A week ago, I was entering Santiago de Compostela with 89 other people after having walked the Camino for 5 days.
Today I sit down to remember what I experienced with deep gratitude for everything I received. I want to remember the experience and pass it through my heart again, ordering my thoughts and me.
And life is a huge field of opportunities, surprises, and gifts. As Agustín, a good friend of my friend Martín, said, “It is good to have been born.”
I had been wanting to do the Camino for quite some time, but I have to admit that I was unconsciously waiting for the travel plan and the entire organization to somehow rain from the sky.
During this time, I have not lacked potential companions. All wonderful and surely great travel companions. And when the topic of doing the Camino de Santiago comes up, it has not yet occurred to me that my interlocutor tells me that he has no interest in doing it. Everyone, more or less, has the curiosity to do it for the first time or even many times, to repeat it.
Thus, for another year it seemed that my wish was going to remain just that, a wish, but that has not been the case. To my surprise, the University had organized a pilgrimage and I, as a mentor, had been invited to participate. A real call. I think that the holy Don Santiago was already a little tired of me asking him to take me every year, and he decided to do it.
And so began my Camino de Santiago, for work. Accompanying 85 young people along with 4 other trainers, all great people and colleagues. But things are not how they begin, but how they end.
I was going to walk. I left the house like a true walker. Equipped with everything recommended by experts, with great enthusiasm and some expectations. And although I offered the route for various intentions of mine and other people, I cannot deny that I went with a certain tourist spirit. But along the way something happened that turned me into a pilgrim.
And being a tourist or a simple walker is not the same as going on a pilgrimage. Have you thought about it?
Like everything in life, it is the way we position ourselves before things that will largely determine what we find. We can stay on the surface of reality or go deep. We can look at the path as a simple (not easy due to the demand) progression of stages towards a destination, or we can let it envelop us and soak us with each event experienced. With each person. With every conversation. With every silence. With each step… And the pilgrim searches, it is not satisfied with visiting and putting a check on the list of destinations.
The pilgrim faces the path, knowing that he is a small link in a chain of steps that many have taken before him for centuries. With a deep look that makes you not only see, but go beyond what is apparent to be able to be amazed and grateful for each step taken.
It is the look of someone who sets out with the hope of reaching a destination, Santiago. It is the look of one who knows that he does not walk alone and allows himself to be accompanied, in turn accompanying others. It is that of the one who knows that hard stages will come; many uphill climbs, but everything is for the best.
It is the look of someone who is capable of living and savoring every moment of the now. That he lives in the “already, but not yet”. In short, it is the look of someone who knows he is vulnerable, but even so he does not stop walking because he trusts in that goal, in that arrival. It is the look of one who knows that life itself is a journey.
I have always liked the expression that we are pilgrims on earth and that we walk towards heaven, our goal. Our Santiago.
We are Homo Viator. We are passing through and even if you don’t have faith, I am sure that it is possible for you to see yourself like this, like a pilgrim on the way to happiness, to plenitude. Searcher for the meaning of your life and knowing that this is a journey.
I would like to end with an invitation. I say it to myself and I leave it here to share it with you. Every day, on your path, open your eyes and don’t stop searching. Open your ears and let yourself be accompanied. Be silent to listen to others and the desires of your own heart knowing that it is well done. Walk leaning on the staffs of hope and charity. Don’t forget to put those people you love, your loves and all your pains in your backpack. Smile. And, of course, don’t stop looking up at Santiago.
Good way!
