Sean today
Sean Dietrich is one of the most important thought joggers on line. I don't read him every day, but usually when I do read him I'm glad I did. His essay today is especially good. It's copy and pasted here in case you missed it. I'm doing that without getting permission, but I'm almost certain he wouldn't mind.
I've read him off and on for years, and he's just my kind of Christian.
T90
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The Camino is out there. Still existing. On the other side of the world.
I wake up each morning, stumble into my kitchen to make coffee, and I think about how right now, it’s still there.
Right now, in a kind of alternate reality from my own, located on the other side of the Atlantic, fellow pilgrims are STILL walking the Camino. They are trying to learn. Trying to find clarity. Trying to find the Unnamable.
Right now, they are fending off blisters, dehydration, and doing their business in places so dreadful, so horrendous, so appalling they can only be called “Turkish toilets.”
My heart is with them always.
I carry in my bosom my own forty-one days on the Camino. I bring the experience wherever I go. The mindset. The vibe. The memories.
To say the Camino changed me is false. That’s melodramatic. The 2,000-year-old road through Spain doesn’t change you. It can’t. It’s just dirt and rocks.
No, the road merely asks if you want to change. It doesn’t demand anything of you. The Camino is gentle and humble at heart.
But IF you change, if you go with the flow, you are entering into a binding agreement with the Camino and its maker. And you must do what it asks if you want to begin the long journey of finding your authentic self. Your soul.
For starters, you have to give up control. And I mean all control. Control over your life. Over where you will eat or sleep. Control over how people react to you. Control over what you believe must happen.
Also, you must give up any particular thought system you “think” is correct. Your religion means nothing out there. There is no religion on the Camino. Religion is manmade. You cannot take your religion with you when you die.
People who believe the Camino is religious haven’t truly walked it. For the Camino transcends dogma. Just as God does. Clerics and kings and popes have already discovered this. Now it’s your turn.
Thus, if you’re Catholic, on the Camino you will be faced with many non-Catholic truths. If you are Protestant, you will be faced with a myriad of errors you grew up believing. If you are an American fundamentalist evangelical, you’re just going to be pissed off all the time. Because you’re going to realize that while you were busy trying to convert sinners, everyone else was finding God.
You will walk alongside Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Mennonites, LDS Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Russians and Ukrainians will share meals together. You will break bread seated between Iranians and Israelis.
In less than two months, my wife and I are going back to the Camino.
I never thought I’d be one of those repeat hikers. You meet these Camino veterans on the trail all the time. As you hike together, they might say something like, “This is my eighth Camino.”
And you just look at them quizzically and say, “Um, why?”
There are a million-and-one other places on planet earth to visit. Why keep coming back here? Why walk it over and over again? What’s the attraction?
They always answer the same way. They use the same words, almost. Nearly verbatim. They always impart to you the wisdom of the ages in three little words. Usually this insight flies right over your head. You aren’t even aware that you’re hearing the voice of the Creator, speaking through one of his creations.
“Why are you doing the Camino again?” you’ll ask.
They’ll smile and reply, “It’s about people.”