Camino: Parting Shots
Data points: My first day of walking was April 10, my last May 18. Of those 39 days, two were spent in place—a day in Burgos, and a day in León. So I had 37 days of actual walking. The total distance is disputed (signage varies), but it was about 750km, so each walking day was about 20km, or 12 and a half miles. I ate a lot but as of this writing have not had my run-in with a scale. Visually, though, the gut is bigger. I saved a few ounces of weight by not carrying a razor, a comb, or shampoo. I spent about 40-50 euros a day on food and shelter. My rain jacket liner started disintegrating as soon as it encountered its first rain; it was like a horror film where the skin keeps falling off. (I’d look to the floor and see this thin white piece of unknown matter, which used to be mine.) My shoes’ inner foam was also peeling by the end, and my evening sandals cracked; nonetheless, my footwear got me home. My day pack zipper metal thing came off the rails, making the day pack just a sack. The pack was easily replaced; the old one lingered with me for a week until I accepted that its destiny was the grave (like my destiny, I suppose, though I hope for more ceremony when that event comes).
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In the end, everyone is talking about letting go. Many people find they have too much stuff, and they give away or mail home the extra. We all share stories of mishaps (data points small and large). Just like the disintegration of day pack and shoes, so there are wounds to foot and joint, aches in muscle, dislocated digits, and even the dog-bitten hand. The body itself will ultimately wear out—is, in fact, wearing out before our eyes. One man, introducing himself, said to me this was his first and his last Camino. He is not much older than I. No one knows if he or she will have another Camino. Even the young know, by the end of the walking, that life is about letting go.
And it’s not just the stuff; even more, it’s our expectations. We thought the Camino would be [fill in the expectation you started with], but it turned out to be [fill in the unexpected that actually happened]. Many of us are disappointed when our expectations fail to materialize. But in thinking and talking about it, many of us learn to value the unexpected. Maybe what did happen was more important than what we expected would happen.
“I had to let go of what I wanted the Camino to be,” is often said. But with wisdom, one continues: “That’s when the Camino gave me what I really needed.”
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The Camino exposes the emptiness of being a consumer. Consumerism is ubiquitous and contagious, including on the Camino. There are apps where people leave “reviews” of albergues (the pilgrim hostels), and those reviews can be cruel—as they can be everywhere. But the difference between being a pilgrim and being a consumer is that a pilgrim is in training to see the positive. A pilgrim review (if there need be one) should say only what is good, and it should evidence gratitude for what is given.
The author of my guidebook (Brierley, A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago) embodies that attitude. He might say that a place “has all basic necessities,” which could mean it lacks non-basic necessities. We note the positive. To reject consumerism, one doesn’t need to lie; a pilgrim identifies what has been given and for that has gratitude. (Brierley said of a now-closed albergue that it was “historic” as a resting-place for pilgrims since the medieval period, that its “basic facilities” in a “peaceful setting” and “ancient buildings” provided “a monastic atmosphere and soften[ed] the lack of services and spartan maintenance”!)
The Camino is there, and the pilgrim’s job is not to judge it and see whether it lives up to expectations. Instead, the pilgrim’s call is to submit to the Camino and find what gifts its has in store. These gifts are different for every pilgrim.
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There are lost and found stories everywhere. One man realized he had missed a turn that the rest of his party (including his wife) took. He didn’t want to go back; he could see where they were; so he set off across the land in between. The trek was harder than he anticipated. At the end, he needed to go about six feet straight up and was at a loss when, suddenly, two angels (his word) reached over the rail and lifted him to the Camino. Where did they come from? Who knew angels could be so strong?
I was lost on the streets of Burgos. A slight, elderly man, grin on his face but no English on his lips, gestured and said “no!” about the street I was on (“no” is a Spanish word); he pointed to my left. So I turned. I looked up and saw that I was now on a street whose name was Camino de Santiago. The words were there on the side of the building at the corner. So I went that way, it seemed a long time, and when I thought I was lost, another man appeared; I asked him (in broken Spanish) where was the cathedral. He walked with me a block, pointed down an avenue. It was still a ways, but I got there. Two days later, leaving Burgos in rain, I missed a turn. Another gentleman called out to me to say, in gestures, Don’t go that way! The Camino’s over here!
Friends were lost. You met them and talked with them over a few days, and then they were no longer around. And then, a few days later, you met them again.
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It’s the train platform in Santiago; we’re waiting for the train to Madrid, literally hundreds of people, most of us obviously pilgrims. You pick up conversation with a woman from Los Angeles who lives in Australia. Suddenly you hear your name; it’s Angela speaking; she was part of a group that you had dinner with a few times a couple of weeks ago. She’s from the U.S. but works in health care education overseas. She’s with a college friend that had come from—you guessed it, Texas—and they had walked the final week together. A man passes by, stops, says your name, reminds you of where you met and who was there then. We’re on the platform for a long time, lots of little conversations like this. Then the train slides in and gets filled with peregrinos, and we’re all going together for the next few hours, all the pilgrims in one place, all heading to one destination.
It’s not, Madrid isn’t, our final destination. But when we come to that ultimate train ride, on the boat that carries us across what some have called the river Jordan, it will be like this, I think: reminders of meetings and friends. You hear your name called, you hug and bless one another; and it’s not that you want to be with all these people, it’s enough to know that you’re all going somewhere together. That ultimate destination is what we most want, the Face that, perhaps unknowingly, we have always wanted to see.
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Out & About. Trinity Sunday, May 31, I am to preach at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas; the services are at 9 and 11:15 a.m.
Tolstoy’s great fifty-page story, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” will be discussed at the upcoming Good Books & Good Talk seminar at St. Matthew’s Dallas on Sunday, June 14, at 5 p.m. in Garrett Hall. The seminar is 90 minutes and while everyone is welcome to attend, anyone who has read the story is welcome to talk.
YouTube and Yours Truly. There’s a video of me, recorded in 2024 but I saw it only last month when I stayed (again) at the Oasis Trails albergue in Villamayor de Monjardin (between Pamplona and Burgos, near Estella). The video is a bit under five minutes, nicely edited to near-intelligibility. https://youtu.be/rKzrtZoxg_4