its 6:15 a.m. at the municipal herberge in st jean pied de port. i woke up with the plan to leave at 6 but i am lingering and enjoying my third cup of instant coffee because i´m enjoying the scene in the small dining area of the hostel too much. its the spectacle of a beginning, you can smell the contagious, intense excitment of a beginning in hurried footsteps and whispering voices, as most of the people here haven´t walked a single kilometer along the camino yet and most of them have santiago as their destination. its about 800km away. two middle aged men, i´d say 45 or so, emerge from the stairwell that leads from the basement dormatory to the communal dining room on the first floor. they have all new apparel. brand new shoes in bright flourescent colors, immaculate athletic shorts, unsullied backpacks, everything brand new. their backpacks are utterly enormous, im guessing 55L, and stuffed to the hilt. i strike up a conversation with them and ask the question, the only necessary question, why? why? pray tell, why are you doing this?
its hard to overestimate how much i love this scene, this dimly lit breakfast scene and that first morning energy. i do not need to sleep. i was up until 2 or 3 reading and writing the night before, then up at 5:30. its no matter, what could be more exciting than this! but back to my frenchmen, they are business men, best friends, men with families. the one tells me, “ive been working for the past 10 years non-stop, pushing, pushing, pushing, i´ve done well, but i don´t even know what i am doing with my life anymore, i had to do something to get some perspective.“ this sort of story is typical but in fact quite beneign, when you consider what other pilgrims are working through, or what brought them to the camino.
but its a question of focus, whether we like it or not, we have one ceremonial religion, one civic religion in the west and that is capitalism, that is consumption, and you cant escape it. step one for these guys was a genuflection to the gods of course, they bought a ton of cool hiking shit. and that could be my focus, maybe they´ll get a massage or stay at a really ritzy hotel one night, or have their gargantuan backpacks transported by a carrier service when their knees buckle under the such immense weight. i couldnt care less. instead what i think is, how beautiful, what courage, these men are fighting for their very lives. it hits me really in the heart, these men are fighting for their lives, they have four weeks. God Bless Them. Saint Jacques, apotre, priez pour eux. they have important jobs, they have wives and children waiting on them. but out of the thousands, millions of men in their dire situation, men that in moments of quiet think these anxious thoughts about life passing them by and missing the point of it, these men decided to stop everything for a month seek something more, something they couldn´t tell me exactly what they wanted or were seeking but that something needed to change, and they thought it could happen here. they came here, I thank God. much more than an overstuffed 55L backpack, men like these have a ton of weight on thier shoulders they need to unload, weight they have been carrying for years. and a gravel path and streams and mountains, trees, sunrises and flies are waiting to slowly absorb some of the burden. a catharsis of pain and sweat and silence awaits them. new friends, walking compainions, rounds of beer, 5:30 cafe con leches, the revery of communal meals with strangers, lie before them. these things too have their place. its the most amazing place in the world for this reason: a greater portion come here to do battle, to wage a sort of existential war, they come to get free of deep-seeded anxieties, fears, dysfunction and trauma. all under the cloak of a “vacation” of sorts. its hard to imagine a more beautiful spectacle in the world. and to see the joy and the seriousness of the first morning, amazing!
but the concommitant festival of consumption isn´t really a concern, in fact out of self-interest i love it. im a barnicle on that great ship of consumption called the camino frances, and rich pilgrims like these buy me coffees and lunches from time to time, their money subsidizes the basic infrastructure, like herberges and tourist offices with great maps, that I enjoy without paying anything. in addition, those two men over the first 100km are, almost without fail, going to jetisson about 7 kilograms of gear each if not more. and i am thankful for the opportunity pick up their discarded head lamps, towels, ponchos, books, pencils, etc.
but thats not what i love about the camino frances, i love that so many of the people there are fighting with life, trauma, illness, heartbreak. people are there fighting for their lives. if they stop to have a jolly coffee or beer every 5km more power to them. its not my problem what they buy or feel they need or want to buy to do this, im honored to be there with them. to talk with them and sometimes to pray with them or sing for them.
