On our last day’s
walk up to Santiago it rains. As pilgrims we’ve learned one camino mantra well:
it is what it is. As Tasmanians we’ve
also learned to embrace “atmospheric” weather, recognising that rain begets
rainbows. And sure enough, as the sun tentatively lifts above the horizon, a
beautiful bow arcs its promise across the sky.
 |
[A promising start to our final day] |
Santiago is a city,
and like all such it sprawls untidily. If we feared that would mean an
anticlimactic last day slogging through suburbia, we are pleasantly surprised. Using
some clever rerouting and a less-than-straightline approach, the way manages to
get us close to the centre via relatively quiet and greenish paths.
 |
[Approaching Santiago de Compostela] |
When we eventually
reach the inner city, where concrete, stone and cars dominate, we’re within
sight of the cathedral spires. Still, that last kilometre is slow, and the
grand Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela proves surprisingly coy for such a huge
edifice. We trudge up the narrow lanes of the old city, craning our necks to
see our end point. Each of us is simultaneously bone-weary and elated. Lynne is
limping, but the rest of her is buoyant. So too are Tim and Merran.
There’s a false
“summit”, of course, when we walk into the side courtyard of the cathedral. But
a minute later it’s clear that we’re coming into the main cathedral square. Multi-coloured
marquis tents and stalls crowd the central area. Everywhere else there are
people, laughing, embracing, wandering, crying. A woman in a wheelchair pumps
her fists in emphatic jubilation. From one corner of the square comes the sound
of Galician pipes. And the tune? Thrillingly, it’s Aires de Pontevedra.
 |
[Pilgrims embracing in the Cathedral Square, Santiago] |
The four of us
embrace, hardly believing that our camino is over. For some time we just stand
there, smiling, laughing, searching for words that won’t come. Instead we walk
around in front of the cathedral just trying to take it all in. I’d read a few
accounts of pilgrims feeling a sense of anti-climax here; of their arrival at
the cathedral being a let down. It’s far from how we’re feeling right now. (Perhaps
in the next hour and a half, while we stand in a long line waiting for our
official compostela, we’ll come a
little closer to that.)
* * *
And now that we’ve
completed our pilgrimage, what was it all about? What have we taken home from
the journey? And did it serve any spiritual purpose, or somehow bring us closer
to God?
 |
[Happy Pilgrims: Lynne and me outside the Cathedral: (photo Tim Dyer)] |
Before this journey
began, I would certainly have said that you don’t need to go on a pilgrimage, or
enter a church, or climb a sacred mountain in order to draw near to God. Nonetheless
I was stunned by the beauty of some of the magnificent church buildings we
visited along the way. And the quiet inside them certainly allowed for a sense
of the holy. I was humbled along the whole journey to experience landscapes and
cultures that have been profoundly shaped by long exposure to the Christian
faith. And on our final day I was both thrilled and gobsmacked to witness the
53kg incense-filled botofumeiro whooshing
through the aisles of the Cathedral in Santiago during our Pilgrim Mass.
 |
[Inside Igreja Matiz, Ponte de Lima, Portugal] |
But for me it
wasn’t in those settings, not even in that concluding Mass, that I felt closest
to God. Rather the still small voice
of God seemed clearest on the journey itself. More than anything the simple act
of putting one foot in front of the other helped me sense that God was as close
as my next step, my next breath.
Walking everywhere,
every day, became a discipline; an act of obedience. We submitted to the way, moment
by moment, regardless of the difficulties. And there were some. At times I was brought
low by rain, by heat, by blisters, by muscle strains. I felt befuddled by
language barriers, and sometimes by my own mental state. Just because it’s a
pilgrimage doesn’t mean the pain is accompanied by a compensatory choir of
angels!
These hardships, according
to Quaker writer Parker Palmer, are not accidental but in fact integral to pilgrimage.
Challenges of that sort,
largely beyond our control, can strip the ego of the illusion that it is in
charge and make space for the true self to emerge.
Control is always
illusory, but that illusion shreds more readily when you’re far from your
everyday props and routines. And, as 16th century Spanish mystic
John of the Cross put it, God may be the closest when we feel we have lost
control. Reaching the end of my resources did nudge me towards a greater
dependence on God, even if through gritted teeth, and after the kinds of “frank”
exchanges that sometimes pass for my prayers.
Getting beyond that
grumpiness was important. Australian pilgrim and researcher, Lucy Ridsdale, pondered
whether walking pilgrimage
might be transformative, by way of enabling a deep shift from an attitude of
entitlement towards the world, to one of gratitude, as one’s fundamental
orientation.
When things didn’t
go to plan, it was tempting to grouch, and reach into the bottomless bag of
entitlement that comes with being well-off westerners. But we found that the
graciousness of locals, the flow of the walking, and the pilgrim mantra “it is
what it is”, all helped us to become more real, more present to the moment.
If God could tone
it down to a still, small voice, we
might do the same with our demands. We could instead take pleasure in the
simple things, like water, food, conversation, a soft bed under a solid roof, and
coffee (of course). We could smile at the wag of a dog’s tail, admire the skill
of long-gone builders, enjoy the symmetry of a ploughed field, savour the
fragrance of ripe fruit, or rejoice in the colour of tiles. And just once or
twice we could laugh at Merran breaking into an exuberant twirl mid-walk.
 |
[Merran does a twirl between Lynne and Tim] |
In all of this we
began to identify with early 20th century pilgrim and writer,
Hilaire Belloc, whose robust conclusion was that
the volume and depth and
intensity of the world is something that only those on foot will ever
experience.
For me as a
Christian, that intensity was magnified by the fact that Jesus himself was a
pedestrian and a wandering teacher. Walking past vines, sheep, shepherds, and
widows in black; watching fields ploughed or harvested; smelling crops of corn
or mustard, was like inhabiting Jesus’ parables.
 |
[Ripening fields in Galicia] |
And now it’s over,
except … There’s that question, the one that almost every pilgrim asks you.
“Will you be going on another pilgrimage?” While I wouldn’t rule that
possibility in or out, for me there’s another thought that lurks behind it. And
that is the notion that life itself might become an ongoing pilgrimage.
 |
[A mysterious doorway into an abandoned building] |
I can’t help thinking
of a mysterious doorway we passed on our last day. A narrow leafy path leads up
to the doorway of an old abandoned building. Beyond the entry I can see a winding
staircase that leads further up. I half expect to hear the voice of Aslan
saying
Come further up, come further in!
