Worry on the Camino

[Gene Silva]

Jim Allen wrote:
  Thomas Jefferson drove his horse and buggy for about three weeks to get from Va. to Philadelphia.  No cell phones, no phones, no nothin'.  But............it gave him time to think up some of the words for the Declaration of Independence.


  You're absolutely right about that, Jim. On the other hand, Mr. Jefferson got some help from others in Philadelphia including John Adams who exchanged letters with his wife Abigail virtually on a daily basis. You might call that the functional equivalent of "phoning home" in the eighteenth century.

  Personally, I find cell phones annoying and intrusive. On several occasions they were for me a jarring presence on the camino. But I remember the relief on the face of a middle aged woman from Canada who stepped away from the dinner table one evening to call her daughter with whom she had not spoken in several days. She and I, together with a French Basque navyman, had walked together for six hours that day. I was not even aware she was carrying a cell phone because it had been turned off. Her absence for ten minutes amounted to a brief interlude in an otherwise wonderful conversation at day's end covering topics ranging from history to religion. My point is that the responsible use of a device to call home on occasion, without bothering others and without interfering with whatever thought processes, ambience, prayerful reflection or whatever else inspired you to undertake the journey in the first instance, is not fatal to the overall experience.
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