Non-Christian Pilgrims

[Felipe Sanchez]

Our groups have demonstrated admirable restraint and civilized behavior in
regard to the discussion of heretics, apostates, and non-believers on the
Camino.  Whereas I don't usual bruit about my personal views as many find
them offensive, I perceive that our subscribers are cut from a unique cloth
and this has plied me with confidence.

I have been an atheist since I was twenty some forty-seven years ago.  I am
entirely comfortable with the absence of doctrine and belief and will
discuss my situation with any and all interested parties.  Most people of
faith abide me with enduring patience, avoid me, or outwardly condemn me.
As a confirmed troglodyte this suits me well.  As one might expect, I do not
flaunt my atheism for I have grown weary and bored over the years at the
endless repetition of stock phrases and responses offered by those with whom
I have associated.  Now, bien, I was only queried as to my motives for
walking the Camino in the Refugio de Roncevalles.  The form had a series of
selections and to be quite frank I am not sure what I elected.  To me the
forms, the beliefs, the alliances, the approvals, all this was and is
unimportant.  I like Spain.  I enjoy walking and being alone.  "Desafios, "
challenges of this kind, attract me.  The simple rhythms of life--walking,
washing, sleeping, waking, walking--strike a resonant chord deep within me.
As a unique combination of inorganic material I profoundly identify with the
natural environment.  I am at one with fields, forests, foxes, hawks, hills,
rocks and rills.  The sun is my morning, the moon my night. Clouds are the
soft breath of nature aspiring toward change.  I am composed of all these
elements leavened by time and circumstance.  So I walk and as I do I grow
toward myself which I find not only inward but all about me.  But at no time
during my trek did I find the alien social world in any way prejudicial to
my passing.  And I did socialize both in English and Spanish.  Spain, the
Ecclesiastic infrastructure, the populace as a whole all treated me as I
have always been treated in the "Mother Country" with deference, civility,
warmth, and support.  Much of what has been discussed about non-Christian
experiences on the Camino is incomprehensible to me.  I perceived non of
this during May and June of 2001.  Everyone with whom I had acquaintance and
knowledge received a "Compostela" as did I with little delay and to the best
of my memory without queries as to motivation or religious alignment.  If I
had been asked I would have admitted all that I divulge here.  And if a
certificate or title or credential had been denied by the secular forces
that determine these things, the unique nature of my Camino passage would in
no way have been compromised.  My experience was personal, puissant, deep,
and needs in no way to be blessed, baptized, approved, consecrated, or
validated by institutions and their pettifoggers.  Such is the force of my
convictions, and once again I speculate, that judging from the emphasis on
social criticism and approval, institutional approbation, and sensitivity to
non-essential factors as demonstrated in the postings, I suspect that my
impressions and remembrances of the entire sojourn are more intense and pure
than those seen or perceived through the barriers and filters of doctrinaire
beliefs and stylized practices.  One can never know, of course.  Let me
append a further observation.  I attended the Pilgrim's mass in Roncevalles.
I sat in the back during the entire service and watched without
comprehension but unmolested.  I place my hand on the pillar in El Portico
de la Gloria and muttered a plea and also embraced Santiago behind the altar
with the same utterance.  In both instances I cried for I am emotive and
susceptible.  But I give the tears no elevated significance nor do I believe
I was touched by the Spirit.  During the swinging of the Botafumeiro I
abandoned the service in Santiago perceiving more spectacle than reverence.
And lastly, in regard to churches and cathedrals, I find them appalling.
They tend to diminish the human spirit, to impoverish our emotions by
belittling our status in our world.  They appear to me as monuments to the
proclivity of humans to take succor from denigration of self.  Furthermore,
the contrast between the opulence of edifices and the basic teachings of
Christianity is too great to be ignored by the rational mind.  The richest
institution in the world does not reflect, in my mind, some words I recall
from my youth:  "Give all you have to the poor and come and follow me."  So
now you know why I hesitate to discuss these subjects with less enlightened
groups than Gocamino and Santiagobis.  Felipe Sanchez
felipsanaolypen.com