Reasons to Walk El Camino

The Santiago cathedral's authorities write in their qualifications for issuing the Compostela, or certificate of accomplishment, at the completion of the journey that the pilgrim should "declare a spiritual or religious motivation". Not that the motivation is ever questioned, but it is a good guideline for the walker who contemplates the travel on St. James's Way.

So if there is a spiritual or religious motivation to walk the Camino, to rid oneself of the mundane and leave almost all one's stuff at home, go for it! If, on the other hand, materialism rules and there is a general unwillingness to consider anything beyond the secular, any time spent on the Camino is probably wasted.

Walking El Camino in a religious and spiritual sense requires humility. Not a common characteristic these days. Spiritual greats in the past walked the pilgrim route in search of Truth and practiced stillness, silence, solitude, simplicity, sacrifice, suffering, and surrender. All practices that also today's pilgrim will experience.

When I decided to go I knew only three people who had walked the Camino. Two, a married couple who walked the trail a few months before me, and a friend who had walked from his home in The Netherlands to Santiago in stages over a number years. But I first heard about the modern day Camino, maybe six or seven years earlier, when I read about the annual walk by two or three troubled teenage boys and their teacher from the Oikoten organization - all the way on foot, about five months, from their home in Belgium to Santiago de Compostela - and how the walk radically changes their lives. What an inspiration! I wanted to do that and see what it was all about.

There are probably as many reasons to walk El Camino as there are walkers. During my pilgrimage I met a former alcoholic celebrating that his successful treatment had given him "another chance to live". A woman walked to celebrate her two new hips. Many elderly people walk to celebrate their recent retirement; they finally have time. Some walk to get away from the workplace race for professional success, take a deep breath and get life's priorities in order. And with today's tough Spanish economy there are unemployed Spaniards on the Camino walking and looking for that same direction in life.

So at the daily pilgrims' Mass in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela they are all there. The saints and the sinners, the healthy and the sick, the easy and the troubled. And, one may hope, some with troubles shed on the way. They all have reasons to be there. They are mostly believers who walked to find confirmation of their faith - like renewing their baptismal or marriage vows. Some are still trying to understand, reluctantly, the religious spirit of the Camino, as doubtful as when the walk began, and may abandon religion and faith all together before the end of the day. And there are the Thomases who walked the long way, doubting, now seeing all the pilgrims come together in the packed cathedral and asking themselves: "Can this many people be wrong?"

John Brierley sums up the reasons to walk El Camino very well when he writes in his guidebook: 

"As we set out towards the fabled city of Santiagowe we need to be mindful, as A Course in Miracles suggests, that the true temple is not a structure at all. Its true holiness lies at the inner altar around which the structure is built - yet the real beauty of the inner temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. An emphasis on beautiful structures can be a sign of unwillingness to exercise spiritual vision. As we walk through the landscape temple that is the Camino and through the towns and cities spread out along the way, we pass some of the most physically striking religious buildings to be found anywhere in this world. But let us not confuse the messenger with the message and help each other to also search that elusive inner altar."