in the christian classification i think there are three types of pilgrim. first, a pilgrim who does a pilgrimage out of piety or devotion, so this would be an act of devotion to the apostle st james. second, a pilgrim who does a pilgrimage out of penance, as an act of penance to make reparation for sin or the sin of another. and third, a pilgrim who made a promise to God. who told God if you do x, I am going to walk to santiago. And x, be it a healing, coming home safe from war, what have you, if x occurs, they walk to fulfill the promise. the men i previously mentioned don´t fit into any of these categories. they fit into a fourth, secular, existential surfer sort of pilgrim category. they are walking, waiting for a wave to ride to take them ashore. they´re looking for insight and courage. but i mention them only to say i don´t really care how much these frenchies consume. i dont care if they, being well off, do things rich people like to do, or indulge in luxury on a pilgrimage. they were staying in the cheapest hostel in st jean pied de port so they pass that authenticity test at least. but i write this simply to voice my opposition to authenticity tests on the camino all-together. or in life for that matter. its sad that an age of authenticity seems to have forgotten the value of simply showing up. the camino frances reminds one of this over and over.
of course i cant think of a better way to do the camino frances than completely sans d´argent. you´re in nature way more, you meet the best people, God works in the most wonderful ways. but even that´s only possible if you really have nothing. these guys begging would be a farce. so as someone who many people consider to be an authentic pilgrim, i am a religious catholic walking out of devotion and at times penance. i pray in the churches, stop in the cemeteries, and have a pretty pilgrim costume. pilgrims like these men like to take pictures with me to post on social media. we met a REAL pilgrim. he´s no tourist that barefoot zealot, hes an authentic one. ok, ok, if i am a real pilgrim, i think these two french guys are about as good as it gets, i think they far exceed me in their connecting with the spirit of this pilgrimmage, and ive been humbled by our very short conversation ever since. four weeks?!?! with families, with wives, with top notch corporate jobs. they are hungrier than me, i think. they are more courageous than me. for them, its one time, einmalig you either find it or not.
this is all a prelude to say, i wish wish wish people wouldn´t complain about tourism on the camino frances. everyone is going to be a little bit of a tourist. everyone either will buy a beer, will snap a picture, send a postcard, want to see the sights and buy some souveneirs. im sometimes overwhelmed by how the impulse to take so many pictures with our phones has altered our ability to interact with the beauty of sunsets, mountains, and forests. because our impulse is everywhere, all the time, to consume. it seems we struggle to enjoy things in a simple manner. joe pilgrim reporting to his instagram masters with a latest picture of a cow on a field in spain. the nsa and various advertizers make special note. we genuflect to these gods a hundred, thousand times a day, all in varying degrees. the worst thing we can do is pretend we can escape it, to pretend we aren´t consumers or tourists but rather 100% authentic pilgrims.
why? because this sort of talk harms people way more than tourists ever could. because it, in a much more capitalist way than buying a cool t-shirt with a yellow arrow as a momento, its part and parcel of the dominant capitalist morality, where signaling that you aren´t the bad guy is supposed to be a sign of moral rectitude. someone approaching the status of an authentic pilgrim in my mind is so happy to be walking, so thankful to be on the path, to meet all the other pilgrims and be able to bathe in silence and natural beauty for four weeks, they aren´t in the position to worry about what other pilgrims are and are not buying, what amenities and luxuries they are or are not indulging in. the pilgrim who maybe most embodied this spirit on my last camino was a pilgrim who was simply walking to lose weight. he weighted upwards of 300 pounds the day i walked with him. he too, was quite literally fighting for his life but exuding gratitude and helpfulness, amidst horrible pain and trials each day. he could only walk very slowly only 15km max each day. but again, i had the feeling walking next to him. this guy is moving mountains with his courage each day just to get out here and keep walking. he was a hero, he was walking for, what many might deem, a superficial reason. he wasn´t a believer. he could have just as well enrolled at a local fitness club to accomplish this end, they say. and i say, who cares?! he´s here, he´s doing it here and its the best possible place to walk for two months in order to lose a ton of weight. and of course he realized he´s getting a lot more out of this than simply shedding a few pounds once he starts walking. thats the thing: the nature of the pilgrimage imposes itself on everyone taking part, almost regardless of their intention. it´s okay, the fat pilgrim tells me, that most everyone walks by and i rarely get to walk with people for very long because of how slow i am going. it reminds me a lot of life, you meet people, they come, they go. My Man! Yes, good sir, a pilgrimmage does offer a mirror to look at life itself. You don´t realize that in a fitness studio. He continues later on in the day, and at the end, you don´t want to regret it, i mean i get to do this once, so i dont want to have any regrets. he tells me, he´s working on trying to meet the challenge of the steep hills that test him so, rather than slowing down before them, complaining, or getting discouraged when I see a big climb, im trying to learn to want to tackle them, to run toward them, because i have this problem in life too. BROTHER! this guy really gets it. he´s doing battle. But he started walking in geneva! it pays dividends to start in geneva.
