Do I really have to suffer to be a 'real' pilgrim? - A Camino enthusiast's dilemma

[november_moon]

Yeah, all those frequent flyer points, they just drag you down....

Yes, that is a major upside of travelling for work - that's what I used use buy our plane tickets to Spain in June These miles have helped us go more places over the years than we could otherwise afford, so we definitely take the opportunities while they are there.

Is there necessarily a difference between spiritual and religious? I assume by "religious" you mean one who is part of an institutional religion, such as a Christian denomination. Can a Catholic, Anglican, Episcopalian, Lutheran, or a member any denomination also be spiritual?

I think that religion is spiritual, but not all spirituality is religious. It is sort of like that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Like squares, to be religious requires additional criteria. Spirituality is more broad - lots of things qualify as spiritual that wouldn't quality as religious.

If one is religious and walking for religious reasons, are those necessarily different than using the time to sort out what is in one's head and heart, to improve one's outlook on life?

I don't think that the end result is really all that different. I think that religion is often a tool that people use (for lack of a better word) to sort themselves out. I think that prayer is often really just focused thinking - because it is aimed at God, people must put their thoughts in order so that they can tell God what they need. I don't know if God listens and/or does anything about what people pray for, but just the mental process of putting ones thoughts together for prayer can help people figure out what they should do about issues that they may have.

 

[Kanga]

I think I draw the line at making everyone and everything a pilgrimage. The route was established to reach the bones of St. James. A buddhist could find inspiration in walking it, but that does not make it a buddhist pilgrimage, even if he may be a buddhist pilgrim. O

Get a copy of the very funny French film "Saint-Jacques La Meque" - roughly translates as "St James - the Muslim" .

http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/341278/Saint-Jacques-La-Mecque/overview

 

[Kanga]

Or actually, "Santiago - the Mecca".

 

[OTH86]

Suffering on the Camino is optional. With the exception of war, natural and other disasters, it isn't necessary to suffer. On the Camino one has so many choices - select wisely.

 

[koilife]

Or actually, "Santiago - the Mecca".

There are so many layers of irony on that one!

 

[jefferyonthecamino]

Whoa. We sure do make things difficult to answer, don't we?

It is very simple....The most real/Jedi pilgrim will get us to 100 replies here.

Sith Pilgrim if you please

 

[Jamilla's mum]

"Saint-Jacques La Meque" - is indeed a very funny film.
In reality, there ARE muslims who do this pilgrimage and, in a Sufi kind of way it's like a pilgrimage to Mecca. Or, rather, like the earliest pilgrimages to Mecca used to be.

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Jeez. I wish I lived on a planet where "suffering is optional," or where suffering is something only self-imposed by people with mental problems. (I think we all just have different interpretations of that word.)

Hack the semantics however you like, but suffering happens to everybody. This forum is packed with ways and means of avoiding suffering -- aka uncertainty, robbers, blisters, bedbugs, snorers, dead batteries, smelly boots, boredom, being lost, bad meals, etc.

But consider this: all those "bad" things are also ideal ways to find out what the camino has to show you, and yes, maybe even teach you.
I do not believe pain has any redemptive power in itself. I am not a religious nut, and I do not think that those who find something positive in suffering are crazy. I think having troubles gives you the opportunity to ask for, and receive, grace.

Grace is what the camino teaches louder and more effectively than any other seminar, regimen, diet, or teaching in all the world, IMHO.

But only if you are ready to take the risk, step away from your fear and your certainty, and take what the journey dishes out.

 

[wayfarer]

Perfectly said.

 

[jefferyonthecamino]

 

[mspath]

Get a copy of the very funny French film "Saint-Jacques La Meque" - roughly translates as "St James - the Muslim" .

http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/341278/Saint-Jacques-La-Mecque/overview

Actually the title roughly translates as " St James - Mecca". Read what others and I have written about this charming tale of dual pilgrimage in this earlier Forum thread.

Margaret Meredith

 

[obinjatoo@yahoo.com]

you say "suffering" as if it is a bad thing!
Suffering is a key part of living. Striving to avoid suffering causes stress, a different kind of suffering.
If you´re in pain, if you are uncomfortable, if you are driven crazy by whatever, stop right where you are and step back for a minute and breathe deep. It may not go away right then. Let yourself really feel the pain or discomfort or rage for a minute, and then you will feel it start to fade. Let it blow through you like a big wind. And then you can get on with your camino.

