[Gocamino] More books

[Sue Kenney]

When I finished my Camino, I told stories about my journey. People then asked me to write a book. I had no intention of doing that before I left or while I was walking. I've written 2 books. I don't believe that the books are about selling people the idea of walking the Camino, but rather about selling people the idea of being on their life journey...where ever that is.
 
There is a saying on the Camino that if you walk past a pilgrim in need, you have to go back to the beginning of your journey and walk it all over again. I approached writing my story as a way to share it with people who told me they wanted to read it. In the end, the process of writing allowed me to re-live the experience from the perspective of an observer of my own life. I saw my weaknesses and my strengths. It took a lot of courage to put this on paper and share it with the world. The process of writing had powerful repercussions in how I chose to embody the notion of being a pilgrim in life. If only one person is inspired in some way to live their life more congruent with their absolute self, then I feel my work is done. 
 
Some people write long posts on email, some people write poetry, some people write books and some keep it to themselves. As a pilgrim, I am not in judgment of what's right or wrong and I would never critisize anyone for having the courage to write their story.  
 
My advice to pilgrims always is to keep telling and writing the stories of the Camino. 
They are gifts that we are meant to share. 9 years later, I'm still telling the same stories and a few more!
 
Here's a story about my journey to becoming an author.
 
http://chazzwrites.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/author-profile-sue-kenney-my-camino/


Love and light,
Sue
www.suekenney.ca

 

