Regarding Santiago de Compostela Jack Hitt once quoted an ancient document when he wrote, “Its doors are open to all, well and ill, not only to Catholics, but to pagans, Jews, heretics, the idler and the vagabond and, to put it shortly, the good and the wicked.”
As anyone who has walked the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) will tell you the pilgrimage is, in many ways, very Catholic. But unlike some Catholic parishes I have been to, there is nothing exclusionary about the Camino. All truly are welcomed. No one is taking attendance and no one is asking your faith, your sexual orientation, or your politics. To do so would be a betrayal of the Camino spirit and would likely be met with harsh rebuts from nearby pilgrims.
Though I walked the Camino in 2012 and 2013 it was one pilgrimage. After making to Villafranca del Bierzo I noticed that a rather large blister on my right heel had become infected. Actually, a volunteer nurse at the alberque noticed it when I asked for some bacitracin and a bandage. She said the infection was serious and that if I continued on I could be in danger of losing my foot! Well, that was that. Luckily for me there was a bus station on the outskirts of the town that would take me to Madrid so I could get a flight home. The bus schedule was posted online but the Spanish are not quite as punctual as the Germans. The morning after getting the news from the nurse, I hobbled my way to the bus station. There was a small café there and I asked the barista if I was in the correct place. He responded that I was. I ordered a café con leche and waited… and waited… and waited. It was 11:30am and the bus was supposed to be there at 10:45am. I once again questioned the barista. His response, “Si, sometimes it is late and sometimes it might not come at all. If it doesn’t come today, you can try again tomorrow.” Such is life in Spain. Truth be told, I sort of love it.
The bus eventually rolled in and I started my trip back home to Rhode Island, disappointed and humbled, but determined to return to Villafranca the following year to complete my Camino, which I of course did. It was a life changing experience and I long to walk the Camino again. Like many pilgrims, I often have trouble articulating what the Camino really is. I can quote all the myths and histories of the Way and explain the logistics of the Walk, but that hardly touches the surface. Imagine trying to make someone understand what it is to be in love - you can give all the descriptors in the world, all the poetic metaphors that can be conjured, and it won’t even come close to the feeling of being in love. Such is the reality of trying to explain the feeling of the Camino. The best response I have been able to muster to the question, “What was it like on the Camino?, is that the Camino is the way the world should be. Let me unpack that for a moment.
Pilgrims along the Camino give freely to each other. They help one another without expectation and from what I witnessed, without reservation. Whether it be earplugs, some water, an aspirin, or a few euros until the next town with an ATM, Pilgrims provide for one another. It is humanity at its best. At one stop along with way, in a town called Ponferrada, there was a small table at the entrance to my refugio with all sorts of items that were seemingly left behind by pilgrims. There were small knives, towels, water bladders, boots, hiking socks, walking sticks, some cooking equipment, and all sorts of other random items. These were good items, usable items that other pilgrims left behind in case those following them were in need. Similarly, at some of the places I stayed there was no mandatory fee, only a request for a donation. A requested donation for a bed, a shower, and a hot meal - all for the price of, “give what you can.” The food we ate was paid for by the donations of the pilgrims from the previous night while our donations would pay for the meals of the pilgrims the next night. Every day along the Camino, strangers help one another because that is what we are called to do.
The Camino helped restore and build within me a deep faith. Not in God or miracles, but in humanity. I saw kindness towards our fellow man and wondered why we don’t live our non-Camino lives in the same way. The Camino helped get me to a place in which I believed that mankind, though flawed and sometimes cruel, had an enormous capacity for good. I believed that people were generally kind and wanted to help one another, but they only needed to be shown the Way. I believed this for many years.
Then Pandemic.
There was not much giving to strangers early on in the Pandemic. What we saw was the hording of toilet paper an hand sanitizer. To hell with the needs of the many, I need to look out for myself and clearly what I need is 500 rolls of doo doo paper. Sorry neighbor, you should have gotten to the store earlier. And as annoying as that was, it pales in comparison to what we see during these later stages of the Pandemic - especially concerning masks and vaccines.
“I’m healthy so I don’t need to vaccinate.”
“It is my personal freedom that matters and I’m not wearing a mask!”
“If you are so scared, then just stay home, the rest of us want to live our lives!”
“If you don’t like it, then just leave!”
“I have no sympathy for these unvaccinated people. They should not be treated in the hospital, they made their choices. Let Darwinism do its thing!”
“Kids hardly ever die of this!”
The Pandemic has shown what we really are… and it is not pretty. We are an angry, selfish, deluded, ignorant and just outright mean species. Suddenly doctors are the enemies of freedom because they recommend kids wear masks in schools. Suddenly a Google search counts as “research” and everyone thinks they are an expert in everything but they don’t believe the actual experts. At a time when Covid should be our enemy, we instead fight each other. Political talking heads try to score points with their key demographics, consequences be damned. We pretend that wearing mask is a huge burden while dismissing the idea that doing so may help protect another person - but that doesn’t matter because we have already decided that personal freedom and happiness is far more important than doing something to help another person.
The only conclusion I am left with is that humans are not inherently kind and charitable, we are selfish and are willing to watch the world drown as long as our side has the boats. It doesn’t matter if there is room for everyone on these boats, they should have gotten their own boats!
What the Camino restored in me the Pandemic has destroyed. The physical struggle of Camino brings out the best in people. The Pandemic has brought out the absolute collective worst. You may read this and feel compelled to point out all the folks trying to do good, and yes there are many. I have come to understand that a person may be good but people… not so much.