Pilgrimage as First Philosophy
why pilgrimage is powerful- a philosophical approach
A pilgrimage, like life itself, involves three aspects, (1) a destination, (2) a path, and (3) signs that mark out the path to the destination. Still coping with my exit from the academic world I found it rather pleasing that these three parts of a pilgrimage correspond perfectly with the three parts of the Summa Theologica, which divides into speculative life, or the doctrine of God, practical life or the teaching on desire, action, and virtue,the supernatural\semiotic life or teaching on Christ and Sacraments. Life with God is our Destination, the Virtues are our Path, and the signs, Christ and the Sacraments, not only point out, but create the path to the destination. Bravo.
Let's consider these three aspects first from a speculative point of view:
Destination
But the nice thing about a pilgrimage is that it basically reduces life to these three things. Each day, you have a destination, and have some idea about how far away it is, and how much time it will take to get there. But really anyone on pilgrimage has one destination, and every day is simply one step closer to this goal. And the goal isn't really an experience, but it's something, objective, speculative, a place you need to arrive. But I see this goal in terms of the philosophical questions, what is real? what am I? and and who am I? This is really our destination, to know what is real and what we are as humans generally, and who we are as persons specifically. I'm a believer and I frame it this way to keep it open for non-believers, but I think true self-knowledge can only come with the knowledge of God. We arrive at our destination when we realize we are nothing and God is everything. We also arrive when we realize God loves us, that we, as humans, bear His Image, and that he is sustaining and caring for us. The wonderful thing about pilgrimage is that it provides an answer to these questions, and a very practical answer: that for a week at least, everyone is a pilgrim with a path and destination. and the path and destination become the most real things in a sense. Regarding who we are, pilgrims often get an answer tailored to their own person and station in life. A pilgrimage, particularly the Camino de Santiago in my experience, tells us something about who we are at the end. In doing so, it's a good metaphor for life itself.
Path
Ok, so then there's the second part: the path. People love saying that the way is the destination, blah, blah, blah. I don't buy it. Enjoy the path, but it's not the goal, it is what gets you there. From the theological point of view, the path is hope. We won´t hope in heaven. No one needs to hope at their destination. But the philosophical question here is about movement. We answer the first questions about what is real? and who am I, by the second questions, what causes movement, or what is our end? or where am I going? Desire moves humans, so this question is really one of desire, what do I desire, and what ought I desire, how do I desire better? And do I desire hardship? This is one of the catches, that the worst hardship brings about the greatest joy at the end of the pilgrimage. A dear lady named Fatima who put me up in Sahagun at her hostel, she asked me, “what is the point of going barefoot?” I retorted, “well a lot of saints went barefoot and Jesus told his disciples once to go barefoot, so I wanted to see if there was anything to it. I wanted to run the experiment and see what effect there would be.” She asked, “well, what did you find out?” I paused, “All I know is that I cry alot when I go barefoot. It didn't make me a Saint.”
Truly at the end of my first pilgrimage to Santiago, just as I could see the sea in Finisterra (the end of the earth), I, by chance, started to recite all the psalms I memorized over the months of walking and for the first and only time really they all came alive. As I said them, my heart swelled with the sentiments of the psalmist. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude and heavenly joy that God had sustained me through that trip. At this ending point, it felt like all the trials and suffering along the path were turned into joy. I had spent an entire winter walking alone through France in the extreme solitude of COVID confinement. There were points where I even tried to turn around and stop. But the destination is a place that transforms sorrows of the path into joy, hardship into satisfaction. So too in life. Grace perfects nature, what is true for an earthly pilgrimage is all the more true for our heavenly one. All of the strain, the pain of the path, a true destination, our true destination is one that turns it all into joy. So what should I desire? Suffering, hardship, if you are a destination hedonist. Every pilgrim learns this. Maybe old ladies who take the camino in a bus and go for 10km a day more than anyone, they suffer too. There is no wrong way, but there are perhaps better ways to do a pilgrimage. But a pilgrimage starts to teach you how to desire, and that is to address a key part of the riddle of who we are.
But thinking through how to desire leads to the final question. So we start with
(1) what/who am I? this is answered by the following question
(2) where am I going, or what\how should I desire? and this depends on the following question
(3) why?
