Walking the Camino

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February 13, 2020 I Ms. Elizabeth Benestad

I was at lunch with Fr. Francis recently and we started talking about the Camino de Santiago. He asked if I would give a church talk on my experience. He followed that with – the kids like when the cool teachers speak to them. Ms. O’Reilly responded, You can still do it though Ms. Benestad.

Almost 2 years ago, in the spring of 2018, I took a sabbatical and spent that time walking the Camino. Officially known as the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, it is a pilgrimage. It stretches 800 km (500 miles) from the Pyrenees mountains in France all the way to Santiago de Compostela on the west coast of Spain. Originally a walk to pay homage to St. James where he is said to be buried under the Cathedral named after him, today more than 200,000 people walk The Way each year. One of my closest friends, who actually used to work here, came with me; she was the one who introduced me to the Camino. And lucky for me, she speaks Spanish. I’m not sure how far Latin would have gotten me.

And so, in early April we set out on our adventure. It took us 5 weeks to complete. We slept mostly in bunk beds in hostels and carried all of our belongings in a backpack. We didn’t have that much – just a couple of outfits, something to sleep in. The basics. Some days we walked for 5 hours, other days we were out there for 8. Walking for so many miles each day reminded me how to be fully present. As a runner, I think of mileage in terms of how long it takes to complete. But that attitude would have made for a very unpleasant experience on the Camino. We never really knew how long each day would take.  So we were forced to just be. Be with ourselves, be with other pilgrims, be with nature, be with God, be with our feelings at that moment.  My experiences doing yoga and headspace in the past few years were coming in handy and I felt like I was actually living in the moment, as they say. We would linger over lunch with no concern for the miles left to walk that day. We didn’t worry about what the rest of the day might bring. In the same vain, there was no competition and no medal for who walked the farthest. There was no need to impress anybody with what we did. As the saying goes we were human beings, not human doings.

I remember being excited about the people I would meet along the route. But I didn’t realize that we would continue to see the same people day in and day out. I felt like we were in a traveling town, because most people were following the same guide book and stayed in the same towns. We did continue to meet new people, as some were only out there for a week, or were walking at a different pace. As we met new people throughout the weeks, we shared most of our meals with these new friends. Luckily most people knew English. I was surprised at how willingly everyone shared their reasons for walking the Camino. I felt like I knew people on a deeper level. In just one meal, I often heard very personal stories usually only told to the close friends. Besides sharing their stories, other pilgrims were always willing to share their possessions to help another pilgrim, and it always happened at the most opportune time. I often thought of the passage where Jesus says, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'” This spirit of selflessness was so palpable because all of those situations happened to me. Except prison; I didn’t end up in prison.
We sometimes got separated from friends for a few days, but the joy of being reunited was like seeing someone you had known for years. That feeling of joy was constant. Especially in the last few weeks as we became closer with two people in particular, one from South Africa and one from Norway. As well as two others from the US. When I woke up each day, I was so excited to spend time with my Camino family as we called it. And our family grew and changed with each passing day.

Some days were more difficult than others. There was wind and rain. Concrete roads that made each step painful. Uphills and rocky downhills. The weight of the backpack. And halfway through, the bottoms of my feet started to hurt right below my toes. Whenever we walked on roads covered with rocks, stepping on a rock in the wrong way would send shooting pain into my feet. Hard to walk when your feet hurt. But it was all part of the journey. Everyone had some sort of ailment. And this combination of the good and the bad, the physical pain and the emotional joy, made the experience all the more special.

Unfortunately, there was more than just physical discomfort. With one week to go, I received a text message from a friend who used to live in Newport. We had coached runners together; she started the business Anchor Leg Coaching and I took over when she moved to Texas. Unfortunately the message was really from her husband, telling me Erin had died that morning. She had been diagnosed with her 3^rd brain tumor not too long before and was gone at the age of 35. As hard as it was to spend those next days with nothing but time to myself thinking about her, my friend Jill and my new Camino family were just what I needed. They let me cry, talk, be silent. Jill walked step for step with me that entire day, literally and figuratively. Erin and I had texted each other only days before she died, and she told me what a great friend I had been, and of course I said the same to her. What a blessing to have shared those words with her. One day at lunch a day or two after that, the owner of the café we were at asked if I wanted a stamp for my passport. We got stamps at almost every stop along the way to put in our Camino passport. 99% of them had a scallop shall in them because that was the symbol of the pilgrimage. But this stamp was an anchor. The symbol of my running group with Erin. It was like she was sending out a sign that she had made it to heaven and was no longer suffering. Signs were everywhere on the Camino. And not just the scallop shells or the yellow arrows telling you where to go. As we walked, we would look for the yellow arrows to keep us on the path. There was always an arrow right when we needed it. I think life in general is pretty similar. Whenever you are unsure, lost, not sure which road to take, there is always a sign pointing you in the right direction. A friend, a family member, an event, a book, a cancer diagnosis of a family member, whatever. Look for them; they’re there.  As we often said, the Camino provides. I still find myself saying, The Universe provides. God provides.

As the Camino came to an end, I felt a little sad. Of course, I’ll never forget that last day when we left at 6:00 am in order to get to Santiago for the pilgrim mass at noon and the overwhelming feelings as we walked into the St. James plaza and took in the view of the church, but I hated to see it all end. For a little over a month, I got to spend my time with the best of humanity in a small slice of the world. Strangers looking out for one another, sharing stories, feeling like old friends, celebrating the journey, lifting one another up. I often heard people say, the Camino really begins once you finish it. It’s not always easy to keep that spirit of being a pilgrim alive. Everyday life is not as simple as life on the Camino. But when we remember that we are all pilgrims and that God put us on our own specific journeys, we will embody that spirit of a pilgrim – we will build each other up more; we will give unconditionally; we will be fully present in each moment; we will experience God’s love as a result, and even in difficult times, we will feel that same joy day in/day out.