request for openness

[Maria Schell]

Dear All,
   I am very disappointed at the level of conversation that has been going
on at this listserv.  It bothers me quite a bit as I feel we are not acting
as a community of pilgrims, we have in some important way drifted from our
path.  But our pilgrimage here has no yellow arrows to lead us so, its feels
now as if we are quite lost.
   It is very unclear to me why it would be a problem to talk about
historical aspects of the Camino, if only for interest sake.  Do I think it
matters to my experience whether or not St. Francis walked the Camino?  Or
do I feel that my pilgrimage is any less because there may or may not have
been a million  pilgrims on the road in the middle ages?  No.  But do I find
these topics interesting and appropriate in a discussion about the Camino?
Yes!
   Because I saw so many people asking more or less the same practical
questions (both in person and on this list) I set up my website with a FAQ's
page.  I did this so that we could free up some of the conversation time
from when to make the pilgrimage, what to bring, etc. to other aspects of
the Camino, like its spiritual meaning, its historical context
   It doesn't strike me that people are showing off when they share their
knowledge with us.  I am not a historian, and so I appreciate when those
with historical experience share with me.  Part of what drew me to the
Camino in the first place was that it wasn't just a hiking trip though
Europe, but a trip with past history.  This is not a listerv about hiking,
but about pilgrimage and you cannot talk about pilgrimages without looking
at the historical context under which they developed.
   I truly hope that we can find so peace again in this listserv. Perhaps we
need to remember the great level of cooperation that sleeping in a dorm room
with 60 other people takes and use that for our model.
Maria
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