The all important question is: why? And it's the only one that can sustain us through the hardship of the path, it's the only one that tells us what to desire, and in so doing, how to desire. When I started walking I had no clue as to why I was there, I was upset I was there, but I knew without a doubt it was where God wanted me at that time, and that sufficed. So I was looking for a bigger “why?” And this question is ultimately a semiotic one, what do the signs mean? What is the significance of the sign or of this sign? But most profoundly what do the signs reveal about the desires of others, or God? Our best reasons can only come from the desires of others and our comprehension of them through signs.
Signs
When you are on pilgrimage you need signs that point out the path, really the signs create the path. Signs answer that crucial question of “why?” As any pilgrim why they think this path is the path to the destination and they will start talking about a human sign they saw marking the path. This reveals a part of human nature: that we are wired to look for signs, and that the signs tell us what to desire. They direct us where we go. On pilgrimage, it´s all you care about. Have you seen a muschel(germany), cockie(france), or arrow lately? You get addicted to them, you get addicted to the signs. Sometimes there are stretches where you see them every kilometer or so, and when you have to walk 10km without seeing a sign you get panicky. Am I lost? You hunger to see the sign that you are on the right path, the path to the destination. So too in life. But in these stretches where there are no signs, then the position of the sun becomes important, then you turn to natural signs to guide you (I had no smart phone!), or at least help you know if you are headed in the right direction generally. I appreciate this, sometimes God gives us very specific signs, commands, but other times we have to hope and try to find the natural signs that merely confirm we are headed in the right direction.
Any skilled person is skilled because they know the signs of excellence. Life is about seeing the signs, not all of them, but knowing the crucial things to notice to find direction. Really all the events of our life and understanding their meaning, A wise person is simply a person who knows what the signs mean, who can tell you what to do, when you are anxious, when a tragedy occurs, etc. A pilgrimage just dumbs it down considerably and most of us need this. I did. I still do. Anyone can read these signs, there is no expertise required, its a yellow arrow on the camino frances, but again here, because it's so simple a pilgrimage reveals the general semiotic riddle of life, that signs not only point out the way, but they also make the way for us sometimes. And thus these three aspects are circular, as we can only answer the question of “why?” with reference to the destination itself. The signs only have their meaning in relation to this end.
Now let's consider these three aspects from a practical point of view, from the point of view of desire.
Destination
According to practical philosophy, which is concerned with motion, with desire and action. Every action has an end, every movement, even of physical things, is for an end, and the end is the most sublime cause. Hammers are made to strike nails. Guitars are made to make music. It seems the function is the cause of the form. So what are we made for? Thinking, willing, talking, and… walking. And a pilgrimage starts with perhaps this most simple thing, that we were made to walk and makes good use of it. And walking is really a good basis for better thinking, desiring and for good conversation. But the most real thing practically is the thing most capable of moving us, and of making us happy. This is Our End, this is The Good as a transcendental, this is what we were made for, what we were made to desire. Nothing has a greater capacity to move and perfect us, but we have to come to know it, and then desire it. Thus speculative philosophy concerns the intellect and has the object of knowing the truth, practical philosophy concerns the will and desiring the good.
Modern philosophy and civilization really have come to doubt this obvious truth, that the most sublime cause is the end. That the goal is the most powerful thing animating any lifeform. It has introduced a great skepticism that there is a unitary end for each human, for each sentient being. Psychiatrists treat many psychological ailments as a chemical problem, i.e. they see everything in terms of efficient causes, and fixing problems in terms of changing efficient causes. The ancient philosophy said wisdom is to comprehend the power of final causes, and they were right: even the chemicals start to change on themselves when a human starts moving toward their end.
A pilgrimage drives this point about the power of the final cause quite clearly. You are literally carried, through rain and storm, heat and thirst, through muscle aches and blisters, through annoying companions, you are carried by your destination. The closer you get to your destination, the greater its pull over you. But also the greater the distance between you and the object of your desire, the greater the romance, the wilder the desire. No one falls in love with the camino de santiago by doing a four day extended weekend hike and arriving at their destination. The people who fall head over heels are the people who do long walks, because desire is inflamed by distance. Here as well, do you want to love your life? aim well, aim high or far away from where you are now, find your destination.
