Life is a Trip (16 page)

The casual way Rebekah spoke belies her deep dedication and service to the Way of St. James. She and Paddy built a labyrinth for the pilgrims and leave small gifts there. In their barn, they have made space for the pilgrims’ donkeys, horses or bikes. And in their house, they have three bedrooms for pilgrims and a bathroom where walkers can luxuriate in a tub. Rebekah also cooks for them. In her spare time, she trains hospitaleros
.

Elyn Aviva recently moved from the U.S. to Sahagún, to be on the Camino. She has published fiction and nonfiction books about the holy trek; the latter deal with her walk of gratitude after cancer surgery, and her first walk, in 1982, before the Camino became so popular. She tried to explain to me her fascination, which she said borders on obse
s
sion.

“I guess I’m attracted to the Camino the way a moth is to a flame. When I first learned about it in 1981, it grabbed me by the back of my neck and it’s never let me go. At various times I’ve thought I was ‘done’ with the Camino, but I keep g
o
ing back to explore it from yet another angle, to write yet another book. I’m cu
r
rently working on synthesizing a number of Spanish books on the esoteric, hidden symbolism of the Camino so that this information will be available in En
g
lish,” she said.

When I asked why she wanted to live on the road, she answered without hes
i
tation, “It’s good to be ‘on the Camino’ but not walking it—seeing and hearing the daily flow of pilgrims passing through, offering assistance to those in need (loo
k
ing for a guidebook, needing to go to the doctor, needing someone to translate at the pharmacy or in a restaurant)—being part of the Camino while staying at home. For now.”

She talked about people who served the Camino and helped her on her first walk. “They opened up a deserted schoolroom for us, or gave us food when we had none and there were no grocery stores available. I remember people running after us to point out the correct path, or calling out that we had taken the wrong route. I remember others offe
r
ing to buy us drinks, or giving us something to eat. And I remember being asked to light a candle on their behalf in Santiago. Decent pe
o
ple, faith-filled people, ordinary people—not paid to be of service, not hired to do a job, but acting from their soul’s desire, from their deep, abiding faith.”

Once again, I tried to understand what it meant to serve the Camino. “So it’s about serving pilgrims, rather than the road itself?” I asked.

“You could say I serve the Divine, the Great Mystery,” Aviva replied with a smile.

The rest of my time in Spain, I contemplated pilgrimages and se
r
vice. I visited other pilgrimage sites—like the famous fourteenth-century Monastery of Guad
a
lupe in the picturesque town of the same name, in the Extremadura region. There, too, I saw pilgrims with enormous, weighty backpacks, sacrificing their comfort, enduring hardship and stress, pushing their limits for a higher or more important personal goal. I had already decided I was not going to walk the walk, but maybe honoring the sites was an indirect way to be of service. I had no backpack, but I had expended effort to get there: booking air travel, securing accommodations, renting a car, paying money, stan
d
ing in line.

I wondered how else I could have a pilgrim experience.

Recently, I sent money to help victims of a natural disaster but I didn’t actually go there to volunteer. Did my check count as service, or was it too easy to just sign my name, rip it out of my checkbook, and mail it? What about people who were even less pilgrimage prone than I was because of lack of time, stamina, desire, or money? Could they ever know the satisfaction, pride, sense of accomplishment, and service of a pilgrim? Could I?

I decided that the answer for me was no, but then, sitting in a restaurant in Tr
u
jillo, the town that spawned Pizarro, who conquered and pillaged Peru, I had a breakthrough. I had recently spent a lot of time listening and talking to a young woman who was overwhelmed by motherhood and I introduced her to another woman who was going through the same thing. They spontaneously formed a two-person support team. Before that, I had assisted a young man who was appl
y
ing to college by writing him a letter of recommendation. And I called, wrote and spent time with local and faraway friends who were sick or grieving the loss of a parent, spouse, or pet. Sometimes I just listened, and other times I tried to offer help or consolation.

Maybe the new mother, the man setting out for college, and my aching friends were pilgrims, on the road of life. Perhaps helping them in some small way could be counted as giving them assistance on their path.

By the time I was sipping regional wines in a café outside of the walls of the medieval city of Cáceres, I reflected that I, too, am a pilgrim in life. And I can thank people who help me on my pilgrim’s path.

When I returned home, I told a friend that I felt as though I were on a pilgri
m
age in life, and she was assisting me.

