January 20, 2012
A pilgrim’s personal experience on the Way of St. James
Daniel Cannon, center, poses with a Portuguese couple in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. (Message photo courtesy Daniel Cannon) Click for a larger version.
By DANIEL CANNON (Special to the Message)
Editor’s note: Daniel Cannon is a project manager who lives in St. Charles, Ill., near Chicago. He is the son of Richard and Zoe Cannon of Vincennes.
Many would not consider eight days of hiking a refreshing and spiritual experience, but talk to anyone who has taken a pilgrimage along one of the many paths of the Way of St. James, or El Camino de Santiago, and you will find someone who has a different point of view. The Way is a pilgrim journey to the city of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, where tradition holds the remains of St. James the Apostle are buried at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. For hundreds of years Christian pilgrims have made the journey to Santiago from all points of Europe to pay homage to St. James or as an act of penance. It was declared a European Culture Route in 1987, so both secular and spiritual pilgrims share the journey together for various reasons.
I first heard about the Camino from the Paulo Coelho book The Pilgrimage and later from friends I work with in Mexico who desired to make the journey to Santiago themselves. During the period of idle talk before making my formal plans of becoming a pilgrim I found it difficult to gather the appropriate material to prepare for my journey, so I had to rely on word of mouth from a handful of people who had journeyed along the Camino. Funny enough, a movie has just been released about the Camino written by and starring Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen called “The Way,” so now the word is out and with it I am sure will be a flood of books and information for fu-ture pilgrims from the U.S. So, without a proper guidebook or any real sense of what I was getting myself into, but carrying with me a lot of faith, my journey began on Sunday, Sept. 18 from my home in St. Charles, Ill. I arrived in Santiago on Mon-day, September 26.
I could go into a day by day account of what I saw and experienced, the people that I met, and the pain of blisters and the burden of carrying a pack that was too heavy, but to me these details are immaterial. My reason for taking this pilgrimage was to reconnect with God without the distraction of normal everyday life. It is sad that I had to completely disconnect from everything to do so, but there is nothing wrong with dropping everything for something you feel led to do.
Reflecting on my days on the Camino I feel that I was able to achieve the sense of communion with God that I was seeking. Through the early morning silences, the afternoon devotions during my walk, and the time spent in prayer at Mass in the evenings, I was able to push out of my mind the meaningless cares and worries of my “reality” back home. What mattered to me during these moments was that I did not feel preoccupied.
I met many people along the Camino who were clearly there for different reasons, yet we were all able to find common ground during our journey. In the grand scheme walking great distances may not be the most tremendous accomplishment, but between the pilgrims there was a great deal of fellowship and relationship building that made our experiences together extraordinary. “Buen Camino” was exchanged several times a day among pilgrims. Each of us took one day at a time — some meditated, others just embraced the enjoyment of a good meal and good company with fellow pilgrims, and others admired the amazing and visually stunning land and cityscape full of both history and life. I could not help but embrace it all.
The simple act of walking brings out something in a person mentally and physically. The voice of the Camino can be heard if you listen. Unspoken questions are answered — “How far can I walk today?” “Can I push on with my legs and feet hurting this badly? What is this pain and sacrifice?” “What does the burden on my back represent? Can I carry someone’s cross today?” A quiet mind acts as a black hole, where thoughts and other silly random wonderings disappear. You begin to hear your footsteps, and become aware that with each step you are following the path of the people that have walked ahead of you in the pursuit of a variety of things, but whose connection you feel deeply in your mind and heart. You become aware of the early morning fog around you, breathing in the moist air as if cleaning your soul and washing you of all sin, pain, doubt, and worry — only then to walk out of the fog into brilliant sunlight, warming every ounce of your being and inspiring a sense of rebirth.
When was the last time that you truly enveloped yourself in silence for an extended period of time and in the stillness reflected on the journey of Life and the blessings given to you by God? We are often unaware of what is truly happening around us. We are caught up in the distractions of work, school, sports and raising families. We sometimes mindlessly muddle through the week with the goal of getting to the weekend where we think we are going to relax, only to find we are more busy than ever doing this and that. I am as guilty of going through the motions as anyone else. During my meditative quiet walking on the Camino I did not solve the world’s problems or come up with anything profound or new. I did, however, allow myself to feel God’s presence – in the fog, sun, each footstep, in every kind stranger, at Mass in the evenings, in preparation for each day’s walk. I felt him while sitting in the square outside the Cathedral in San-tiago watching the other pilgrims arrive after their long journeys. Their sense of accomplishment, awe, reverence, ex-haustion, relief, happiness, joy, and disbelief — I felt connected to them all because I was feeling everything they were feeling.
Since my return I have tried to maintain that same focus I lived each day on my pilgrimage. I know I had to return to “reality” but I wanted to make it a new and improved “reality.” My life has become an extension of the Camino. Each day I wake up and put on my hiking boots to trek down the dusty path seeking communion with God, community with friends old and new, and experience any opportunity for growth and learning based on what comes my way on the path — to decide, to accept, and to move forward. I journey to listen for God’s Will and focus on what I am hearing. I have taken the Camino home with me in more ways than one . . . and the journey continues.