The destination itself, for each day, but really the final destination in Santiago or Rome or Jerusalem or wherever, it lends immense power and strength to those en route. And again, the incredible simplicity of a pilgrimage reminds us of what so often goes on in our own life: we lack strength and energy because we don't know where we are going, we don't have a clearly defined objective or vision of our destination. Even if we do, it's really easy for it to be our own fantasy, so one where our subjective ends conflict with what would make us objectively happy or good. Or in the case that it is actually feasible to reach our goal, it's easy to miss the path to this end, where imprudence selects the false means to the end and leads us to doubt the whole structure. Our lives are catastrophes of this dynamic going wrong in so many respects.
A pilgrimage is a sort of fail-proof lesson about this going well, about how powerful it is, and a lesson that should propel you to think about your eternal end, and to desire it well, to let Eternal Wisdom, the vision of God, be the sort of thing that animates you and moves you. If it is your destination, wouldn't it have a more potent effect on your life than the vision of the cathedral in Santiago? Yes a pilgrimage, considered from this angle, will also remind you that you are probably on the path to hell. penitentiam agite!
But really most religious pilgrims have some sort of spiritual objective. insight, or grace they are seeking. Others are dealing with grief, looking for a new purpose in life, their next step, etc. It's interesting in germany and france, when people encountered a strangely clad barefoot religious pilgrim, they desperately sought reassurance from me that I was doing it of my own free will or that I liked it, rather than that I felt compelled to do so or believed in a cruel God who liked pain. In Spain and Portugal (italy has its own thing going on) it was the exact opposite, they were equally if not more perturbed to discover I hadn't made a vow or promise of some sort to the God who loves pain. I would be asked dozens of times each day, “por que lo haces? una promessa? haces una promessa?” They loved the thought of hearing my story of being healed or saved in battle after making some grand vow to the Divinity, only to discover I´m just a religious weirdo. It's quite the let down. And really these pilgrims, when I did meet them, were my favorite, people who made promises when they were deathly ill or when their children were sick that if they recovered they would do a pilgrimage. In these cases, making it to the end is simply to fulfill one's end of the bargain in gratitude to God for his deliverance.
Path
It's a strange riddle of the spiritual and intellectual life, that one level of reflexivity gets you a great deal, a second means you are enslaved. Thinking about thinking is good. But thinking about thinking about thinking places you in a mire of quicksand. Wanting to want something good or difficult can quite frankly save your soul. Wanting to want to want is a bridge too far.
Why is this the case? Quite simply, what we do shapes our desires in many cases. And if you want to want to do something or to be someone, you might just do the things you need to do but don´t directly want to do. But if you want to want to want, you just aren't going to do anything. Thus the magic is in the doing sometimes, and oftentimes actions rub something off on us, they give us the desires we long for, or desires we never knew we could ever have.
Thus the practical aspect of the question, what is real?, and asking, who am I?, leads to a consideration of our End or the Good in life. The following practical dilemma is: how do I connect with what is Good? how do I get to know my end? Aristotle and St Thomas say we cannot choose our final end directly, which means if we didn't learn from our parents or society to want excellent things like virtue then we are sort of up shit creek so to speak. And in this society I think it's safe to say, regardless of how good our parents were, most of us are in this creek. We can't just choose to want to be good and noble, if we don't already know and want the highest good. Just like we can try to organize things in a closet but cannot try to organize or rearrange the closet itself. Our highest good is the house we are given, we can order things within this home, but any sort of wholesale renovation is going to be very costly if not impossible, and require the help of others.
So one strategy for renovation, perhaps the best we can do, is then to seek a harmony with the order of things, with the order of nature, in the hope it can impress the nature of its creator on us. The very first step of St Bonaventure´s ascent to God is to submit to the mirror of nature. Basically, through our created nature, and through the nature of things itself, God or the highest Good can work to communicate his general end to us, to elicit a desire for it. For the Christian, the highest supernatural end requires baptism ultimately in order to desire the beatific vision, which perfects a natural desire to know and love God. But so many of Jesus´ parables were simply grounded in nature, in lilies in the field, in seeds on a path, and turning toward these created things while cutting out technological waste can work wonders.
