From the Camino: While walking the camino, I had lots of opportunities to consider different cultures.
(1) I chatted at length, over several days of travel, in my stumbling Spanish, with a father/daughter team from the Basque country, and learned about their experience recovering the Basque language, Euskara. The father was never taught it because of the intolerance of the Franco regime for the variations of culture and language within Spain. His daughter, who had been learning Euskara in school, spoke with greater proficiency with his parents’ first language than he did.
(2) During the trip, I also had the chance to concelebrate a few times in some of the cathedrals, when I stumbled into them on special feast days. My brother priests from Spain, struck me as friendly and patient with my efforts to communicate in their language. Everything in their sacristies was familiar to me, if much older than what I used in my own parish church. It was lovely to feel at home in the sacristies of a foreign country.
(3) I became the tragically inept translator in a few situations where others spoke less Spanish than I. My efforts were accompanied by earnest pleasantness from others, and often good-natured laughter. I was frequently but kindly corrected with the proper form or word. Sometimes it was because of my ignorance. And sometimes it was regional – I was familiar with Mexican Spanish where “shrimp” are called camarones. In Spain, they are gambas. And the world continues to circle the sun in spite of these differences.
(4) The first couple of times I went to Spain, I admit to being confused by the peculiar daily schedule, the late lunch, the incredibly late dinner, and the curious empty space between them. With some thought, and experience with mid-day Spanish heat, I began to see the rationale for it. In pre-air-conditioned Spain, especially in the very hot center and south of the country, it would be virtually impossible to work in the late afternoon. The practice of taking a large meal and resting through the heat seems quite reasonable and civilized to this writer. People who mock the practice probably live in milder circumstances. As it is, some 60% of Spaniards no longer take siestas, though shops and restaurants often close to leave room for them.
Ruth: 1:1-5, 7b-11, 13b-18 – 1 Once back in the time of the judges there was a famine in the land; so a man from Bethlehem of Judah left home with his wife and two sons to reside on the plateau of Moab. 2 The man was named Elimelech, his wife Naomi…Some time after their arrival on the plateau of Moab, 3 …the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah, the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, 5 both [of Naomi’s sons] died also, and the woman was left with neither her two boys nor her husband…On the road back to the land of Judah, 8 Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord show you the same kindness as you have shown to the deceased and to me. 9 May the Lord guide each of you to find a husband and a home in which you will be at rest.” She kissed them good-bye, but they wept aloud, 10 crying, “No! We will go back with you, to your people.” 11 Naomi replied, “Go back, my daughters…My lot is too bitter for you, because the Lord has extended his hand against me.” 14 Again they wept aloud; then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye, but Ruth clung to her. 15 “See now,” [Naomi] said, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god. Go back after your sister-in-law!” 16 But Ruth said, “Do not press me to go back and abandon you! Wherever you go I will go, wherever you find lodging, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there be buried. May the Lord do thus to me, and yet more, if even death separates me from you!” 18 Naomi then ceased to urge her, for she saw she was determined to go with her.”
For reflection: There will always be something clannish about our human race. It might have something to do with our long hunter-gatherer stage, where people who formed strong bonds survived to pass on their genes, and those with only loose affiliations wandered from the protections of the group, and were, perhaps, eaten(!), and whose genes, and tendencies, were lost to us. But this unconscious drive doesn’t always serve us well in our modern world. It denies us experiences of the rich cultural differences that enrich the large human experiment. It can leave us feeling unnecessarily alienated from others. Historically, it has led some to adopt laws giving priority to designated skin colors and preference to particular languages with strong attitudes of superiority: “Our way of doing things, our way of appearing and acting, are so obviously better than their ways.”
Even so, when we study why other people do what they do, the easier it becomes to admire their culture’s beauty, and the more we will rethink naïve assumptions that have shaped our way of thinking and acting. Our own ways, while benefitting from familiarity, may not, in fact, be “better.” The truth is that every culture, without exception, needs to be evangelized by the light of the Gospel, including mine…and yours.
It begins with the small things. With our technology, the ease of travel, and the sharing of our forms of entertainment the world has become a very small place. Restaurants the world over serve Italian, Chinese, French, Mexican and Japanese food. Korean BBQ is currently taking the culinary world by storm. Dishes from home, reminding us of our parent’s cooking will, I suspect, always have a rich place in our hearts. Even so, it’s wonderful to be able to try food from elsewhere, enriching our table and giving breadth to our diets.
Phone apps like WhatsApp seem ubiquitous, no matter where you travel. American movies play worldwide. Mexican telenovelas are shown throughout the huge Spanish speaking market. Asian bamboo, South American orchids, North American cactus, European olives and African acacias can be found most everywhere now, as can, apparently, Monterey pine trees.
It can happen in areas of much greater importance, too. Cultures have much to teach each other about loving respect for elders, parenting of the very young, successful ways of channeling youthful angst and rebellion, models of marital happiness, ways of being male and female, patterns that strengthen the life-giving ties of family and friendship, and selflessness for the greater good.
The international character of the Camino can be one of its great blessings. When we journey side-by-side with people from other places, we find ourselves united with them in hungers and thirst and, it’s almost inevitable, in our feet problems. It’s true that we all need to find shelter, warm ourselves when it is cold, shelter ourselves from the rain and the heat, and find food. From one place to the next, we share a wide selection of needs. But we answer those necessities in a variety of ways. On the Camino we observe each other managing the choice of what and how to eat and how to treat what ails us, and we just might find we have something to try or learn.
Equally eye-opening moments happen when we share our stories with each other, unconsciously reflecting the values of our cultures, only to find others startled by our presumptions, leading to very rich conversations . If we will listen patiently, and then talk without being defensive, we can learn so much from each other.