Camino too easy?

[Rosina Lila]

   I read somewhere that you cannot think of two things at the same time.
This can be a very good thing.
  The first time I walked the Caiman (from SG) I had not wanted to go and
certainly had not planned or prepared anything for it.  I only went to keep an
eye on my sister in law who'd been talking about the Caiman forever and finally
had a bicycle made and set the date to start her pilgrimage.
  She did not speak a word of anything but English at the time and had really
never been out of the country by herself.  We became quite worried about her
and since I was the only one in the family who knew Spanish, could take the
time off, and was running up to Seville at the slightest opportunity, I agreed
to go to make sure that she'd be all right.
I had never been in the north of Spain, knew little or nothing about the
Caiman, and decided to make the best of it sightseeing and catching up with my
reading.  Most of my luggage consisted of books and I was going to follow my
sister in law by car, or bus, while she bicycled to Santiago.  Arriving in
Pamplona we stayed at a lovely little hotel called "Leyre"; when the manager
mentioned that the hotel was called Leyre after the monastery with its artistic
treasures, its incredible history, its unbelievable library and its Benedictine
monks that sing Gregorian chants at services several times a day, there was
nothing to do but to make a day trip to the Monastery.  The day that we were there
the monks were having a service remembering their seven brother monks who had
remained in Algeria of their own free will, although they had the opportunity
and, indeed, had been urged to leave, and were beheaded in 1996, one by one, in
front of each other.  At the service the monks read the letters of their
martyred brethren wherein they wrote that they had remained because their
Christian duty required that they not abandon the community that they had served, at
the foot of the Atlas Mountains, for decades.
       I had never heard of the beheadings, was hugely shocked about it and
moved besides myself by the martyred monks' letters.  It then  seemed clear
that the spiritual turmoil that the story unleashed within me could only be
quieted by taking some kind of faith-related action.  Three days later at was in
SJPP  with freshly bought shoes, backpack, and stick walking up the foggy
mountain.
       Like many New Yorkers I consider walking an inefficient use of time
when one can ride and get some place so much faster; I suffer the New Yorkish
infirmity of automatically raising an arm to stop a taxi when a free one comes
into view. All sorts of exercise are, and have always been, foreign to me. The
British actress Glenda Jackson once said that when a thought of exercising
crossed her mind she laid down until the urge passed.  I agreed with her
absolutely.
       Yet, in the thirty-four days that it took me to walk to Santiago I
found it difficult only the first two nights when I couldn't sleep because my
legs hurt a lot; after the third day they didn't hurt anymore and I had no
problems other than timing my liquid intake according to the likely availability of
bars with bathrooms.
       During those days of walking up, and down, in the heat, in the rain,
surrounded by other pilgrims, or alone,  I was absorbed first, with the seven
dead monks and their letters and then, as I leaned more about it, with the
significance of the Camino and its wondrous place in the human family.
When I came back to New York, my doctor told me that there were logical
reasons why I had withstood the demands of such a long walk so well: first, I
weighed only about 100 pounds and, while in my late fifties, I was in fairly good
health; second, my mind was occupied every minute with many thoughts other than
the physical challenges of such a long undertaking, and, lastly, I had not
known what I was getting into it and had not preconditioned myself to worry
about it.
I suppose that, as they say, ignorance can be bliss.
Warm Regards,
Rosina
ps. I have a booklet containing the letters of the martyred monks; if any one
of you wants to know more about them, let me know.
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