St Thomas speaks of a type of co-natural knowledge, a knowledge that we get from things or actions. Many things by their very nature donate their nature to us through imposition, should we merely come into contact with them. Some people have this effect, they impose a certain intensity and zeal for life on those who spend time with them. But actions and even things to a lesser extent can do this. To train an animal or to slaughter one imparts a knowledge of animal being that can profoundly affect the person doing the action. A good trainer learns to love his animals, he learns the importance of habit and repetition for animal being in general, a good slaughterer learns to revere his stock and the sanctity of all life. But the felicity and reverence come through the nature of the action, and the action well carried out. That is one of the marvels of life. We have to find these sweet spots, where the things we need to learn are imposed upon us, where the desires we need to burn in our hearts are given to us. We only have to want to want them, and know where to look and how to comport ourselves to be instructed by creation itself as to our place within it.
A pilgrimage, I believe, is one of these sweet spots. In a pilgrimage a lot, lot of good things are happening at once, which sort of primes you for positive change, and an amelioration and elevation of desire. At a bare bones physiological level, most people are walking a lot more than they are used to and this works wonders on them chemically and hormonally speaking. If you walk 20k a day, you get an endorphin and oxytocin release, increased serotonin and dopamine production, increased brain and cognitive function, and reduced cortisol levels. Basically reduced stress, increased attention, good mood and overall more loving and ready to bond with others. It's not a bad baseline. Add to this the salutary effects of solitude, prayer, exquisite natural beauty, ample sunlight, friendly other pilgrims, and beautiful chapels and cathedrals and a healing or development process really starts to occur. The experience of setting goals and achieving them, of climbing over mountains and pushing your body to the limit, this all builds confidence. And beyond this, and towering over all this is the experience of God's providence and on the Camino the intercession of St James the Apostle, who has surprises for all pilgrims, believer and unbeliever alike, and will send rescue to you in times of need.
I once met an agnostic pilgrim in Santiago who recounted to me all the inexplicable experiences he had on his path of being cared for, of finding exactly the things he needed in duress waiting for him on a bench when he needed a bandage and ointment for a wound, things he absolutely could not square with the science of probability. “There is just no way all this happened by chance,” he confided in me. He was co-natured by God's provision on the camino de santiago and came to faith therethrough. But the magic of the Way is that pilgrims are hungry, they are wanting to want more, they are seeking to seek meaning. And if they are on the path to Jerusalem or Rome or Santiago, or Lourdes or Fatima for that matter, they've found the sweet spot, even if they didn't want to.
Signs
The whole idea behind the sacramental system of the Roman Catholic Church is that the signs themselves make the way, they are the sweet spots. We just have to approach them, to receive them. Anyone in a happy marriage, the only sacrament to which pagans can approximate, will appreciate that this sign is a vehicle toward their salvation, toward the opening of their hearts, it is a channel for divine grace. The Eucharistic Mystery of the Catholic faith teaches us that the most profound breaking forth of Divine Grace into creation can occur in and through things that appear mundane, that appear to be mere bread.
Thus, if at a very basic level one learns to hunger for the signs that mark out the path, and also pilgrims do notice a transformation in desire even at this natural level after a few weeks on the path, it's also true that the pilgrim begins to desire the signs that point to the deeper “reason” for his journey. For a catholic pilgrim, these signs will in part be Sacraments themselves, masses, absolutions, as sacraments are also an integral part of our way. But generally, what one begins to learn, partially through the pedagogy of storytelling that occurs amongst pilgrims, is that whether they know it or not, they are here for a reason. God brought them here to teach them something. Many pagan pilgrims speak of “the universe,” in this sense. It's not my favorite choice of words but I think they are getting something right in their attempt to capture their experience. They feel a benevolent force that is either distinct from or immanent within the order of things is acting upon them and guiding them in a special way. Thus, the dark thoughts in the solitude of the way, fears and anxiety and traumas that surfaced, also the ability to get some perspective on their life and what needs to change, even the hardships of the path, the people they met, what these people shared with them, whatever else they experienced in prayer, reading of scripture, worship of God, these all constitute a symphony of meaning as to the purpose of the pilgrimage.
With the desire that there could be a greater reason and purpose comes a sensitivity to signs that could point out this purpose. I remember as I approached Santiago my first time I had walked for a week with a middle aged german woman who also happened to be catholic, but of a very different bent than myself, but we started off each morning praying the rosary together and then talking. One of our last days walking together, she sort of out of nowhere told me, “With your background and being so bookish and intellectual, I see that you have this gift and tendency to think and speculate, but with that I think it's going to be a challenge for you on this new path simply to follow God without overthinking, without wondering too much about what comes next.“ “On target,“ I thought to myself, “wow, actually that is spot on.“ Of course it was a grace I needed to attend to. It was a sign, God spoke through her and that walk we had together. But the truth is that God is trying to speak to us through our daily lives like this, every day, all the time. It's just we aren't looking. It's just a pilgrimage for a whole host of reasons (physiological, psychological, social, spiritual) primes people to start expecting Him to work, to start waiting for Him to speak. And the signs He gives, the Word He communicates to us, open the way for us, showing us what to desire and why to desire.
