I have learned that everyone walks the Camino for a reason. This is my second Camino, and thus far I have not met anyone who approaches this 1,500-year-old path without a spiritual and emotional objective.
The reasons are not always clear. Sometimes the reasons are even unclear to the person walking. But the reasons are there. They walk so they can find something. Something unnameable.
They don’t know what this something is. They just know that this something is not the same “something” their parents, their family, their culture, or their religion has tried to cram down their gullet.
The young Austrian student, Heinrich. “I walk the Camino because when I leave University, I know that I do not want to do what my father and brothers have been doing in life. Which is work, work, work. And for what? Why do they work? More money? More things? What about God? Where does he fit in? Is he just another thing? Or is he all things?”
The 22-year-young woman from Ukraine. “All my brothers are in the military, and the man I was going to marry died in the war, and my father is dead. It seems my family’s whole life has been about wars and fighting and dying. I need peace. I have come here to seek peace.”
David, a middle-aged man from Colorado. “I sold all my possessions and started volunteering at this albergue because I want to be of service to pilgrims and anyone who travels this road. I know what this road can do. In the US, we are sometimes so focused on the wrong things, like becoming famous or growth and prosperity. Our American culture is very businesslike, always focused on more, more, more. But God is found in less, less, less.”
The 22-year-young woman from Portugal. “I am looking for cute boys.”
Harald, from Germany, a middle-aged man with a strong face, square shoulders, and hands like supermarket hams. “Anyone who walks the Camino, no matter who they are, no matter where they are from, at some point on this path, they will cry.”
Martha, a 43-year-old from Texas. “My mom took her own life. And I never had the relationship with her that I wanted. I’m out here to be with her and to build a relationship with her because I can feel her spirit around me all the time. I know she’s there. She’s with me now. I am here to meet her.”
John, 23, Houston, Texas. “As I walk this Camino, I am perpetually praying the girl from Portugal considers me a ‘cute boy.’”
Tracy, a 19-year-old from New Zealand. “Sometimes I felt like nobody loved me when I was a little child. My parents divorced and started new families of their own, and had more kids. And I became an imposition to both of them, and a reminder of their mistaken marriage. I ended up going to foster parents. But I have learned at this age that I can love myself, and I can love everyone around me, and give them what love I never had. And if I let them love me in return, we are all healed.”
Elizabeth, from the UK. “When I turned seventy, I decided no more waiting. My husband and I always wanted to walk the Camino, and now we walk it together. I brought a small portion of his ashes with me, and will leave them on this trail.”
Larry, UK, 39 years old. “I have been married three times, but it wasn’t until the third divorce that I realized who the true problem was in my marriages. Them.”
Ha-yoon, 36, a happy woman from South Korea. “I do not want to miss my life. Camino is for me to live all the way. I spend my life caring for others, and caring for family and husband. But I must take care of me, because if I don’t, who will? Korean women are not always urged to love themselves sometime. We are taught to put ourselves last. But this is not real love, is it? My children are happy for me to walk this Camino. But husband does not understand.”
An elderly man from Madrid. “I have walked 22 Caminos. People ask me why I do it. The reason is simple. I do it to know more about myself.
“You see, peregrino, we humans sometimes ignore ourselves. We are so busy serving our families and friends and being obligated to one another, that we forget to truly love ourselves. But you cannot love yourself if you have never even MET yourself.”
“Well, how do you meet yourself?” asks one young pilgrim.
The old man rests a paw on the young pilgrim’s shoulder. There is a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face.
“The more you get to know other people, the more you will know yourself.”
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Originally published on Sean’s website. Republished here with permission.
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