Tout marche est Spirituelle

[Douglas]

I'm an atheist but didn't find religiosity on the Camino a problem. It's there if you want it but you don't have to bother. Conversation in the evenings was almost never about religion.

One Danish girl I met attended mass, but otherwise seemed at least as sceptical as I was. She was particularly put out by the opulence of the cathedrals - altars dripping with gold, and the depiction of St James as 'matamoros', the moor-slayer. Am I supposed to admire that? she asked.

However the atmosphere of the Camino is distinct from any other walk, and I have done many. People, religious or not, attribute a significance to walking the Camino that does not belong to other trails - it is quite unmistakeably a pilgrimage, whether you believe or not. People say they are walking ‘to change their lives' or to mark the fact that their lives have already changed. Several like me had given up jobs and homes to make the journey. Almost everyone seemed to be at some crossroads in their lives and the Camino was a punctuation mark, a pause - what in music is called a caesura - or perhaps a cadenza.

It appeared to be widely recognised that this was so, and I realised early that it was not good Camino etiquette to ask people why they were there - they would explain if they wanted to. One man I met was rather puzzled by this - he had come merely to accompany his wife, and he said to me: 'Everyone here seems to have an agenda. There are some very troubled people.' It was a very perceptive remark. I met him again a few hundred kilometres later. He said God had finally spoken to him on the Camino, and he now knew what he had to do: change his golf swing. Humour works, too.

Did the Camino make any difference to me? Yes, in an interesting way: not by doing it, but by conceiving of doing it. I was unhappy in my job, under a great deal of pressure, and suffering declining health. Some years before I had visited northern Spain and noticed the distinctive atmosphere surrounding pilgrims and the pilgrimage – I felt an odd sort of exclusion. I decided that one day I would do the walk, but nothing happened and the idea gathered dust.

Then things around me in my life began to deteriorate – lost health, lost partner, horrible job. I might just have struggled on, but that would have made matters worse. Instead I decided that I had very little to lose by losing everything, so I resigned, sold my house, and set out for Santiago. For a while the dream of a walk to Spain had sustained me, and when matters finally became impossible it was my escape tunnel.

I had five months and two thousand miles to gather my thoughts on what I should do, and it worked. I have a new life, a new job, a new partner. I now put more of myself into the things that truly interest me, and as little as possible into routine and conformity.

Other lasting effects? An itchy heel, I’m afraid. And a deeper understanding of the music of Rodrigo for guitar. En los trigales; Bajando de la meseta; Entre olivares; Que buen caminito. And the brief, mysterious and beautiful Por caminos de Santiago.

[John Hussey]

Good Post, Douglas.

Indeed, along most all long-distance treks, the Camino more so than most, the journey IS the destination.

[Douglas]

Indeed, along most all long-distance treks, the Camino more so than most, the journey IS the destination.

Utterly so. As my compatriot Robert Louis Stevenson famously said: To travel hopefully is better than to arrive. You can't understand such a cryptic remark until you've wandered along the Camino.

[Villagejonesy]

Douglas, thanks for the thoughtful post. I also found that religiosity, strangely enough considering the Camino's beginnings, was a non-issue on the Camino. I am not an atheist, though I'm neither Catholic nor a regular church-goer. But I did assume, before I started the Camino, that "well, I can see that one needn't be religious to take the Camino, and that is good. But it does seem that one must believe in some sort of mysticism, whether one calls it prayer, meditation, or something else?" But I was very surprised to hear a woman from Berlin say that she was an "atheist." When I inquired further, she said that it was mostly a rejection of organized religion, not a rejection of the idea of a supreme being or of prayer. But I think that anyone, even someone who disbelieves in God completely, can benefit from the introspection that comes of taking the Camino. I hope that you always felt respected by the religious Caminantes, and that they did too, by you.

For myself, I felt very strongly that the mysticism one engages in on the Camino is very powerful, and life-changing.