Let's consider these three aspects finally from a social and semiotic point of view:
Destination
The reason so many prideful people will choose hell isn't that the vision of God won't be beautiful or attractive but that the vision of themselves will be so awful and confusing and at one point in the approach to God the self will have more gravitational pull than God and it's going to say, no further. God has rights to judge, yet the damned also reject the destination they were made for, they will reject it because they never desired it properly in this passing life. They desired the self or sin instead. I think the conundrum of desiring and desiring well can only be answered by beauty, by the movement of the heart. It's the heart that really brings thought and desire into harmony in one person, when the heart is ignited by beauty and their essence as a person is totally consumed in this roaring flame. Thus, this third social or semiotic dimension of life has the heart at the center, and the heart is moved by beauty, it's only the heart revealed in thought and action that creates beauty. And we can know something to be true without others, we can also desire without others, but beauty is contingent upon others upon communication between beings. A desert sunset moves our hearts because of the personality it reveals.
Thus, to return to philosophy, the great philosophical insight of Christianity, or of St Athanasius really, is that the all the riddles of the ancient philosophy, the many and the one, between the unchanging eternal world of forms and this passing world of decay and rebirth, etc, St Athanasius said these riddles could only be solved by a person, by the Person of Jesus Christ. Not math, not geometry, not grammar or logic or even politics and civilizational development can bridge the great divide, only A Divine Person. All of the great attempts of the ancient world in Greece and Rome to find the third that mediated the two worlds they discovered came up dry. In his discovery, St Athanasius privileged Sapientia and demoted Sciencia. The dumbest peasant, the lowliest pilgrim, can know Him, and know all things through Him. The aporia therein discovered was: Wisdom is as simple as getting to know a person, and its also as hard as getting to know a person. In contrast to the elitism of the ancient world, the Mediator Athenasius discovered only lets lowly pilgrims and dumb peasants get to know him.
But the most basic reality we can know is semiotic and communal. This couldn't be more concisely stated than in St John´s riff on the creation of the world in Genesis 1, at the start of his own Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life: and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness did not comprehend it.” But we can just as well translate logos into sign as we can into reason. This is the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, a revelation of community and of a community mediated and communicated by the Word, by the sign. Thus the most real things are the signs of Divine Communication. The most powerful thing is the signifying of the Divine Sign. The Christian interpretation of this truth is that one can only know oneself before the crucified God, before a crucifix and before the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at Holy Mass. This is where we find ourselves signified by the sign.
One way of interpreting the uniqueness of humankind, or that we bear the image of God, is to notice our capacity to become ourselves signs of God's love or being. The Book of Revelation speaks of the elect as being stars in the sky, emitting light, giving direction to those who gaze at them and study their order.
My general point here is that even for the “eat, pray, love” sort of shallow bourgois pilgrim, her self-insights on the pilgrim path are going to be coupled with apparent insights into the person that she perceives to be guiding her and all things. She interprets her experience as a pilgrim in light of her drawing closer to this personal entity, and the beauty He or She reveals on the path. And God sheds light on the just and unjust and so even this sort of pilgrim is going to get a special grace on a pilgrimage even if she´ll pervert it in a solipsistic, consumeristic way. In contrast, a Buddhist who realizes that god is nothing also realizes that the self is nothing. So there is always this balance, who we are is always in negotiation with the personal or impersonal force or forces working behind all things and ordering them. We are always in communication with a being or beings through the signs we learn to interpret as a manifestation of their personality. And from the spiritual point of view, the destination is this final unveiling of The Person that mediates one's understanding of order of things, others, and oneself to oneself.
For the bohemian bourgeois in the immanent frame this person is a kind of eternal interior Gerry Garcia. They find their inner Gerry and see him behind every tree and mountain as Gerry himself radiates in their hearts. But the key is that both Gerry and Jesus leave tracks. The enlightened Bobo, just like me as a Catholic, knows the signs and footprints of his Master. And if Gerry doesn't leave signs (I´m no true believer but can appreciate American Beauty) he at least leaves ample substances that help one see signs.