yet i told another pilgrim about him days later, that he was walking to lose weight, and they dismissively chirped, that´s no real pilgrim. i despise this. there is no greater sign of spiritual malaise, of pride and vanity, than to be overly preoccupied with what other people are doing, and particularly what they are doing wrong. happy people focus on getting their part right, and not inviting people to interrupt their happy song unless they really, really force the issue. its true i have never done the last stretch of the camino frances in high tourist season. i hear there are spanish weekend partygoers who walk drunk with boom boxes. and that the density of the pilgrims swells to the size of an unbroken anaconda that stretches from pontavedra to santiago. ok. i still struggle to believe those who want silence and quiet cannot find it, or simply cannot exit to one of the other routes for the last two or three hundred kilometers. happy pilgrims are gonna find a way to pilgrim without letting anyone disturb them. unhappy pilgrims are going to look for disturbance and distraction in the problem of tourist pilgrims.
but the reason i love the camino frances are the touristy types, the worst kinds! people on bus tours, groups of retirees that can only walk for short stretches and do the rest by bus. couples where the only way the husband got the wife to come is that he told her she could bring a ton of stuff and a concierge service would take it from place to place each day. even the partygoers! they are welcome in my book. i was at a hostle in logrono this summer and a bunch of the younger crowd wanted to smoke out on the balcony. they first asked me if i wanted to join in, then fearing the my bizarre religious aspect, asked if i would be upset by them smoking at all. i told them to do what they want and i wouldnt be bothered. but later an 22ish year old italian man with long hair, a black fish net shirt, nipple rings, and aladin sorta arab pants wanted to talk to me. he´d been spoking on the balcony and again asked if i was upset that they smoked, being a religious pilgrim. he was truly worried. or paranoid… he was totally blazed and had a plethora of other questions for me also about religion and God. i indulged. an interesting talk. but at the end of the talk i asked him if i could ask him a question. umm could you tell me why you are wearing a fish-net shirt? he responds, i am really shy and i am trying to overcome my shyness. MY MAN. he is fighting a spiritual battle! i point to my jute bag habit and say me too brother! haha. we hugged. he too, is doing spiritual work on the camino of the most extra-ordinary variety, and i was so thankful to have met him.
my axiom is that everyone is a pilgrim and everyone is a tourist. there are many activities that should exclude others based on strict criteria, like starting an orchestra or going to Holy Communion, but walking to santiago is not one of them. if you happen to be walking on the path and intend to go the distance or a distance, you´re a pilgrim. and to start to walk on this path is to start to do spiritual battle whether you were looking for that or not. to walk on this path is also to encounter the powerful intercession of St James, again, whether you were looking for that or not, or whether you will ever give credit where it is due, or not. and i love that people flock to the camino frances to do this. intentionally or unintentionally, the combat is happening there. and i love it. i love how it works on me. but that there is an entire tourist industry there in part to profit form this, or that there are perhaps superficial pilgrims, should they exist as I rarely believe I have met one, but those who are more distracted from the spiritual aspects of the pilgrimage and focused on consumption, i celebrate both of these things. the first is a sign that camino is thriving, the second, if I ever let them perturb me, is only a sign for myself, a mirror for myself. For who has wasted more graces, who has been more distracted and only merely scratched the surface of what a pilgrimage can be than he who does it for a living. kyrie eleison!
A beautifully written piece, Stephen.
I enjoyed the read. 🙏😊