[Douglas]

Hi, Jonesy. I wrote this in reply to your comment, then was afraid to post it. However, you deserve an answer - grab it before the moderators see it.

~~~~

I'm not that different from the German woman you met - organised religion is what I find most distasteful. In this regard I am more like one of those evangelical atheists - I really wish that organised religion would go away, and then the world would be a better place. I know that that is a tautology, though - organised religion is simply a reflection of our imperfections - our willingness to be led, and the horrible eagerness of those least suited to the work to do the leading.

Regarding the quite separate question of supreme beings, my position is possibly more extreme than atheist: I don't think it matters. There seems to me no way to determine the existence of a supreme being, and therefore a universe with one looks just the same as one without and as they say, a difference that makes no difference is no difference at all.


On the other hand (and so as not to seem too sterile) I have some Irish Catholic blood and I?m cheerfully capable of all sorts of superstition. Near where I started walking in Scotland there is what appears to be a holy well, perhaps dedicated to the Virgin Mary - I seem to recollect a figurine of the Virgin being there when I first found it. I came across it during one of my ?training? walks, when a pilgrimage all the way to Santiago still seemed a silly escapist fantasy, but I was preparing for it anyway. I threw 50 pence in the pool and asked the Virgin to arrange that I would one day pass by on my way to Spain - there seems to be good historical precedent for saints and supernatural beings accepting bribes in this way. I admit 50p isn't much, so I topped up the deal with an offer to the Virgin that if I ever passed by on my way to Spain, she could come too. This well, I should say, is situated in a part of Lanarkshire where an invitation to leave and set out for Spain is likely to be attractive.

I read jottings by another pilgrim somewhere, where he says that if you really want to go to Santiago, then all the improbable concatenations of accident, coincidence and synchronicity that you need to get started will somehow materialise. He's right. I was a single parent, committed to holding down a job I hated because of the need to support children at home. Such a project as a months long walk seemed impossible. But the children left (and came back again, and left again - you may have experienced this as a parent) - until I realised that the nest finally was empty. A woman who had been in my life for a while said: we could move in together, we don't need a house each. Thus the door of opportunity swung ajar, and I gleefully stuck my foot in it. I told my employer to shove his job where the sun don't shine (cherished memory) and sold my house, right at the top of the market, thereby having enough spare cash to start walking. On my way I paused at the well and told Vi (we were on familiar terms by now) to lace up her boots, we were leaving.

Vi was handy on the trip. My prayers at difficult moments were addressed to her, and usually in language that no good Catholic would recognise. Standard form: We're lost, Vi ? f*** do something! While still in Scotland I took what I believed to be a shortcut on to the Pennine Way. I puffed and panted, sick and overweight, to the top of the hill - no Pennine Way to be seen. I'd been following a compass bearing, which now seemed wrong. I invoked Vi in the usual rough language. Keep following the compass bearing - said a voice in my head - you have it right. I did, and hit the trail a few hundred metres later.

The really creepy incident was in the south of France. It was very hot with a big thunderstorm drawing near, and I arrived at a crossroads where the guidebook said the way continued straight ahead, tout droit, into a field. But there was no trail there. I was at a junction of four roads, and after spinning round a couple of times, I couldn't even remember which road I'd arrived by. The place was deserted - just open fields and an old derelict barn. And at precisely the moment that I swore at Vi and demanded some direction, I heard a sharp whistle. Looking round I saw an apparently faceless figure emerge from the barn. This apparition said nothing, but pointed into one of the fields. I was frozen in shock, until I realised that it was a man wearing a bandage covering most of his head, leaving only one eye and his mouth exposed. He waved and pointed again. It seemed an unlikely direction, but I scrambled over the gate and set off through the weeds and furrows. Once across the field and a few meters into the forest, I found the waymarks again. Good old Vi!