Path
But really the dynamic behind the dynamic is the force of recognition. Through recognizing how others recognize us, we allow their desires for us to signify our being and willing. This is Hegel´s great philosophical insight. We are who we are in being recognized by others, we desire what we desire in our recognition of the desires of others. Thus, our destination is really one of being recognized by The Mediating Person once and for all. But to get there, we are going to need to be recognized for who we are by at least a few but more likely hundreds of mediating persons that help us understand the One Mediator and how he sees and desires. Human growth and development is intractably social and semiotic for this reason: We are only pointed toward our destination in community through this process of mutual recognition.
The great power of a pilgrimage lies once again it its perfection and simplification of this brute fact of life: our life is really just a pilgrimage to eternity but unless you go on pilgrimage you wont ever be recognized as a pilgrim. And without being recognized as a pilgrem, you can´t begin to comprehend this aspect of life. Thus, its a useful exercise for this reason alone. There is a sort of cromroderie amongst pilgrims, they swap stories, they talk of their pains and ailments, they help eachother out, but the fraternity is based on a common destination and it shows how wonderful fraternity can be on when it exists on this basis. Even if its fleeting, even if its relatively superficial, the great genius of the camino de santiago is because its so ready-made and easy. If you wear a shell and have a backpack, maybe also have a staff or a few walking sticks, and place yourself along the camino, you will be recognized as a pilgrim. You begin to communicate a desire for your goal to others and they will return the favor with each small exchange. It becomes, for however short a time, your identity. For once in your life, your identity is based on your objective end, and your end is something you are actually going to reach, and its something good and noble. It´s magic, and a lesson of how beautiful our lives could be if we mastered this dynamic concerning life itself.
This dynamic allows people to reinvent themselves and make huge personal strides during a pilgrimage. They can play with their identity. What sort of pilgrim are they? A pius pilgrim, a solitary one, a singing one, a rustic pilgrim, a chatty one, a hardcore 5am starting 50km per day pilgrim. Self-reinvention can only occur in community and through the recognition of others and thus most easily in a community of well-meaning strangers who are headed in the direction you wish to go. A pilgrimage delivers on this front. If you´re lazy, try to be an ambitions pilgrim for a few weeks, see how you like your life and pilgrim-self. People will recognize you, talk about you, and confirm the identity, strengthen it. And the beauty of this possibility for self-experimentation is that it is readily applicable to life, you can return home and try to live out the pilgrim identity and spirit you cultivated on the path and its social incubator. This can also go horribly awry in particular with love affairs and the like, but immense potential for good is there. Both living as a pilgrim and being recognized as one, helps one to see life in its true character as a pilgrimage as well, thus all the insights and personal experimentation can readily apply to one´s life afterwards.
There is a wonderful sense of energy and zeal at St John Pied de Port, where all the pilgrims walking to Santaigo through France converge onto one path just before they cross the border into Spain. The walk over the pyrennies the next day to roncavalles is probably the hardest of the whole journey and it leaves one around 800km from Santiago. But the magic of St John Pied de Port is celebration of community, of coming together. Many have walked for weeks or months in relative solitude up until that point, now they are cloaked in the reverie of hundreds of other pilgrims, pilgrims from other trails and many just starting out. But the people are going where you are going, all the signs are on them, the shell, the backpacks, the smiles and euphoria, hundreds of stories marching with you, beside you, all in the same direction. Its amazing, but at bottom its the power of the destination manifested in community, through the signs of the community. Ultrea! they say to greet eachother, latin for “lets go further!“ or “press on!“ Its such a perfect and beautiful sign of cromroderie which summarizes all we can ever really say to our neighbor with our lives. Ultrea itself expresses the recognition of the identity of the pilgrim along with the desire to reach the goal. Its a pedagogy of the power of recognition in forging identity and sustaining desire. But the entirity of the camino frances which rests before thim is really an expression of the immense power of semiosis within the most diverse teleologically based community on earth coming together for 4 weeks.
The lesson is that the most profound thing you can do as a human is to desire to make your life a sign of your end, or, more properly said, to let beauty animate your heart, and let it forge your life into a brilliant sign of the destination. In this way, your signification and your recognition of others helps you compose the path for other people, you help them along the path and show it to them. Let God make you a missile pointed towards Eternity and people will start to recognize it. and in recognizing it, they will have the chance to desire it as well. The power of a place like St John Pied de Port is that it is a feast of this sort of desire and recognition.
