From the Camino: On my first Camino, I didn’t exactly bring the kitchen sink…but I certainly brought more than I needed. As I walked my second Camino, I carried or wore 2 shirts and 2 pairs of pants, 3 socks and 3 pairs of underwear, a rain and windbreaker, and a warm sweatshirt. I had my shaving gear and small toiletries, flip-flops, my iPhone, an iPad for journaling, with their charge chords, a cork puller (which I bought in Spain because of travel restrictions), moleskin, a reservoir for water, and a water bottle. I had nothing except what I considered essential. Many would never bring the iPad. I had to do laundry every day, and usually in a sink, which was inconvenient, and left me occasionally damp. I was in a different bed almost every day, without any of my normal comforts, and was really fine. And yet I don’t ever remember being happier. The Camino is not improved by more stuff. In fact the liberation from it may have been its own surprising contentment.
Luke 10:1-11 – 1 After this the Lord appointed seventy[-two] others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. 2 He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. 3 Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. 4 Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way. 5 Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ 6 If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another. 8 Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, 9 cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ 10 Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, 11 ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand.
For reflection: The way doesn’t require stuff. Rick Steves, the famous travel writer and speaker once commented on the American mistake, while travelling, of taking things, “because I just might need them.” He suggested taking nothing that you might need, restricting yourself to those things that you would need, with the resolution to buy anything additional you end up needing as you travel. Unless you’re going to the deepest jungles of the Congo, there is a very good chance you’re can purchase most things in most places. The truth is, you won’t miss or need almost everything you might need.
The Camino has this beautiful way of trimming you down to the essentials: what you can carry, a bed in an albergue or small hotel, a shower (oh, a blessed shower), a solid meal, coffee on the way, the kindly advice of a local when you’ve gone astray, the heartfelt companionship of someone whose blisters are just a bit worse than yours, a little bite (i.e. bocadillo – a small sandwich, with no mayo nor mustard, with thin sliced jamon and a sliver of cheese that tastes absolutely delicious the first seven or eight times). There’s no way to explain it to those who haven’t done it, and no need to for those who have.
But we do find our priorities re-ordered. For some women, the daily rituals of putting on makeup get a second and even tenth inspection. There can be this marvelous liberation from body preoccupation. If you have to carry your goods, and every ounce matters, you might start with the idea that makeup matters and shaving matters, and having pretty clothes matter. But the act of carrying them, the dependency your possessions have on your own body’s ability to carry these things from one place to the next, forces you to weigh their utility in the big scheme of this moment in your life.
On an especially warm summer Spanish afternoon, how necessary is that appearance thing? — especially when shared mirrors in the morning, the extra weight all day, the priceless cool morning walking time are the counterweight? No one looks their best on the Camino…and it doesn’t matter. Be free. Let it go. For the guy for whom gear really matters, yes that is the perfect all-purpose whatever, but you’re lugging it across Spain to use it, what, twice? And you don’t really need it for those two times. Be free. Let it go. The extra clothing? The perfect outfit? The specialty shoes? The huge walking stick? The three pounds of batteries? The (dear Lord forbid, but I brought mine) iPad? The reading material? Be free. Let it go. It’s surprising, when weight and weather are factored in, how little we actually need, as opposed to what we might need (but really don’t).
Everyone’s tired, everyone’s raw on some unmentionable part of their body, and everyone’s dirty with the dust of the Camino. No one’s “pretty,” unless you’re attracted to genuine grunge. And all of your companions are just as shabby, smelly and blistered as you are. Competition dies a beautiful death, and a different beauty arises: the beauty of kindness and openness
So we return to that liberating moment in the Gospel when Jesus invites the seventy two to freedom from stuff, to fullness, not of gear, but of mission. And the mission for the pilgrim is the journey, the contemplation, the placement of foot-before-foot, the conversation, the silence, the quieting of the mind, the return to a second-and-third-and-fourth reflection on one’s past life aches, and the healing, the resolution, the encounter, and if it is in reach, the peace.
Do not let stuff get in the way.