That day was probably the climax of our relationship. After the crossroads incident I continued through a terrifying Pyrenean thunderstorm to arrive in Garris, drenched and hungry. I ate a hearty dinner in the hotel, washed down with a little too much of the local wine. I had violent diarrhoea. Diarrhoea means dehydration. I have a health condition and my doctor had warned me before I set out that dehydration was very dangerous to me. I did two things. I phoned my woman at home and asked her to contact NHS24 for advice (I wasn't far from St Palais on the rail line to Biarritz and a flight home) and then I sat on the bed in my room and had a debate with Vi (I always imagined her as a teenage girl in jeans, tee-shirt and sneakers, although perhaps that was a middle-age fantasy). Vi told me that I probably wasn't dying, and that in fact my main problem as far as she could see was my not caring if I died - and anyway, leaving all that aside, she thought it looked like a nice walk to St Palais next morning, just a few kilometres - perhaps walk there and decide then?

It is a nice walk from Garris to St Palais, and I forgot about Vi and my illness after that, all the way to Santiago. I didn't remember her again until I was back in England, getting off the ferry from Santander at Plymouth. The full text of our contract had been that in return for ensuring a safe journey Vi would get 50p, a nice walk to Spain - and a shell: I'd forgotten that f*** shell. I went into one of the souvenir shops along the Barbican in Plymouth and bought a shell, and a couple of days after I arrived back in Scotland I went out to the well and dropped it in. It's a bit dishonest, though. I think I'm going to have to walk to Spain again, and do it right next time. I?m waiting to see what Vi thinks of the idea.

[Villagejonesy]

Thanks Douglas, that's marvelous. Thanks so much for relating your experience.

When I've pondered the question of a Supreme Being, I've tried to avoid being taken in by one of the superstitions to which I DON'T subscribe, which is "God will be angry if you don't believe in It." When I see things in this light, I feel more free to say to myself, "well--either God (that is, a consciousness that unites all consciousness, and exists everywhere and at every time) exists or God doesn't exist. No amount either of worship or of disbelief will change that."

But when we consider prayer, this is something that makes the question matter. I agree with you wholeheartedly that those who are most eager to lead are often those least suited to do so, and I also agree with the devastating statement that religion is a testament to our imperfections (which I'm sure is a statement on which the religious and the atheist would even be in agreement).

Even as a mystic, I, too, have felt the prick of doubt when appealing to a being like the Virgin Mary in prayer. This particular question is always funny to me, because from the time I was a small boy, I felt no compunction against appealing to Jesus Christ, and still don't. However, as a non-Catholic, it was a very big step for me to expand that to appealing to Mary. But I have felt the presence of the Virgin Mary, if you like. A hostaliera told me along the way: "ask St. James, if you have trouble."

In these times, prayer is always a sensitive issue, and I rarely discuss it with anyone, even with my fellow caminantes. It is, of course, a highly private and subjective affair. Also, I think that we all have superstitions here and there; I think that's unavoidable, and it's only gradually in our evolution that these superstitions die off and are replaced with the genuine.

But finally, and of most concern, the idea prayer is challenged at all times by the question whether it ALL isn't superstitious. Now, many would say that all prayer is just that, superstition without an ounce of validity. Hearing voices in one's head, to those people, is always proof positive of mental illness. The atheistic psychologist might view this as mere "magic thinking," which is the child's desire to wish away their problems by magic. Even a believing psychologist must reckon with the fact that there ARE those whose thoughts of prayer or mysticism do mask or express some mental illness.

But it is an inaccurate knee-jerk reaction to characterize most of those who pray as being severely mentally ill. It's simply not true; most of us who pray are well-balanced enough, and find that prayer or meditation bring answers that wouldn't otherwise have been available to us.

Now, for an atheist, this might be explicable without positing any telepathic connexion with the Virgin Mary or with Jesus; someone might say that prayer or meditation simply focus the mind on a problem, and then release the conscious mind and allow the subconscious to take over, much as sometimes happens when we get the answer to a problem in a dream. I do think that this happens in prayer, but I also believe firmly that there is something outside of ourselves that hears that prayer.