Some people there are just starting, they don't know what to expect, some don't know why they are there. But others have already walked for a month or two. And those who walked for a month or two impress their desire on the others, their sacrifice and intensity immediately imposes itself on the newbies. “Wait, you've been walking from Warsaw?” “You wanted it that much?” so says the pilgrim starting out in St John in some combination of envy and confusion. But the magic has already taken place, the desire of the pilgrim from poland along with the beauty of his Why, already building for months in his heart spills over onto the the rest. His story imposes a sort of seriousness and intensity on psyche of others. “Wow this camino thing is no joke, this guy walked from Poland” the newbie ruminates on this point, and all of the sudden the question as to why he is walking meets him with an invigorating force. Desire is contagious in this way. And the best thing we can do with our lives is to have this effect on others, to point them towards the end we have been seeking so earnestly and with great suffering and sacrifice, to impart an intensity and earnestness for this end on others, to greet them with the beauty of our why. We should desire to become signs of God's Wisdom and Love, signs creating this wisdom and love and joy in others.
Sign
Thus it goes without saying, even from the point of view of natural philosophy, we come to the point that the greatest thing we could be for any society is a sign of our common destination, a sign pointing out the path toward this end. And our common end as humans is going to be a person who mediates reality and others and all things to us, through his recognition of us, and our recognition of Him recognizing us. And the most profound way we can become a sign of this common destination is by recognizing others and being recognized as en route to this destination or person, and thereby, extending the reach of His Person, through our very lives and being. This should be our “why?” as we exist on this earth, to extend the creativity of Jesus Christ through our semiotic presence in society. On our pilgrimage on this earth, the signs, the path, and the destination are all part of His agency, and our greatest hope is to be his instrument, to become His sign, a sign that points out the path for others.
It's annoying to my Christian eyes that people mystify the camino de santiago so much, saying things like: “did you walk the camino or did the camino walk you.” I dislike this as I don´t think the path itself, in its physical manifestation, does anything special. But the reason so many speak as if they are being acted upon is the dynamic I have tried to outline here: they are getting a destination, path, and signs right for the first time and it's wonderful and transformative. It teaches one how to see better, how to desire well, how to be better in community or what true community can look like when oriented around a common end. For the first time in their life their life and identity is consciously a sign of where they are objectively going and it's sort of simple and even silly but it feels great. And as God works through Nature, I do think God is at work here, even without rosaries, masses, relics, and cathedrals. He works miracles, heals people from trauma, builds confidence and trust in people's hearts.
Thus many, perhaps the overwhelming majority, of those who walk the camino de santiago then become signs commending their destination thereafter. The fruit of their pilgrimage is that their person itself becomes a small yellow arrow pointing to Santiago. They become evangelists of the camino, in a sense, when they return home, both in word and deed. I remember a pilgrim from Germany told me once “no camino is a success without inspiring someone else to walk.” I wrote the pilgrim who inspired me to go to thank him and have since heard from others thanking me. But really, this dynamic should be our whole lives, our whole person.
Who will be counted to be a disciple on the last day who didn't make any disciples? How few Christians or Catholics radiate this zeal for our destination, that one finds in secular pilgrims speaking of Santiago de Compostela? How few inspire others to seek their eternal end? I have almost certainly inspired more people to walk to Santiago than to follow Jesus. This displeases me but it is still not bad. These failures are all more the reason for Catholics to go on pilgrimage, and for me to try again. Grace perfects nature, and the nature of a pilgrimage can set a great deal of things in our life in order and prime them for supernatural perfection. Maybe some that decided to walk after meeting me will get to know Jesus along the way. Or maybe someday through walking I will become a true Apostle of Our Eternal End, where the signifying of The Sign, the recognizing of The Recognizer, lives and works and creates through my being, directing and invigorating others towards our common destination.
p.s. I gave my first pilgrim spiritual exercises walking from padua to assisi over 10 days, the realization of part of my vision for this vocation for the past few years. And it went really well! I tried to roughly summarize the content of this retreat in the post below. I will be offering these again on the camino de santiago this summer.
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Beautiful article. I'm glad I read this. Thank you for writing.