Unless, of course, you have broken your leg, or someone is rifling through your backpack, or the toilet just keeps overflowing! Then you YELL!

Have you considered a Camino Stand-up routine?

 

[Rebekah Scott]

subject matter is WAY too arcane, and exhausted pilgs often are humor-challenged. Although it could be a way to collect free vegetables, only thrown once!

 

[Monk Moses]

Jeez. I wish I lived on a planet where "suffering is optional," or where suffering is something only self-imposed by people with mental problems. (I think we all just have different interpretations of that word.)

Hack the semantics however you like, but suffering happens to everybody. This forum is packed with ways and means of avoiding suffering -- aka uncertainty, robbers, blisters, bedbugs, snorers, dead batteries, smelly boots, boredom, being lost, bad meals, etc.

But consider this: all those "bad" things are also ideal ways to find out what the camino has to show you, and yes, maybe even teach you.
I do not believe pain has any redemptive power in itself. I am not a religious nut, and I do not think that those who find something positive in suffering are crazy. I think having troubles gives you the opportunity to ask for, and receive, grace.

Grace is what the camino teaches louder and more effectively than any other seminar, regimen, diet, or teaching in all the world, IMHO.

But only if you are ready to take the risk, step away from your fear and your certainty, and take what the journey dishes out.

Very well put Rebekah!

 

[OTH86]

Hack the semantics however you like, but suffering happens to everybody.

It's called life.

 

[SYates]

cold showers, heavy backpacks, crowded dorms... does that make more of a pilgrim?

No and yes ;-) You don't need to suffer to be a real pilgrim, being a pilgrim is in your heart and in your attitude towards others. On the other hand, an old camino saying goes: A pilgrim is thankful and a tourist demands. So it is up to you and only you can decide if you think of yourself as a real pilgrim or not.
Buen Camino! SY

 

[Alyssa]

Interesting article on "suffering" in the Opinion Pages of The New York Times.

 

[sillydoll]

I have come to the conclusion that we modern day pilgrims are far more worthy of the title 'Real Pilgrim' than any pious, superstitious, penitential, medieval pilgrim. Even more worthy if we are not Catholic, or not Christian, or not at all religious.

WHY? Because we choose to travel many thousands of km from our homes at great expense to a foreign country in order to walk hundreds, sometimes thousands of km, in heat, cold, wind or rain carrying our meagre belongings on our backs, to the tomb of St James without any hope or thought of reward or redemption. We might like to be given a Compostela, recognition of our walk, knowing that it is not a 'get out of jail" card.

Thousands, maybe millions, of medieval pilgrims had no such option and even if they did, they had one purpose in mind - the reward of earning an indulgence for the remission of sins and time spent in purgatory.

Today no suffering is required to earn the Indulgence and any Catholic pilgrim or tourist who visits Santiago can earn one, they don't even have to walk there.

 

[Al the optimist]

When I first saw small groups of fit young things with day packs I wondered what their experience was compared to those of us (struggling or not) with everything on our backs. I think that I felt that maybe they were cheating a little, not suffering enough to get the most out of the experience. Maybe I was jealous that I was finding it harder than them? I remember the first time that I saw such a sight and no longer thought of it this way, thinking each to their own and wished them well. I at that moment realised how the Camino had changed me, I hope for the better. There are many,many reasons why people have bags transported/catch buses etc./skip hard stretches - age/illness/injury/time-scales. What is important is that they are there, they are each a pilgrim in their own right as a consequence. They gain what they gain. We all start from a different place in ourselves and move somewhere else. Surely that is all that matters? I certainly don't want to suffer hardship any more than I need to. It is my preference to carry my bag, mine to walk the distance (short or long), mine to not be 100% sure of where I will sleep that night. Why should others not have the same options? Buen Camino one and all!

 

[Rebekah Scott]

We cannot know what really motivated medieval pilgrims a thousand years ago, any more than we can say what motivates Christian pilgrims today. How far we travel to get to the camino, how much we spend, whether or not we believe the trip is redemptive? It´s impossible to judge. It is wrong to compare ourselves and our motivations to anyone else. If a Christian does a pilgrimage to gain an eternal reward, it´s no skin off anyone´s back. That does not make his camino worth more or less than an atheist´s camino.

Although I daresay he gets a level or two of meaning from the trip that an unbeliever probably entirely misses out on, if only because the infrastructure is loaded with Christian symbolism, ritual, and tradition.

