Seven years ago when my husband and I were traveling in northern Spain, we visited the city of Santiago de Compestela. While in the city we saw people coming into the city with backpacks and walking sticks, looking dirty and tired. We were told that these were pilgrims who had been on the Camino, a 800 kilometer (500 mile) walk from France to Santiago de Compestela. We were told that some had walked less, some more. And that this pilgrimages was one of the world’s three major pilgrimages, along side Rome and Jerusalem.
Santiago refers to St James whose bones are said to have been buried beneath the cathedral in Santiago de Compestela and later dug up and place in a small casket in the cathedral. Santiago refers to Saint James Iago means James.
Further explanation revealed that each person had their own reasons for walking the Camino, but that most were on some spiritual or internal journey. People have been walking the Camino for centuries, originally for traditional religious reasons, which were to do penance for a wrong, give thanks for blessings received or to ask St James to intercede on their behalf with God. This was a common practice, and still is, in the Catholic faith. I can’t speak for the other Christian faiths, but I know I was brought up in a tradition where yo could ask any number of Saints, and even the Virgin Mary to go to God on your behalf. Kind of a middle man or agent or attorney ot argue your case.
Well anyway, the whole idea of doing a 500 mile walk for spiritual reasons appealed to me. And I thought “I’d like to do that some day.” Well the topic came up in a number of ways over the intervening years and I talked about it with friends, but never really made any plans or took any action. But last winter a friend called and said there was a movie about “that thing” I’m always talking about called “The Way,” that she and another friend were going to see it that afternoon, and would I like to join them. Well of course I did.
I saw the movie and got inspired once again. I thought to myself, “I’m sixty five, not getting any younger, if I’m going to do this, I need to just do it.” So I made a plan. I did some research about equipment, got some boots and a back pack. But I had already planned a three month study abroad trip to Spain for the winter. So I left my back pack, took my boots and flew off to Salamanca. Salamanca has a beautiful river and I began walking along the river in my boots in my spare time. I spent a lot of time wandering and stayed in shape. Shortly before i was to come home, I decided to go off the trail along the river and ended up on some very rough terrain. I stepped wrong and the next day my back and hip hurt for the first time in several years. No problem, I have a plan. I will find some way to get around this problem.
I have arthritis and bursitis throughout my body, neck, lower back, hips and knees. So, I start panicking about the Camino and my sore body. But I get home, get a cortisone shot in my hip, go to the massage therapist for some acupressure and go see my chiropractor. My body started to heal. Then I was out hiking the local hills one day with a friend and we went down an extremely steep and slippery trail. I found out later that it is named “Elevator.” So about two thirds of the way down I decide to take a few fast steps over the the side where I thought I could get some traction in the softer dirt. I forgot about the weight of the pack carrying me forward and did a face plant. The next day and a half I was fine and then my ham strings froze and my back went into severe nerve pinching pain.
Well I have a plan. When I have a plan, I get obsessed and then it is full speed ahead and clear the decks. So I sent back to the massage therapists, back to the chiropractor and back to my hip and knee doctor. The latter tells me I can’t have another cortisone shot for at least three months. But, but, but . . . the Camino is two months away. I’m not supposed to take anti inflammatories because I had a perforated ulcer which had to be fixed by a nasty surgery.
So I ask about a shot and then spend a day trying to get one of those and getting mad a doctor who won’t give me one because it would be dangerous to my health. But at this point I don’t care about my health, I have a plan, I’m going to walk the Camino as a spiritual journey. I am obsessed. The next morning I was writing about the stupid doctors, my stupid body, feeling sorry for myself when all I wanted to do was go on a spiritual journey and walk the Camino as a thank you to God for my life. During this process it began to occur to me that perhaps the spiritual journey had already begun, that maybe it was about surrender. Yikes!
A few days later I was in my car listening to a Leonard Cohen CD that I had heard at least a hundred times, and a song came on I had never really heard before. Cohen said it was more of a prayer than a song and the title of it was “If It Be Your Will.” Damn! So maybe it is not about my will, maybe I don’t get to decide when or how I go on journeys of a spiritual nature.
Then I started pondering the fact that the Camino for me was a present to God for all of my blessings. Slowly I started to realize that if I am going to give someone a present, it should be something they want, not just soething that I want.
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