The Black Coast

If you zoom in on this photo you will see the azulejos on this little seaside chapel depict a shipwreck. For four days, we have been walking along the “black coast,” called so because of the abundance of shipwrecks that have occurred along it over the centuries. Outside of Porto, there was one memorial with an azulejo panel, feet in length, depicting a storm with multiple shipwrecks at once, and the women on the shore, desperately trying to save their men. For us, this long stretch of beach has been lovely—mercifully cool, sunny and breezy (but not so much that the sand is blowing!) Today, the rocky outcroppings into the sea have petered out, and so I suppose the coast up here was not as dangerous for the ancient mariners. Tomorrow we will head inland a bit—we will see what that brings!

Bryn is feeling a million times better from her bout with Covid, and I never really got sick, thankfully—just snot, and sneeze and a bit of a cough. So, hopefully we are both in the superhuman immune category for the rest of the trip . . . 

Yesterday, we walked along beaches where small-scale farmers collect seaweed from the sand and basically hand-bail it and leave it to dry in the sun.

Today, we walked by dozens of masseiras—these are market gardens made by digging trenches in the far reaches of the beach dunes. The wide trench design traps moisture and heat; the farmers fertilize the sand with copious amounts of the gathered seaweed and grow the most amazing veggies. We saw one woman this morning with a truck bed full of carrots that must have weighed a pound each. No Monsanto here! Some even had remains of very, very old windmills.

As a bit of an addition to my long-winded treatise on James last time, I’ve been reading further. It doesn’t take much to find yet another bit of guidance to chew on during hours of walking. The very next verse, James 1:7 starts out with “Be patient, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.” What the heck? Patience does not work well with my distrust of and disgust with the messengers I believe to be wrong! Earl explains that the Greek translation of this particular word for ‘patience’ that James uses literally means ‘far from passionate rage,’ and he warns against becoming “hysterically involved” with our faith, and how destructive that can be. Now, that’s something I can wrap my head around—all those morons and idiots and destructive justifiers of Jesus words are doing exactly what James warned against. Hmmmm. But, what about me? My anger and shame at them can get me pretty wrapped around the axle with hysterical zeal for MY side of the story.

I, of course, still think my anger is justified. But might I take a step back? Remove myself just a couple of steps from my own passionate rage? Earl interprets James’ subsequent story—that of a farmer being patient while waiting for the rains so that his crops will grow—is what will make us the most helpful and the least manipulative in our relationships with others. That’s a hard one, but it might ring just a little true. 

The church above, by the way, was built in 1560. It is in the coastal town of Esposende, where we are staying tonight. Inside is the Altar of Our Lady of Pity. I have to say, those Catholics came up with some great names. As I stood there looking at the poor lady, I couldn’t help but think of Garrison Keillor’s Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. When you start laughing in a 460 year old church, it’s time to step out on the street.