 

[Diogo92]

I've seen atheits crying like babies, for spiritual emotion when arriving to Obradoiro square.

Everybody feels it, in their own way.

I'm not taking any Compostela in the future. I already have two: one for my grandfather, and one for myself.

 

[alexwalker]

I remember the first time that I saw such a sight and no longer thought of it this way, thinking each to their own and wished them well. I at that moment realised how the Camino had changed me, I hope for the better

I have had the same learning curve. But Rebekah has a very good point: A couple more dimensions to the walk won't harm. I will take a Compostela this year, but in the name of a murdered person, for his Catholic mother to receive.

 

[StuartM]

Jeez. I wish I lived on a planet where "suffering is optional," or where suffering is something only self-imposed by people with mental problems. (I think we all just have different interpretations of that word.)

Hack the semantics however you like, but suffering happens to everybody. This forum is packed with ways and means of avoiding suffering -- aka uncertainty, robbers, blisters, bedbugs, snorers, dead batteries, smelly boots, boredom, being lost, bad meals, etc.

I dont know, a lot of it is a matter of perspective. I shared a room with two women in an albergue one night. They both had very similar experiences of the walk but for one every challenge came with a reward, for the other every problem was another nail in the coffin.

I do think some people seek out suffering, especially when something could've been done. I stand by my friend's mantra, any fool can be uncomfortable. Making a bad situation better or just accepting the bad situation are two choices we all have.

Robbers, blisters, bed bugs... yep, probably suffering. The rest... I'd class as inconvenience. It says a lot about how soft western society has become when smelly boots are considered suffering.

Although... as I think about it... on the Salvador last year my boots were so bad by Pola de Lena I had to shut them in the minibar in the hotel to make the room habitable. When the airport security guy said I had to take my boots off to go through the scanner... oh yeah they suffered for that

 

[Rebekah Scott]

I have been contemplating this idea today.
Suffering creates opportunities for grace to happen. A blister or a twisted ankle, and the hard-boiled hiker is receiving bandages and beers from people he might never have spoken to -- "unearned favor" for both him and his fellows. The tourigrino driving the support car for a tour group carries several extra backpacks to the next stop in his car, giving some "legitimate" long-distance pilgrims a lighter day.
We've all seen it happen on the camino. It blesses the giver, it blesses the recipient. It's grace.

If we really "get it," we take that grace home with us, and let it change our post-camino world as well.
Does grace happen without suffering of some sort to start it off?

 

[daesdaemar]

The "suffering" associated with religious pilgrimages was never meant to be what I will refer to as "positive" suffering such as walking on your knees until they bleed. More so, it is the suffering (term used loosely) of leaving one's comfort zone/home, the expense and hassle of traveling, nights on the rode, bad, if any, food, exposure to weather, etc. These nuisances of life were typically willingly accepted for one's religious beliefs or tenets.

 

[homa_bird]

"Even the pilgrims of old knew when to get on the donkey cart..." I love that saying...

You can get into a "I'm sufferin; I'm a hero" place that can be just as detrimental to your head and heart as "I must never suffer" place. Take it as it comes, take it as it comes. Enjoy the luxuries as they are gifted to you, accept the hardships as they happen.

It's all relative: some folks may be challenged by staying at a sub-prime Parador, others may be elated at a lumpy mattress out of the rain. It's all valid, we're all in school, one way or the other.

 

[xin loi]

Pilgrim? Always thought the guys who returned to Combat in Viet Nam for 2nd , 3rd, and 4th tours were Pilgrims looking for the Truth..or something to justify their lives. Combat is probably the most extreme subliminal(look up the definition) experience one can participate in. Like others I had to return to combat to find my soul. Or learn whatever lessons I failed to understand written by machinegun bullets coming at me in '68-'69. Only took a couple months back In Country before I died on September 10, 1970 in the Mekong Delta. I already know what is on the "Other Side" of life so I don't need to be a Pilgrim when I walk the Camino next month .

And BTW, weren't a lot of the old Pilgrims soldiers?

And when the Medics pulled a Triage and put the severely wounded out in the sun to die because they had too many other wounded to care for, they always said suffering was good for their souls. Spoken like true Pilgrims.

Hope to have some good conversations around a table full of beer bottles while on the Camino.

 

[grayland]

This thread has drifted far off course.
We will close it for now.