The movie The Way was not my introduction to the Camino. In 2006 I read Walk in a Relaxed Manner, by Joyce Rupp, and found it oddly compelling. My response to the pilgrimage she described: foot sores, crowded accommodations, bad weather, strange food, stranger company, and hours of walking day after day, were anything but attractive to an introvert like me. But, when taken as a whole, what she described drew me like a magnet. Climbing Everest has never been a possibility for me (fear of heights), and my marathon dreams are a thing of the past, but this is something I could do. Perhaps I should get busy and do it before I can’t.
In the modern world (Western, North American and Canadian at least), the idea of pilgrimage is profoundly counter cultural. First, you walk for weeks, and cover a distance you could drive in a day, or fly in an hour and a half. We have a thing about getting where we're going. We say "getting there is half the fun", but it's definitely the smaller half. We jet halfway around the world to sit on a beach, race through high school to get to university, rush through child-rearing to get back to a career. We're a people in a hurry, scrambling to gather up as much life as possible before it runs out.
A pilgrimage, on the other hand, sets its own pace and, though it has a destination, the destination is not the point. We need to slow down, and that's part of what pilgrimage is about. Can anyone see more than a trillionth of what there is to see in a lifetime anyway? What can we possibly gain by dashing through life in pursuit of two trillionths?
Second, you set out for a destination that has no “practical” significance. Who really needs to go to the traditional burial place of Saint James, particularly when no one even knows for sure that this is the spot? And most of the Camino pilgrims are non religious. A pilgrimage, it seems, is about itself. It’s like so much in life; not what you do in it, but what it does in you. People say they are changed by the Camino and it’s intriguing to see how many people want to change.
Thirdly, a pilgrimage takes a significant chunk of time out of our “normal” life. It’s a bit like the notion of Sabbath I suppose, when each week you simply resign what you’re doing for a day, and let God run your little piece of the world without you.
It’s humbling to admit that the world doesn’t really need us. And it’s odd that we can pretend to ourselves that we’re so vitally necessary, when we know perfectly well that the day is coming when we’ll die and everything, and everyone, will carry on, just like they do when others die. A pilgrimage, then, is a bit like dying for a while. I suppose this is one of the reasons it’s hard to do, and, perhaps, why many of us should do it.
Fourthly, going on a pilgrimage is like choosing to live a life. Imagine God, a year before your birth, offering you the opportunity to be conceived. He will tell you nothing but the time and place of your beginning point. You might be male or female, rich or poor, healthy or sick. You might live a hundred years and become a great composer, or die within the first few weeks and never be born at all. All you can know for sure is that, if all goes well, you will have trials and triumphs, joys and sorrows, pains and pleasures. You will meet others on the journey, know acceptance and rejection, and share the experience. You will sin against others and need forgiveness, be sinned against and need to forgive. And, in the end, you will die, and your life will be what you and countless others have made it.
In other words, you are being offered a chance to go on pilgrimage. So, are we ready to embrace the challenge? If not, perhaps we should get ready, because our life-pilgrimages are well under way. Pilgrimage, it seems to me, is all about choosing life.
THE PILGRIM PRAYER
(Composed by Joyce Rupp and Tom Pfeffer, and recited as each day began.)
Guardian of my soul,
guide me on my way this day.
Keep me safe from harm.
Deepen my relationship with you,
your Earth, and all your family.
Strengthen your love within me
that I may be a presence of your peace
in our world.
Amen
Not a bad prayer at any time.
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