grill at the truck stop next door. (As shown in the notes.) So the way I figure, “there’s some kind of lesson there!“

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

The upper image is courtesy of Epiphany (holiday) – Wikipedia.  The full caption: “Adoration of the Magi by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 17th century.”

Re: “‘Eight days’ after December 25.” Today we would begin the eight-day count the day after December 25, which would make January 1 the seventh day after 12/25. But in Jesus’ time the Hebrews would have included December 25 in the eight-day count.

The Motel 6 in question was at 7301 Bosselman Ave, Grand Island, NE. The full link to the “Thunder Road” website is Thunder Road Grill | Pizza, Wings & Burgers | Grand Island, NE.

As for the “lesson there,” see Ecclesiastes 8:15, “I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.” Or Psalm 104:15, on wine (or beer) “to gladden the heart.” In other words, if you’re stuck next door to a snowed-in Nebraska truck stop, you might as well enjoy a burger and beer(s), especially if you can do laundry at the same time.

I took the “Grand Island” photos, including the one above right, of my glasses on the bar next to a half-empty glass of draft beer. The circumcision-knife image is courtesy of Circumcision – Wikipedia.

I started the original post off with the caption, ‘A beach-view, northwest of Porto, along the coastal alternative to the Camino de Santiago,'” but as noted below, this platform often substitutes my original photos with descriptions like “image may contain: 1 person, standing and outdoor.'” As of October 11, 2021, I’ll try to correct the situation, but in the meantime I’ll just present the written version, and whatever borrowed images may have survived.

*   *   *   *

It’s been a month since I got back from last September [2019]’s 160-mile, 19-day hike on the Camino de Santiago that runs through Portugal. See Just got back – Portuguese Camino! Which means it’s time to start moving on from that pilgrimage and back to this blog’s main themes.

But first, a tip of the hat to the lovely ladies of Portugal, including the one at the top of the page.* (Via telephoto on our first day’s hike, from Porto up the 10.8 miles to Cabo do Mundo.) And to the lady Camino hikers we saw going out of Porto Itself, as shown at right. (Which just goes to show that a true pilgrimage doesn’t have to be all “raw experience … hunger, cold and lack of sleep.” See “I pity the fool!” From March 2015.)

Which brings us to the more recent Feast Days this October. For instance, the October 18 just passed was the Feast Day of St. Luke. For starters, you can see more on him in 2014’s On St. Luke – physician, historian, artist, or On St. Luke – 20. (Or – from 2018 – On Luke and the “rich young man.”) Then too Wednesday, October 23 is the Feast Day for James, brother of Jesus.

About which there seems to be some confusion, not least of all on my part. He’s sometimes confused with James, the son of Zebedee, also called James the Greater, “to distinguish him from James, son of Alphaeus (James the Less) and James the brother of Jesus,” also known as “James the Just.”

See On St. James (“10/23”) – and the 7 blind men, which clarifies some of that confusion on my part. (When I confused “Brother of Jesus” with “St. James the Greater,” whose feast day is July 25.) And among other things, James the Greater is considered the “patron saint of pilgrims.”

Which would have brought us back to the topic of such pilgrimages, if this James had been “the Greater.” As for the confusion, see The Men Named James in the New Testament – Agape Bible Study. That site listed the following men named James in the New Testament:  1) James the son of Zebedee and brother of the Apostle St. John (James the Greater);  2) James the “brother” of Jesus (whose Feast Day is October 23);  3) the Apostle James, “son of Alphaeus;”  and 4) James, the father of the Apostle Jude. Other sources indicate there were as many as six “Jameses” in the Bible.

So anyway, this “October 23″ James is considered the author of the Epistle of James. (He’s portrayed in the icon above left.) Other books – the Pauline epistles and Acts of the Apostles  – show him as key to the Christians of Jerusalem.

When Paul arrives in Jerusalem to deliver the money he raised for the faithful there, it is to James that he speaks, and it is James who insists that Paul ritually cleanse himself at Herod’s Temple to prove his faith…  Paul describes James as being one of the persons to whom the risen Christ showed himself … and in Galatians 2:9 Paul lists James with Cephas (better known as Peter) and John the Apostle as the three “pillars” of the Church.

