The Journey Beyond Santiago de Compostela

[amado]

Every pilgrim who reaches Santiago de Compostela and gets the Compostelano usually asks: What next?
We are usually told that the end of the Camino Pilgrimage is a beginning of another journey.
I am starting this thread so that those who have made the Camino can share what happened to them after their pilgrimage - how did the Camino experience affect them profoundly, what changes took place, what kind of journey did they undertake.

Let me begin with myself.

Eight months after the Camino, I am leaving the Academe and taking on another work. For 16 years, I have been a professor of theology for those studying for ministry, working mostly in the classroom. After the Camino I decided to take another work that has something to do with forming Basic Ecclesial Communities (or Catholic grassroots community) that live according the spirit of the early Christian community. I want to journey with ordinary Christians in forming genuine communities of faith.

I do want to do the Camino again but Spain is so far from the Philippines. I can do it again perhaps on the next Xacobeo in 2021.
So the next best thing is to do Solo Running/Walking Pilgrimage for Life and Peace across the Philippines, covering 2000+ km in 58 days. I will still put the scallops on my mochilla and journey across my country, preaching about the Gospel of Life and Peace in various parishes. I will start 3 days from now (April 1, 2011). This is my continuing Camino. Near the end of the Pilgrimage is an old pilgrim shrine - Our Lady of Piat. I will call this route the Camino dela Vida y Paz.

What about you?

 

[methodist.pilgrim.98]

Fr Amado

Do you know of Nancy Frey's book Pilgrim Stories: on and off the road to Santiago, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998. 313 pp.

A wide-ranging account of the contemporary experience of pilgrimage by a cultural anthropologist, who has walked the camino several items, and interviewed hundreds of fellow-pilgrims.

She focuses a great deal on what were the consequences of the pilgrimage on people's lives once they returned home.

I have written an article that appeared in the bulletin of the Confraternity of St. James, London from a more theological perspective. It is more lengthy than the usual posts here and is from a Protestant minister's perspective. I am hesitant to post it here for fear it will fuel religious argument, which is rightly not welcomed here because that is not the purpose of this forum.

I have already incurred the moderator's displeasure for a post which included a quotation that was not meant to be taken seriously, but was, creating considerable offence. While I will be happy to enter into private correspondence via the PM I am reluctant to post the article and some other comments here.

If you want to correspond via PM please let me know.

May your run be a time of spiritual blessing.

philip.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

I think many of the Forum members participate here as a "journey beyond." Those who write books are doing the same. The ones on speaking "tours" share their experience to promote enthusiasm. The experience can transform almost without having to leave one's armchair, or changing professions. Repeat offenders have as many motivations as first-timers, but one can be to see if there is more to be had by pushing on one more time. It is not always about trying to recapture the past; it can be about creating a different future.

About the time that you hit age 60, you can see the end. It will come with or without planning and direction. Another camino is one way to direct part of the remaining years beyond Santiago de Compostela, even if the destination is Santiago de Compostela.