"One explanation for the Camino’s growing popularity is that it lifts the modern pilgrim, however temporarily, out of the sad and tired pleasure-seeking our society commonly equates to well-being—a “well-being” wherein we spend most of our lives earning money in order to buy buildings where we store things that do not bring us joy. Deadened by such routines, on the Camino the pilgrim enters into a daily rhythm so unlike normal life that it jolts her into a different kind of awareness. The pilgrim strolls out into the open sky and feels the sunlight on her skin, the electric presence of others, the reality of pain, the depth of the inner life—a life made small to the extent it is funneled toward consumption. At the same time, the pilgrim sees the absurdity of trying to carry too much along, and the pettiness of how we self-classify and divide. (At the end of a long day, kindness is more compelling to the average pilgrim than an impressive job.) Indeed, in the Camino’s many communal moments, the pilgrim feels the humanity shared by every other pilgrim, and the many sad splinters through which we fragment and obscure it. The pilgrim, for a moment, feels the raw simplicity of being alive."
Thank you SO much for sharing this Falcon269. I loved it! Especially the above mentioned paragraph...