The Virgin Mary--well I'm not Catholic, but the Virgin Mary has power. You and so many other caminantes have found that out. For every caminante, it seems that there have been inexplicable coincidences and answers to their prayers, as you describe with your compass. I had several very strange incidents happen. In one, I was to meet a family I'd been walking with, and have breakfast with them, before they travelled on. I couldn't find the restaurant, though, and thought: what a shame! Now I may never meet up with them again. I really hoped that I would bump into them again, so that I could keep in touch. So I walked on, and the trail took me several miles, through dirt roads abutting farmland. Well, after perhaps four or five miles, as I stepped out onto the ONE tiny 50-foot stretch of tarmac road that I had to cross, a taxi screeches to a halt. Well, who do you think it was but the family! Well met. And after that, miles and miles more on the dirt farm track. What were the odds against meeting them, roaring along in their taxi, just at the moment when I took the only tiny 50-foot stretch of paved road, in perhaps 12 or 14 miles of walking?

Other walkers have related "coincidences" of that same sort, but much more unlikely, dramatic and astounding. One walker, Lukas from Germany, told me: "you get the feeling that the Way has been prepared for you." I agree. Like you, I felt it HIGHLY unlikely that I should take the Camino, but I kept coming across signs that had to do with the Camino. First a museum exhibit on the Camino in a small Montreal church. Then a bookstore display about it in Paris. Then the yellow-and-blue emblem on a wall near Orleans. Then the Pilgrim's seashell icon in a Knights Templar commandery in northern France. And, though it seemed such a bizarre idea, it worked out for me in the end, just as it did for you, when everything fell into place so that you could go.

Prayer is a strange thing, because it works. And it REALLY works when you're on the Camino. I don't know why this is, but: Prayers Get Heard on the Camino. This simple fact suggests such a miraculous universe. It is good that we want gradually to get rid of all our superstitions, and I think this is the salutary warning from the atheist. But the baby in the bathwater is this fact, which I've found indisputable: that someone is listening when you pray. You aren't only talking to yourself, and you aren't insane. You are communicating with someone.

And (not, I hope, to force my own conclusions on you! but speaking for myself alone) that may just mean that, in the end: we are all one.

[mammalama]

Excellent post. Well written and very insightful. I'm glad Vi didn't give up on you nor you her!

[belloc]

Religious and, heaven forbid,even practicing Catholics are welcome and can find Catholic meaning along the Camino.

One of the reasons I remain generally religious and specifically Catholic is its emphasis on Faith and Reason.

A Catholic mind and a Catholic education are where one can investigate Reality. There is room for belief.

Atheism ( the nonexistence of God can be proved by human reason)and agnosticism ( neither the existence nor the non-existence of God can be proved by human reason) lead to nihilism and skepticism.

Being a believer leaves much more room for wonder and approachment.

Catholicism proposes ideas/teachings on its understanding of Reality.
It does not impose.

The history of this region, including its religious wars, are worth taking another full look at as well.

[martinstuart]

Prayer is a strange thing, because it works. And it REALLY works when you're on the Camino. I don't know why this is, but: Prayers Get Heard on the Camino.

A wonderful post, thanks for it.

I agree that prayer works (exactly how I don't know; I'd love to know), and that prayer is so much more powerful on the Camino. For me, however, that is NOT because prayers 'get heard' on the Camino, it's simply because on the Camino I am much more able/open to hearing the answers to my prayers.

My experience is that, the time I did the whole camino on the main route, I asked important questions, I asked for God's help, and I got back crystal-clear simple answers, 'ways' to live, and ways to overcome my issues. It's different for everyone, of course, but I encourage everyone to use the time on the Camino to give yourself some time each day to ponder the big questions you face in your life, and ponder the place of religion & God in your life.

As important as this is the fraternity of the Camino---get involved, 'be there' for others. My experience is that the time spent walking alone each day, even if only for 20 minutes, enriches the time with others, and vice versa.