There’s also confusion on how he died. “According to Josephus James was stoned to death by Ananus ben Ananus.”  But “Clement of Alexandria relates that ‘James was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple, and was beaten to death with a club.’” Either way, he was important.

Then there’s St. Luke, from last October 18. On that note, I’ve written before on Bible study as a great way to “develop your talents.” See for example December 2015’s Develop your talents with Bible study. Which brings us back to Luke the Evangelist.

The noted Catholic writer Garry Wills – in his book What the Gospels Meant – noted that Luke wrote the longest of the four Gospels.  He added that Acts of the Apostles is almost as long, and that these two of Luke’s books together “thus make up a quarter of the New Testament.”  (And they’re longer than all 13 of Paul’s letters.)  He said Luke is rightly considered the most humane of the Gospel writers, and quoted Dante as saying Luke was a “describer of Christ’s kindness.”

Thus Luke’s Gospel was – to Wills and many others – “the most beautiful book that ever was.” Which means Luke’s version of the Jesus story is one we should pay special attention to.  And especially to being “humane” and active practitioners of “Christ’s kindness.”

We could use a lot more of that Christian kindness these days…

But – again speaking of developing your talents – Luke wasn’t just a great writer.  He was also – according to tradition – an artist of note.  Beyond that he was said to be the first icon painter, and to have painted the Virgin Mary and Child, as shown in the image below.

So here’s to Luke as a prime example of Scripture-study to develop your talents.

*   *   *   *

“Saint Luke painting the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child…” 

*   *   *   *

Re: My photos of the “lovely ladies of Portugal, including the one at the top of the page.” As indicated in the opening notes, the platform transmogrified those images into written form, a situation I hope to correct. The lead caption included that “in Just got back – Portuguese Camino, I took the photos of the ladies in Portugal.” In the latter post I ended up writing, “I took a bunch of photos for this post, but when I reviewed it in October 2020 – for an upcoming book – the photos were gone. So, I’ve written around them.”

The lower image is courtesy of File: Maarten van Heemskerck – St Luke Painting the Virgin, and/or “Wikimedia.”  See also Maarten van Heemskerck – Wikipedia, which noted that the artist (1498-1574) was a “Dutch portrait and religious painter, who spent most of his career in Haarlem,” and did the painting above in or about 1532.

*   *   *   *

I just flew back from Lisbon in Portugal. “And, boy, are my arms tired!” But seriously, I did just finish a 160-mile hike on the Portuguese Camino. I flew to Lisbon on August 28 and flew back on September 25, and so technically was gone a full month.

I greatly enjoyed the local Iberian beers, including Mahou, Cruzcampo, Sagres and Super Bock. See Beer in Portugal – Wikipedia, noting the “long history, going as far back as the time of the ancient Roman province of Lusitania, where beer was commonly made and drunk.”

My Utah brother, sister-in-law and I started in Porto, then hiked “back” up to Santiago to Compostela – again. (My brother and I hiked the Camino Frances in 2017, and so came in to Santiago from the east, not the south, like this time.) I wrote about that then-upcoming pilgrimage last August 2d, in St. James – and “my next great pilgrimage.”

In 2017 … my Utah brother and I hiked (and biked) the most popular “Camino,” the French Way… But a month from now – September 2, 2019 – my brother and I will start hiking the 140 or so miles, from Porto “back” up to Santiago.  Via the Portuguese Way, and this time we’ll be joined by my Utah sister-in-law.

But first a note. While in Portugal – then Spain – I posted pictures on Facebook. They were pictures I took with the same $50 tablet I used on the Camino Frances in 2017.

But this time I also took a lot of pictures with a Canon camera that was much easier to operate. And on getting home I promptly cut down the number of “Canon” Camino pictures to 591. So I’ll do some future posts featuring pictures from my Canon camera. (Some of which are a lot more spontaneous – interesting – than the tablet.) But getting back to that $50 tablet… (But see the notes on putting those pictures in a post.)

Posting pictures on Facebook with it wasn’t too bad, but writing commentary was a real pain. For one thing I seem to have fat thumbs. For another, the tablet had “autocorrect,” which had a serious problem with foreign names. It kept changing the “de” or “do” in a lot of Portuguese names to “Dr.” Every time. See also another example in an early post from Portugal:

Good morning from Cabo do Mundo. (BTW, autocorrect is having a hissy with these Portuguese names, plus my colloquialisms.) Ready for another 10 mile hike. Slept through the night. “Cozy quarters.”

