The Persistence of Pilgrimage

 
I walked up eight steps, I hugged a gold statue of St. James the Apostle, and I walked down eight steps. As simple as it sounds, it was the symbol of the end of an inspiring month-long pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. During this month, walking mostly alone, I thought, I wrote, and I resolved. I found answers to some very personal questions, and I came forward with a newfound respect for the value of the spirit of the Camino. To me, this historic pilgrimage is a path saturated in human compassion. This compassion reshaped my perspectives as a human, as a student, and as a citizen.
It started in 813 AD. A hermit in northwest Spain saw a strange light over a field. It led him to the lost remains of St. James the Apostle. Just like that, the city of Santiago de Compostela was conceived, as was a pilgrimage that has endured through thick and thin over the last 1200 years.
It drew Catholics from all over Europe. The scale was mind-boggling: Over 1,000 pilgrims a day were arriving in Santiago in the 12th and 13th centuries to hug the gold statue of St. James in the 11th Century cathedral. Many traditional pilgrims’ masses later, the Cathedral has not changed; the statue is still there, and the path from the Pyrenees of France to Santiago, el Camino Francés, is still well traveled and international.
There are, however, fundamental differences between the modern and and the traditional pilgrimage. No longer is it predominately Catholic. Christians of all denominations, as well as people of other faiths, and often no faith at all, make the pilgrimage to Santiago. By taking the journey myself, I was able to see firsthand the variety of reasons informing my fellow travelers’ decisions to become pilgrims. Some hunker down to tradition, seeking forgiveness, petitioning God, or pushing their own faith. Some do it for tourism, some take the time for inner reflection, and some simply do it to lose weight.
One Russian man was walking to forgive. He was cheery and I hardly expected his story. German soldiers raped his mother during World War II. She was damaged to the point that she could not stand the living reminder of her pain: her son. She hated him for the rest of her life, and that hatred lodged in his soul. He walked the Camino to forgive her.
I became good friends with a young Frenchman named Kevin. He had walked all the way from Geneva, Switzerland. I am studying French, so I enjoyed talking to him, albeit in slow, basic language. While we were preparing dinner one night, I asked him why he was walking the Camino. He answered in English, so that I would fully understand: “My parents and siblings died in a car crash three months ago. I was tired of being alone, so I began walking.”
Not everyone’s reason was this powerful. There were American students, there were families, there were groups of men who had been friends forever. And yet, no matter the background or mindset of each pilgrim, each was in it for the experience. The pilgrims, combined with the native people along the route, created a fluid system of daily life. As pilgrims left towns, they mixed and separated and converged while the towns inherited the next day’s wave of pilgrims. This created a web of human interactions that were understood to be temporary, but were, at the same time, meaningful, thanks to the spiritual strength of the experience. Most pilgrims were reflecting on their lives in some fashion. The few who weren’t respected the Camino as foreign territory—spiritual territory. The mutual understanding among pilgrims and between pilgrims and townspeople was an understanding of spirituality and how important the walk is in the life of each person.
There was genuine respect. And this respect created a remarkably raw, compassionate openness. I trusted fellow pilgrims with my most personal problems. I delved into emotional conversation with near strangers almost every day. I felt part of a community in which members acted as individuals in the most beautiful ways possible: rather than focusing on worldly desires and selfish pursuits, the individual mind focused on improving itself, while helping others do the same. This was fostered by each interaction, as each mind brought new perspectives to the table. The culture of love, openness, and equality along the Camino’s path is unmatched and is continually strengthened through human connection.
To me, this is the purest form of “who gets what, where, and when.” The political system is purified by the compassion that continuously builds through interaction. This compassion is rooted in recognized connection.
I am not going to suggest that we are all doomed because we do not each have the spirituality of the Camino central to our lives. Spirituality is not universal. Spirit, on the other hand, is. The human spirit is what connects us. From my experiences walking the Camino de Santiago, I have directed my political decisions, beliefs, and actions. I want to form them by recognizing our common pilgrimage on this Earth, and soaking my observations with a respectful compassion. By basing our actions on our love of our fellow pilgrims, I think that we can all help advance our society.
Hopefully, there will be a little more love in the world when I walk up and hug that statue.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons