The Shape of My Heart

A Pilgrimage Remembrance

Richard Ray

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781666790306
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

How well do we know our vocational purpose? How do our life circumstances cause us to reconsider our vocational purpose? How can we know if we are living the life to which God is calling us? This book tells the story of author Richard Ray as he searches for answers to these questions while making a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James on the Camino de Santiago. Human beings have sought meaning for their lives through transcendent experiences for thousands of years. The pilgrimage is one such transcendent experience. A practice that has a place in all of the world's great religions, the act of pilgrimage, is many things to many pilgrims--retreat, extended prayer, penance for sins, an opening to spiritual or religious conversion. This book provides readers with an opportunity to learn more about pilgrims and pilgrimage, including historical, religious, cultural, artistic, and economic perspectives--all through the journey of an experienced pilgrim. Readers will, perhaps, begin to frame their worldview through the lens of pilgrimage and to conceive of their lives as purposeful journeys to God.

The Beginning

Dishonest Cabbies and Carsick Pilgrims

Joe and I were both experienced international travelers. Still, I am no fan of the long airplane rides and the serial airport hopping that is part and parcel of journeys like the one we embarked upon as we set out from the Gerald Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids. Our route took us first to Chicago, and then on the long flight to Madrid. We transferred there for a short hop to Pamplona, where we took a taxi to the bus station to board the autobús for the ride over the Pyrenees to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, France.

The landscape from the airplane window as we prepared to land in Pamplona was the color of a mud puddle as harvested wheat fields as far as the eye could see rolled in shades of tan in the late summer sunlight. Our first impressions of Pamplona were a far cry from the Ferminista-throbbing frenzy of the guidebooks.12 It being a Sunday afternoon in the off-season, the place seemed less asleep than comatose.

Our Pamplona cabbie was a savvy fellow. He quickly identified us as pilgrims. Bewildered Americans speaking broken Spanish carrying backpacks and trekking poles are not hard to identify in Pamplona. Through a bit of sign language, Google Translate, and sputtering English he explained that, this being Sunday, no busses would be leaving the station today. “But we have a prepaid ticket to St. Jean Pied-de-Port,” we explained in worried voices. “No se. No autobús hoy. Es Domingo.” (I don’t know. No bus today. It’s Sunday.) The next ten minutes were spent in contingency planning for how we would get over the mountains and into France so we could start walking. Would we have to pay this taxi driver a big fat fare to take us there? Would we have to eat the money we’d already spent on the bus ticket? The prepaid bus ticket turned out to be worth the expense. The bus to St. Jean was waiting in the station as the taxi pulled in. Thank you very much, Mr. Dishonest Cabbie.

In his First Letter to the Thessalonians,13 St. Paul admonishes the church there to “pray without ceasing.” A long airplane ride followed by a five-week walk is a good way to practice this spiritual exercise. As the plane lifted off earlier in the day I whispered a prayer that the letters I had mailed to a number of people with whom I was angry would land on receptive hearts, and that the friendships I once enjoyed with these people could be restored once I returned from the pilgrimage. These were hard letters to write, and they took most of the summer for me to locate just the right words. Was I mad at these folks? Volcanically so. But I knew that I would have to take the first step in inviting a renewal of a relationship for my own healing to begin. And I had to face the very real possibility that I’d done something to deserve their enmity. None of us knows ourselves as well as we think, and I had to admit that as I offered forgiveness and sought theirs as well. I was not sure how the letters would be received. Would the recipients scoff at this effort? Might they also be angry with me, and would the letters further inflame their anger? I just did not know.

Those on my “naughty list” were not the only people to whom I mailed a letter as I walked out the door of my apartment for the last time in six weeks. People in my life who were seriously ill or in the process of dying would also hear from me as my pilgrimage unfolded. I let each of them know where I would be on the Camino when I offered a prayer for their healing. Some have now died, some are healed, and some continue to struggle. I hope all knew—and still know—how important they were to me. Finally, I wrote letters to a number of close personal friends. We so infrequently thank our friends for the gift of their friendship. My pilgrimage seemed like a good opportunity to correct that fault.

We met some interesting fellow pilgrims in our travels on Day 1, though one in particular served to raise our already jet-lagged anxieties a bit. Santiago from Brazil was easily recognizable as we scanned the Madrid airport waiting lounge. Pilgrims to St. James are hard to miss. We all share the same uniform, just like Catholic school children. Scallop shells, hiking clothes, backpacks, and floppy hats are the order of the day. We formed several impressions in the blink of an eye after introducing ourselves to Santiago. To say that he seemed ultra-organized is an understatement. Keep in mind that in these early hours of our pilgrimage everything we saw and heard had an oversized effect on how we were imagining the next six weeks. Santiago got us wondering if we were really ready for this. He was tall and carried himself with military bearing. Where I was soft and vulnerable he was hard-edged and sculpted. He carried himself with an easy confidence that practically screamed, “Five hundred miles? No big deal!” I found myself sucking in my gut and standing up straighter in his presence, like a pilgrim version of trying out for the junior varsity football team. But what started to get Joe and me more than a bit freaked out was Santiago’s T-shirt. It was obviously custom-made just for this occasion. On the right breast where one might normally find a company’s logo, Santiago had listed in bright red letters his name, the Brazilian flag, the year of his pilgrimage, and his blood type. His blood type?! None of the guidebooks warned us to do this. We began to worry that if we fell off the mountain tomorrow Spain’s Finest would not know our blood type. Would we die from a bad blood transfusion on this trip? Do pilgrims normally require blood transfusions as the price for developing their spiritual fitness? Santiago was eventually joined by a fellow countryman with a blood type we failed to note. They chatted comfortably and confidently in their native Portuguese, while Joe and I stole furtive glances across the heat-rippled tarmac.

St. James the Apostle, pray for us! (Jojojoe/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0)

We spotted other pilgrims in various places through which we transited. I sat next to a sniffling, face-lifted Scottish woman on the Madrid leg of the journey. She was coming from Los Angeles to walk the Camino, but also planned to buy an apartment on Tenerife, where she once lived and owned a restaurant with a Spanish man to whom she was married “who didn’t quite work out.” Another woman from C...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preparing to Begin
• The Beginning
• The Middle
• The Ending
• The Continuing
• Finally
• Bibliography