Which brings up an early-on collection of “estampas.” The photo at right shows the stamps in my credencial as of September 6, four days into the hike. The “cozy quarters” note referred to our first night’s lodging on the hike. (A tiny two-rooms and a kitchen place, where my brother and I shared the “parlor.”)

That came after this post: “First day’s hike is history. West through Porto – with shady spots and sidewalk cafes – and out to the coast. Then north. Made Cabo do Mundo, 10.8 miles. Nothing too sore. Good first hike.”

That last referred to the first day’s hike. Nice thought, but it turned out to be misleading.

I learned it’s not the first day – or even three – of hiking that wears on your feet. It’s the pounding from day after day hiking with a 15-pound pack. And it’s my humble opinion there’s no way to train in advance for that – except to do the same constant hiking at home, day after day. A long hike once or twice a week won’t do it. It’ll help, but you’ll still have to go through the agony of getting your feet accustomed to the constant pounding. Day after day.

Another note. Remember how we used to peel our skin off after a bad sunburn? Back in the old days, when we were young and before today’s fancy-schmancy creams and lotions that prevent such peeling?  Something like that happened to the soles of my feet once I got home. By the time we reached Santiago the soles of my feet were like shoe-leather, tough, blister-over-healed-blister and callused. (Or “cayused,” as one cute Farmacia lady said.*)

But then in the week or so since I’ve been home, I’ve peeled off several layers of tough, leathery skin. Apparently the affected parts of the body – like the soles of your feet – also go through a process of “decompressing,” just like you do mentally after such an adventure.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First some notes I made after getting to my hotel in Lisbon.

It came after another red-eye flight, just like the one I made to Tel Aviv and Israel last May. And one thing I learned early on in the trip was that the internet lied about cheap Portuguese taxis. (Bonjour!)  Instead of the four-Euro ride to my hotel like I’d been led to believe, it was more like 15 Euros. Which wasn’t that bad, for one ride anyway. But luckily I got hooked up with the Metro.

I took the Red Line from the Aeroporto and got off at Saldanha station. My “Hotel Alif” was right across from Campo Pequeno. It’s a famous bull ring togged out like one of our football stadiums, but with lots of restaurants open on weekdays. (That first day I got yelled at for cutting through one restaurant, getting acquainted with the area. Then the next night I went back for dinner and got served by the same waiter.)  Next day – Friday, August 30 – I did some touristy stuff, including a visit to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (“Monument to the Discoveries”).

It was a lifelong dream. (Or at least since 1979, when I made my first trip to Europe and couldn’t make it to Lisbon.) For a nominal fee I took the elevator to the observation tower, where I met three young ladies from Australia. (I could understand what they were saying, mostly…) Also the Museu de Marinha, a few blocks up from the Monument. (After stopping to enjoy a “Sagres.”)

On Saturday, the 31st, I took a train up to Porto, met up with brother and sister-in-law, and spent a day sightseeing, before heading out. And now for some flavor of that first-day hike:

We hiked west along the Douro River, along the Porto side, then hit the Atlantic Ocean and swung north. It’s the lesser traveled scenic alternative for the Camino Portuguese. Lots of beachside resorts, bathing beauties, and of course some old pot-bellied guys in speedos.

So again, I’ll be doing more posts in the future on this adventure. But in the meantime there are the main themes of this blog. Like the Liturgical year‘s Feast Days. The most recent Feast Day was St. Michael and All Angels, on September 30. For more on that feast day see On “St. Michael and All Angels.” And while I hiked the Camino in September there were two other Feast Days. For more on those and St. Michael see On Holy Cross, Matthew, and Michael – “Archangel.” (Holy Cross Day, 9/1419, and St. Matthew, 9/21/19.)

But in closing, here’s a camera-photo from the first day’s hike out of Porto. I’m always interested in my fellow peregrinos, including how they adjust their packs. Then too, in a future post I’ll include more camera shots of some not-so-typical scenes on the “Coastal” alternative…

[The photo showed two young lady hikers, one adjusting the other’s pack.]

*   *   *   *

I took a bunch of photos for this post, but when I reviewed it in October 2020 – for an upcoming book – the photos were gone. So, I’ve written around them .