> To: cpagett at cox.net; GoCamino at oakapple.net; saintjames at yahoogroups.com
> From: blaroli at aol.com
> Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 09:04:38 -0500
> Subject: Re: [Gocamino] More books
> 
> 
> Hi,
> The article appeared in something called "McLeans.Ca" and it was written by Jane Christmas.
> Regards,
> Rosina
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pagett11 <cpagett at cox.net>
> To: GoCamino <GoCamino at oakapple.net>; Rosina <blaroli at aol.com>
> Cc: saintjames <saintjames at yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sat, Dec 18, 2010 2:17 am
> Subject: Re: [Gocamino] More books
> 
> 
> Hi Rosina - Can you tell us who wrote the article? Cherie Pagett
> D: I couldn't finish Coehlo's book either!
> ---- Original Message ----- 
> rom: "Rosina" <blaroli at aol.com>
> o: <GoCamino at oakapple.net>
> c: <saintjames at yahoogroups.com>
> ent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 9:38 PM
> ubject: [Gocamino] More books
> 
> 
> Hello you all,
> I, myself, do not understand why so very many pilgrims feel compelled to 
> write about their pilgrimage. Doing so minimizes and obscures what in my 
> perception is the most valuable benefit of the pilgrimage: the journey 
> from the outside oneself, (too involved with the busy-ness of the world 
> all around, and with the incessant claims of life and of others,) to the 
> inside oneself: silently, quietly, un demandingly in the depth of 
> awareness , and, theretofore, hardly noticed, but nevertheless the pillar 
> of the soul. It seems to me that such intensely personal journey by 
> necessity requires silent intimacy and, consequently, the most punctilious 
> privacy.
> Kathy Gower explained to me one time, when I told her of my individual 
> dislike of such talk-show-like pouring out of Camino experiences in books, 
> that some pilgrims are so overwhelmed by their Camino feelings that their 
> "cup runneth over" onto books. That sounds sensible.
> But I no longer read personal Camino accounts (with the notable exception 
> of the book written by the German TV personality which was different and 
> extremely witty and well written).
> Perhaps the fact that, save for Jane Austen and the classics, I haven't 
> read any fiction books for many a decade, may color my reading choices, 
> and, frankly, some of those "true" Camino accounts that I tried to read 
> years ago seemed anything but. Remember Coehlo's book? (couldn't finish 
> it), and Shirley McLaine's? and on and on.
> But, my friends, as the country people have it: "different strokes for 
> different folks".
> And, so, here is an article about three new Camino-related books available 
> in English.
> Hugs!
> Rosina
> 
> 
> -------
> Recent research from the University of Innsbruck in Austria revealed that 
> Westerners no longer give a fig about whether their lives have meaning. 
> Tell that to the more than 400,000 people who trod the Camino de Santiago 
> de Compostela (literally, the Way of St. James in the Field of Stars) in 
> the last few years.
> Modern-day quests usually begin with the universal complaint: “How can I 
> escape the insanity of my life?” Before you know it you’re trolling the 
> aisles of Mountain Equipment Co-op convincing yourself you’ll be perfectly 
> comfortable hiking through a country you’ve never visited and whose 
> language you don’t speak.
> Walking Spain’s ancient 800-km pilgrim’s route with the barest of 
> necessities has become a popular New Year’s resolution. It’s not for 
> wimps, but many a wimp (I am one of them) has been known to hike the 
> entire thing. There are steep hills aplenty—more than you can shake a 
> walking stick at. The trail ends at the Catedral de Santiago de 
> Compostela, where it is said that the bones of Christ’s apostle James 
> (a.k.a. Santiago) are buried. As legions of pilgrims will attest, the 
> Camino is a life-altering experience that resonates years and decades 
> after you’ve pried your hiking boots from your hot, blistered feet.
> 
> Three recent books tackle the spiritual and emotional challenges that 
> accompany a journey of some consequence.
> An unlikely Australian duo—a man in his fifties and a woman in her 
> twenties—take on the Camino in The Year We Seized the Day. They aren’t 
> romantically involved; in fact they barely know one another, having met 
> briefly at a writers’ festival. He’s a travel writer looking for a book 
> subject; she’s a confidence-lacking writer trying to improve her literary 
> prospects by riding on his coattails. Beneath the intense glare of the 
> Spanish sun in July (an utterly mad time to do the pilgrimage, by the 
> way), each begins to come clean about the reasons that have brought them 
> to the Camino. Wavering between the visceral (“I am hit by a wave of 
> loneliness so intense, I almost double over as if kicked in the balls”) 
> and the humorous (“We are edging along a cliff face, there is a sheer drop 
> on one side, a stumble will see her over the edge and my workload for the 
> book immediately double”), we gradually discover a truism of Camino 
> pilgrims: the person you perceived to be the strongest turns out to be 
> weighted down with weakness, while the one you thought was a lightweight 
> shows surprising strength and resilience.
> Julie Kirkpatrick discovers her own truth in a much different way in The 
> Camino Letters. Before setting out with her 17-year-old daughter, 
> Kirkpatrick asked 26 friends to give her a task a day (she figures the 
> Camino will take 26 days to walk). She receives orders that range from the 
> tough love (to ask herself why she continually falls for people she knows 
> will hurt her) to the banal (to list five things for which she’s 
> grateful). Kirkpatrick’s introspective responses, delivered in the form of 
> letters to the day’s taskmaster, are personal and raw as she ruminates on 
> family, bereavement, and the stress of the elusive work-life balance.
> The Miracle Chase has nothing to do with the Camino but everything to do 
> with miracles, which, incidentally, abound on the Camino. In this case, 
> three American women, each of whom has experienced a miracle, decide to 
> launch a collective quest into miracles. These are smart, ordinary 
> gals—they could be your neighbours—armed with not much beyond a healthy 
> dose of skepticism and a ton of curiosity. Over a 10-year span, they 
> research the history of miracles, interview miracle recipients, debate the 
> validity of miracles, review the scientific evidence, and try to come up 
> with a modern definition. Their own miracles are vastly different but 
> equally harrowing: one of the women recounts her escape from serial killer 
> Ted Bundy; another is diagnosed with breast cancer in the midst of the 
> trio’s miracle chase; the third one’s life changes when
> 
> her infant daughter is abused by a babysitter. Told with wisdom and 
> humour, The Miracle Chase is as much about miracles as it is about the 
> power of friendship and of once-in-a-lifetime journeys, minus the steep 
> hills
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