From the Camino: My personal inclination is to business. But that’s an American inclination. We can be quite proud of how busy we are, can’t we? I’m not sure that we brag about anything with greater self-satisfaction. Be we rich, be we poor, we’re busy.
So I was quite surprised by how quickly I was seduced by the easy rhythm of the Camino. Rise early, do ablutions, pray, nibble a little nourishment (you may have noticed that the Spanish are not big on breakfast), walk, stop at shrines to pray, arrive at domicile, wash self and clothes, eat the menu del día, enjoy the town, perhaps go to Mass if one is available (often in the evening), have a tapa or two and wine, sleep and repeat. There were no great actions, and after a while a consistent sameness.
Of course, you never knew who you’d meet, or how interesting and beautiful or dull and trudging the day would be. And yet, the day was not busy unless you counted the value of the many steps that brought you to the next place. There was little accomplished apart from movement, self-nourishment and personal cleanliness – on the greater scale of things, none of these were at all exceptional. And yet they permitted the real, unmeasurable work of the day, which was to “be” in the holy presence of God. In the silence, in the conversation, in the beauty of the countryside, God was there for the finding.
Gen 2:15 – 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden.”
For reflection: Paradise did not offer life without labor. We had a purpose – stewardship of God’s creation: “to till it and keep it.” It wasn’t to acquire and to cling to stuff. It wasn’t to fill our days with activities. It was to care for the world around us, to till it’s soil and bring forth life.
Of course, God also hoped we might enjoy the garden – the Greek word for “garden” is parádeisos, the root of our word, “paradise.”
We moved, though, to our own hunger, not for purpose, but to have divine knowledge and “to be like God,” a curious hunger as the very first chapter of the Bible assured us that we had already been made in the very image (ikon) of God.
Perhaps, in the wide open spaces of the Camino, we might recover our true purpose, to labor, if that’s the right word, on our inner life, rather than our outer accomplishments? We have the calming sameness of rising each morning, walking, eating and resting each evening. We have, often enough, beautiful scenery within sight to grant us pleasure. And we will certainly have time, rich, deep extensive time to labor on our inner Eden, the place where will most likely encounter God in the cool breeze of the evening.
In this we accomplish so little external business, and such rich inner growth.