Re:  “Cayused.” It happened first thing one morning on the hike. We stopped at a Farmacia, as my sister-in-law wanted something like Band-aids for her blisters. She looked at one brand in Portuguese, but the lovely clerk said “those are not for blisters, they are for – how you say? – cayuses.” Which is how the Portuguese pronounce “calluses.” It was very cute, and very memorable…

Mary (mother of Jesus) responded to the Holy Spirit’s call “to set out on a mission of charity…”

*   *   *   *

Thursday August 15 was the Feast Day of St. Mary the Virgin, as celebrated in the Episcopal Church.   See August 2014’s St. Mary, Mother, and also Mary (mother of Jesus) – Wikipedia:

She is identified [as] the mother of Jesus through divine intervention.  Christians hold her son Jesus to be Christ (i.e., the messiah) and God the Son Incarnate.  Mary (Maryam) also has a revered position in Islam, where a whole chapter of the Qur’an is devoted to her, also describing the birth of Jesus. . .   [She] is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the Church.  Christians of the Catholic Church[,] Anglican Communion, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, as Mother of Jesus, is the Mother of God and the Theotokos, literally “Bearer of God.”

There’s more on Mary in the August 14 post.  Meanwhile, in getting this post ready I found a draft-post on my recent three-week pilgrimage to Israel, starting with my second full day in Jerusalem. (May 13. See too On my first full day in Jerusalem.) But since I’m starting another overseas pilgrimage in under two weeks,* I should probably get this one out of the way.

For starters, we arrived Saturday night and the driver from St. George’s got us quickly through the dreaded Israeli security at Ben Gurion airport.  But then had a tough time finding my lodging on Al-Isfahani Street.  Later, after settling in my new room, at 4:10 that morning I heard what I took to be an explosion.  It was actually a cannon, marking the start of another day of Ramadan.  (The idea is to give people a chance to eat and drink before the all-day fast.)

That Sunday I wandered Jaffa Street and found a great place to eat, the BeerBazaar.

About noon Monday I hooked up at the St. George’s Pilgrim Guest House and met up with my fellow course pilgrims. (Including the nine I flew over with.)  Tuesday featured lectures, orientation and a walk to the Pool of Bethesda in the Old City.  On Wednesday we visited the southeast part of the wall around the Old City.  (The “City of David,” from where we could look east across Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives.)  We slithered through Hezekiah’s tunnel – shown at right, it’s very long, dark and damp – and came out at the Pool of Siloam.  Then we visited the Hasmonean tombs.

That afternoon I took off.  The group was scheduled to visit the Holocaust Memorial.  However, I was familiar with that episode of man’s inhumanity to man from my youthful studies in Judaica.  (Including – in 1969 – considering the Israeli Army as an alternative to the draft.)  So I wandered back to Davidka Square  – and the liquor store I found Sunday.  I got a bottle of Sommelier, for some brandies-and-water back in my room at night.

Thursday May 16 we visited Ein Kerem, the Church of the Visitation and Mary’s spring.  After lunch at the “Tent Restaurant, Beit Sahour,” we visited the Church of the Nativity and St. Jerome’s chapel and tomb, both in Bethlehem.  The church was both packed and crowded.

There we stood a long while, waiting to do a hump-through-a-tunnel extension of the tour.  It was then I noticed a fellow pilgrim in danger of getting stressed out by all the crowds and noise.  So I did a Good-Samaritan thing – kind of – and persuaded him to join me at the garden restaurant next door – and have a prophylactic Taybeh (Palestinian) beer.  I wrote later:

Where hopefully I won’t find any “Walls of Separation…” 

*   *   *   *

That look about says it all…

*   *   *   *

The upper image is courtesy of Mary (mother of Jesus) – Wikipedia.

The Mary’s image at the start of the main text is courtesy of Mary’s Spring Ein Karem – Image Results.

The quote on Jesus, Bethlehem and “Walled-of” is from Deep Significance of the Birth of Jesus Christ.

Re:  “Overseas pilgrimage in under two weeks.”  I fly to Lisbon on August 28.

I took the photograph at the end of the main text.  (“Lower image courtesy of…”)  A fellow St. George’s pilgrim took the photo of the Walled-off Hotel, left of the paragraph beginning, “Speaking of which.”  I also took the photograph of that “Hasmonean tombs” slither-though.