It’s just a road. That’s really all it is. It’s a 798 kilometer footpath, winding from France to Spain.
The road is littered with hostels, inns, stone churches, and about 7 billion tourist shops selling all manner of effluvia, such as seashell-shaped toilet-paper holders.
But in the end, the Camino de Santiago is just a road. That’s all it can ever be.
The difference is, of course, when you’re on this road, you’re actually THERE.
Which is rare. To be present. To be here. Now. There are so many times in life when I’m not actually here. Oh sure, I’m here physically. Yes. But I’m not fully in this current moment.
And even though this present moment is all I have, I often waste it, thinking about past or future moments, and totally miss what’s in front of me.
But out there, on this footpath, for some reason you give yourself permission to be in The Moment. And because of this, time moves differently. A day feels like a week. A week becomes a nanosecond.
And then, there are the people.
You meet people out there. They come from all over the world. From every faith. From every thought-system. People you might otherwise never be friends with.
On this highway, I walked alongside Mennonites, shared supper with Sufi Muslims, broke bread with Korean Buddhist monks, prayed Protestant prayers alongside a Hindu family, as we all visited an ancient Catholic shrine.
Once, I split a bottle of wine with an elderly Episcopal priest. We were in a hostel. That evening, a group of college kids from Texas, from a prominent Baptist college, were—for lack of a better term—Bible thumping.
The students were trying to argue with the minister about the nature of heaven and hell and the nature of God. They were using the anvil-like tones of the Modern American Evangelical who just wants to pick a fight.
The elderly priest was quiet, calmly sipping his wine. He never criticized them. Never raised his voice. He spoke gently.
“Before we talk about the nature of God,” the priest said, “I’d like to ask you boys a question.”
Everyone in the room was listening.
“A horse, a cow, and a rabbit all eat the same stuff,” said the priest. “So why are their droppings so different?”
The college kids were dumbfounded. None of us, quite able to grasp the eternal meaning of mammal excrement.
“Think about it,” the priest went on. “Horse droppings are big round clumps, cow droppings are flat pies, rabbits excrete pellets. Why are they all so different?”
The college kids finally said they didn’t know.
To which the priest replied, “Then do you really feel qualified to discuss the nature of God when, admittedly, you and I don’t know crap?”
Everyone laughed. The college kids laughed. The priest laughed. I laughed. The next morning we walked 25 miles together.
I still stay in touch with these people. Because you do that on the Camino.
On New Year’s Eve, for example, I received holiday texts from Ireland, South Korea, Japan, Switzerland, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Norway, the UK, and even Iowa. And each text message, regardless of language barrier, regardless of differing religion, all said pretty much the same thing:
“God bless you, Sean.”
That’s the Camino. That’s what it does to you. That’s how it makes you feel. Loved. Alive. Present. Here.
You also notice how fragile you are. How brave you can be. And how you are not an island. You lose the urge to judge. You learn to just—I don’t know—keep walking.
But as I say, it’s just a road. That’s all it is. All it will ever be. No magic. Just a road. And the truth is, you’ve been walking this road all your life. In fact, you’re walking it right now.
In a few months, my wife and I are going to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago for a second time. A lot of our friends and family keep asking us why. Well, it’s hard to put into words.
But I tried.