[Gocamino] planning foe June pilgimage

[Donald Schell]

dear Molliebird

> we only have one  week and
> are planning to walk the last 100 km or so.  After reading a lot  of
> materials, I get the feeling that those that do only the last phases 
> of the  camino are
> looked down upon.  Any thoughts or suggestions on this?   thanks!

In 1998 after my daughter and I had walked at least 300 km. a bicycling 
pilgrim who had just begun his pilgrimage two days before asked where 
we had begun.  We told him St. Jean Pied de Port but quickly added that 
we had taken a bus from Logronyo to Leon.  "Oh," he said dismissively, 
"So, you're not real pilgrims."  He had decided that a 'real' walking 
pilgrim had to begin in SJPP, walk to Roncesvalles and then didn't take 
any wheeled transportation after that.  He explained that he would be 
bicycling longer than required for the Cathedral to recognize him as a 
pilgrim.  I often wondered as we walked whether a medieval pilgrim 
would turn down a ride on a haycart or wagon on its way to market.  My 
guess is not (unless perhaps one who had made a particular vow to 
walk).  My guess is that many pilgrims who had walked from far places 
in Europe gladly accepted bits of rest in a cart with a thank you to 
the driver and a prayer of thanks to God (and additional thanks to the 
Blessed Virgin and Santiago).  Medieval pilgrims walked everywhere.  
For them it was the everyman and everywoman version of travel.  For us 
it's something different - the counter-cultural choice to walk.  We're 
reinventing it, and some think that means we must be purists.

I liked Nancy Frey's observation of such conversations.  It was 
reassuring to know how common they are, but I also thought she was 
describing the exceptions, because most pilgrims accept one another at 
face value.  What I recall powerfully is the humility of remarkable 
people had who begun in places far back in Europe - Frankfort, 
Grenoble, Paris - and walked the whole distance.  They were the MOST 
accepting and reassuring of the many different ways we had become 
'real' pilgrims.  The farther a fellow pilgrim had walked, the less 
likely they were to impose a mental check-list to determine who was a 
'real' pilgrim and who not.

I also think sometimes about the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.  The 
tradition there is that the pilgrimage begins whenever the pilgrim sets 
out.  It's an old tradition (probably matched with Medieval tradition 
about pilgrimage to Santiago).  What's interesting in Islam's 
continuous practice is that today a pilgrim boarding a charter plane to 
Mecca is already embarked on the pilgrimage.  There's truth to that 
too.  Spending a day walking through Paris in pilgrim attire with our 
packs, walking sticks and shells as my wife and I did before boarding a 
night train to the French-Spanish border to begin walking the Camino 
there, we got stares, a few odd comments, and the random whispered 'Bon 
Chemin' or 'Buen Camino.'   That experience was certainly part of our 
pilgrimage.

Don't worry too much about what other people imagine your walking ought 
to be.

love,
donald