The Bonds of Song

Before these experiences fade into the mists of the road behind me, I want to recount a couple of moments on the camino which have been extraordinary.  They have been moments where music was the medium of
fellowship:  On a most dreary pre-dawn morning in the albergue at Viana, as I was packing to leave,  I heard the sound of a rousing  men´s chorus of voices singing in harmony from what sounded like somewhere in the building.  I thought, Wow!  What energetic pilgrims to sing like that before a cafe con leche!  Soon I realized that these men, probably part of a church choir on their way to Mass that Sunday, were outside the refugio standing on the street singing a rallying pilgrim anthem for us, simply to cheer us on our way!  It was such a gift!

Each time we enter a town or hamlet, Stuart makes a beeline to the first church he sees and tries the doors to enter.  We have had the most luck with the smaller town churches, and in a couple of them, I have managed to offer up some chants and hymns into the empty stone naves with their fabulous acoustic. In a tiny hamlet near Santo Domingo de Calzada, in a church called Our Lady of the Street (!) I was singing away in the cool interior of the nave when I sensed another person entering at the back of the church.  I fell silent but did not turn around at the end of the chant, and in a few moments a sweet soprano voice began to sing a hymn in Latin.  She sang for only a short time and I entreated her to continue. She sang another delicate hymn verse in what I think was French.  For a few more minutes, she and I traded off singing chants and hymns, and then she sang a lovely descant over my Dona Nobis Pacem.  Then she left, an anonymous pilgrim, and I only saw her back pack as she made her way up the street out of the village.  Stuart said she came out of the church beaming!
So these are wonderful moments on the camino, which just arise and disappear with each passing day.