“What!?” she said, incredulous. “I’m not doing anything. I’m just walking and talking with you.”

“And that’s exactly what I need,” I answered truthfully.

I said the same thing to another friend, who is struggling with a s
e
rious and, for now, incapacitating illness.

“Me? Helping you on your pilgrimage?” she asked. Then she burst out laughing. “I spend my life praying and thanking God for keeping me alive. I used to be so a
c
tive. Now I feel useless—as though I have not
h
ing to give.”

I let her know that her gratitude and her faith were inspirational to me and I felt that in bearing so much discomfort she was somehow serving humanity and the universe. She twisted her mouth into a wry grin, obviously not believing me.

I told her that the most eloquent expression of the service provided by simply enduring was found in the work of the brilliant seventeenth-century English poet John Milton. The light of his life dimmed, exte
r
nally, when he became blind. But his inner light shone radiantly through his poem “On His Blindness.”

E’re half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide,

Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, least he returning chide,

Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d,

I fondly ask; But patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best

Bear his milde yoke, they serve him best.

His State Is Kingly.

Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and waite.
¹

My friend grew silent and thoughtful. “I guess he was serving humanity by writing that poem,” she said quietly. “People who feel discouraged and hop
e
less in life can still turn to him, even though he’s been dead for ce
n
turies.”

After a long pause, she added, “Even after death, I guess it’s possible to lighten the load of life’s pilgrims.”

FOOTNOTE

1.
Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919.
 
The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

A
few years ago,
I was among the tourists in St. Martinville, Louisiana, the birthplace of Cajun culture. I remember staring at the statue of Evangeline and wonde
r
ing who the Cajuns were and where they came from. Their lilting, drawling French was charming, their music and dan
c
ing upbeat, and their crawfish, roux, boudin, and hearty gumbo were a
d
dictive.

I soon learned that the word “Cajun” derived from “Acadian” and that the Lo
u
isiana Cajuns were descended from Acadians who were ejected from Nova Scotia in a deportation which is sometimes referred to as a diaspora. Henry Wordsworth Longfellow had memorialized the dreadful dispersion of the Acadians in his poem, “Evangeline.”

Although the heroine, Evangeline, was a fictional creation, the p
o
em was about a very real tragedy that befell the Acadians in 1755, and Longfellow’s poem, pu
b
lished almost a century after the events, tugged at the hearts of millions of symp
a
thetic readers around the world who knew nothing of the horrific Acadian story.

Recently, I was in Nova Scotia, at a very moving site called Grand-Pré, and the pieces of the Acadians’ story began to fall into place.

Originally from France, the Acadians had arrived in Nova Scotia, developed a sophisticated irrigation system, turned salt marshes into fertile meadows, farmed, and transformed the land into a rich breadbasket. The most famous of their settl
e
ments was Grand-Pré. When Britain and France declared war, even though they had no reason to distrust the Acadians, the British confiscated their farmlands and liv
e
stock and forcibly herded the Acadians onto dangerously overcrowded ships which sailed off in perilous waters to unknown destinations.

In the chaos of the embarkation, grief-stricken families were torn apart. Chi
l
dren were separated from parents, husbands from wives, and lovers wailed as the ocean stretched out between them. The Ac
a
dians were shipped to New England, France, England, and some made their way to Louisiana. Over the course of eight years, as many as ten thousand Acadians from Grand-Pré and other villages were dispersed. More than fifty percent of them died from hunger, illness, anguish, shipwreck, forced labor, and miserable living conditions. And for many years the Acadians wandered from place to place, facing expu
l
sions, further deportations, and the trauma of perpetual dislocation.

Today, Grand-Pré is a tourist attraction in the scenic Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. The visitor reception and interpretation center offers a moving and inform
a
tive film about the Acadians; glass cases contain artifacts found at the site; there are archeological digs and the foundations of an Acadian dwelling, a well, a statue of Evangeline, and a cross that marks the site of the original cemetery.

To me, the highlight of the site is the memorial church which dates back to 1922. It was designed, built by, and belongs to the Ac
a
dian people. And it is the place where they have told and continue to tell their own story.

It is a commemorative, rather than a consecrated, church; it stands near the site of the original Catholic Church where the Acadian men were first rounded up in 1755 and informed that they were going to be expelled from their homeland.