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<P><FONT size=2><SPAN class=850580716-14032001>JOhn--</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><SPAN class=850580716-14032001></SPAN><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=850580716-14032001>I am going to be gauche and send this email
again. It starts with "I found the full range...." I believe I
sent it before you were on the list, so you may not have seen it, but it seems
relevant to your comments.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><SPAN class=850580716-14032001></SPAN><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=850580716-14032001>Also, have you read "The Field of the Star" by Nicholas
Luard; it is also by a man mourning the death of his daughter on the Camino
(published by Penguin). I am glad to hear that the Camino gave you a means
to offer your daughter a final gift. I was touched by
that.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2><SPAN class=850580716-14032001></SPAN></FONT><FONT size=2>I
found the full range from devout Roman Catholics who walked for all the benefits
of the pilgrimage (very few folks) to "tourists" (also very few). The bulk of
those I walked with intended a spiritual experience of some kind while having an
ambivalent stance towards the Church. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>I relearned how religion functions in Spain. I walked with some
folks from Madrid who never talking about "their faith" or God or any of that.
But one day, in the course of all of our chatter about how the Camino had been
so far for all of us, one of them spoke about how much the blessing in
Roncesvalles meant to her. That night they all went to Mass and encouraged the
rest of us to go with them (that sounds worse than the experience actually was:
they wanted all of us to be together for the evening outing, rather than
fretting about the state of our souls). It was in Los Arcos, where the priest
also makes a point of blessing pilgrims, and they wanted that again and were
very moved by it (tears and all...). IN Pamplona, in San Saturnino, the priests
also bless pilgrims, but forgot to do it the night I was there. I went up to the
altar and asked if it were still being done and would it be done that night; the
priest gladly came out and blessed us. I found out later that one of the
pilgrims present that night had been rather upset by the priest's
oversight--clearly the pilgrim expected and wanted the overt religious
supports.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>I also recall several folks who wanted other pilgrims to join
them in devotional observances which were rather vaguely New Age, mostly because
they wanted some sense of spiritual intention for their walk. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>I believe about half of us had some feeling of private spiritual
orientation and did our prayers and things on our own. It was never unusual to
go into a Church and find a pilgrim kneeling there, though that person was not
overtly religious.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>The point for me is this. I sensed that for most of us, the
Camino heightened or intensified our spiritual orientation in subtle ways. This
intensification is like developing a benign(!!!) allergic reaction to
something--I mean that whenever you are exposed to it in the future, you know
you are in the presence of it--or like a musical instrument being tuned up or
like a candle wick being prepared for lighting. People seemed (I know I was)
more willing to practice their rituals openly and simply on their own for their
own reasons as the Camino wore on, less in need of getting everything to "look"
or "act" a certain way or getting others to join them. After walking for five
weeks, something gets reduced, boiled down, rendered....</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>I wonder if all this veers towards an answer to your
question?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2>Michael</FONT></P></DIV>
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