I’m a catalyst. I don’t do a lot that’s highly visible, but things tend to happen when I’m around.
I trained as a historian with a focus on the First World War and historiography, but settled for being a journalist at American newspapers for 22 years. I started on a small town newspaper in Pennsylvania, and worked up to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, became a freelance travel writer, went to the Toledo Blade — a really fun trip where I met my husband — and on to the Associated Press, finishing with a last gig in Pittsburgh.
Patrick O’Gara, my husband, and I were burned-out on American life. We walked the Camino in 2001, and we saw the transformative power of pilgrimage — and the splendours of rural Spain. We wanted to do something meaningful with the time we had left; so we sold up and moved to Moratinos, a village along the Camino route that, at that time, had nothing to offer pilgrims.
I’m a vowed member of the New Benedictine Community of the Holy Trinity: a dispersed New Monastic group with members in the US, the UK, Mexico, and Spain. I’m active in my Roman Catholic parish church, but NBC is my spiritual family. Most of us are Anglicans.
Peaceable Projects is the umbrella term for all the things I get up to here. It started with the name of our house, “Peaceable Kingdom”, in a sleepy farming village with three private pilgrim hostels. I observe the daily round of Benedictine prayers and meditation, we keep a load of English rose bushes and badly-behaved animals, and spend a lot of time working at computer screens. Sometimes, the electronics don’t work, and trying to find a plumber or an electrician is like pulling your teeth out. I’ve become more interested in Renaissance and Reformation history and its continuing impact on the Western world.
We started out taking in pilgrims on the Camino, and nowadays I’m on the board of FICS [Fraternidad Internacional del Camino de Santiago], overseeing three non-profit pilgrim shelters and recruiting and training volunteer hosts to run them. FICS are activists, scholars, and Camino pioneers, working with UNESCO to have traditional Camino hospitality declared an “intangible European Heritage”.
I also run a small publishing operation, write guides and novels, and take volunteers on 100-kilometre-trail clean-up expeditions.
Just last night, a retired Scottish clergyman stayed with us. He’s a hill walker, retired, full of wisdom and great stories with so much to offer the rest of us. So many people are full of great stories, but no one listens.
People experience some wonderful bonding on this trail. I offered food and drink to some hungry young men who seemed to be doing the Camino for sport, but they refused. “Our friend’s Jewish, and he has to fast till evening because it’s a High Holy day; so we’ll wait.” They had just walked 30 kilometres without any food, and hardly even knew this man, but he’d brought so much spirituality to them. So I made a Passover feast, and we all ate together that night. It’s a place where some people really consider the people around them, and find the caring and decency that got buried under all the noise of living. It’s good to be part of that.
This place and these people are my ministry, my calling. Everything I learned until now is put to use here. The challenges and opportunities for growth are endless. God never wastes anything, or anybody. Dropping out of the rat race probably won’t spark much growth or renewal. I’m blessed to have found my niche in life before I was too old.
The supposed bones of St James are relics on several levels. Our iteration of the Santiago pilgrimage is about the journey itself. I believe the devotion of a thousand years of pilgrims has made the entire path sacred. The Holy Spirit lies heavy on the seekers who walk here, searching for the Christ that’s already right there in their hearts. The long walk offers them silence enough to hear that still, small voice. Having a saint at the end of road is a nice historical bonus: pilgrims need a shared goal, no?
The Church needs to step up and help them transform their pilgrim experience into a vital spiritual life once they get home. The Church here in Spain seems to be in survival mode, and there’s no real outreach to pilgrims. There are a few very gifted ministers here, but they’re few and far between. Churches back home offer nothing for these few people who have made a pilgrimage.
People walk from all parts of Europe, experience some kind of theophany, then, having only x weeks holiday, they get on a plane — and boom, they’re back home with no opportunity to process what’s happened to them. It’s almost a syndrome, I’d say, slamming from one complete lifestyle into another. They have dreams at night, they lose their appetite, strain their relationships, and really long to be back on the Camino.
You really do escape the demands of their life there, though it’s hard work being a pilgrim. The same people complaining about how sore their feet are wish they were back. And so many pilgrims are returnees who do it over and over.
Slowly it will resolve itself, as more people make pilgrimages and work out how to help people back. The Holy Spirit drives us to change and grow. Sometimes, she uses the Church to show us the way. Sometimes, we have to drag the Church along with us.
I try to do a Camino walk every year and take friends and family with me, though I prefer to do it alone. Last year, I went with a friend to Holland and started the via monastica through Belgium and into France over a couple of weeks. I went walking in the Pyrenees to get high-altitude fitness, because I’m walking the trail up to Macchu Pichu with my daughter to celebrate my 60th birthday. Both my children have walked the Camino, and my sister did it with me a few years ago. Now, they don’t think I’m quite so crazy.
It’s not all sacred and holy. Some of it’s just fun. There’s a lot to be said for that. If you’re a holy person, you bring your holiness with you, and make the trail you walk holy as you go. So many trails to do, so little time.
There are many pretty basic shelters where you can stay on a donation basis, but you have to get over here and feed yourself. Some people do it without any money, but that’s a little exploitative. You can do it on 10 to 15 euros a day if you’re very flexible and can walk between the low-price places. Even if you have a lot of money, it’s still a long walk, and hard work. It’s not something to do lightly.
The most surprising thing has been to discover that people all are so much alike. We just want to be loved and treated with respect. That, and how generous most people are, if you have courage enough to ask for what you need.
Is my life counter-cultural? Depends on what you mean. We don’t have television. What I do has its roots in earliest Judaeo-Christianity, welcoming the stranger without putting a price on the hospitality. Offering something for nothing: that’s what grace is, and grace is what Jesus Christ’s all about. Giving away good things is about as counter-cultural as you can be in this consumer-driven world.
I was a US Air Force military brat. We moved every three years, but my parents provided stability with a lively, musical, revival-tent Christian faith and plain old native intelligence. I memorised great swaths of scripture, and was “born again” more times than I can count. There was always an extra place at the table for anyone who showed up, and we always said Grace before we ate.
What makes me angry is seeing kindness cynically exploited, and sacred places pimped as tourism products.
Silence makes me happy. And maps.
I love the whirr of swallows and doves around the tower when the church bell rings.
Meeting holy people gives me hope for the future. They’re everywhere.
I pray for peace, for volunteers, and the right words.
I’d like to be locked in a church for a few hours with Thich Nhat Hanh. He taught me what I know about contemplative practice, but I still have so much to learn from him.
Rebekah Scott OSB was talking to Terence Handley MacMath.
www.peaceableprojects.org