Book: The Way Is Made By Walking
Basic Information:
Author: Arthur Paul Boers
Edition: epub on Libby from San Francisco Public Library
Publisher: IVP
ISBN: 9780830835072 (ISBN10: 0830835075)
Start Date: June 2, 2023
Read Date: June 17, 2023
219 pages
Genre: Christianity, Camino
Language Warning: None
Rated Overall: 4 out of 5
Religion: Christianity
Religious Quality: 3 out of 5
Christianity-Teaching Quality: 3 out of 5
Synopsis:
The author walked the Camino de Santigo in the mid-2000’s. This book is organized into chapters in line with his reflections or meditations rather than the chronology of the walk. He talks about why people walk the Camino, how it helped focus him on what is important in his life, virtues of simplicity, self-examination, community and solitude, life after pilgrimage and the place of walking in our modern life.
- Recommendation: Mars Hill Audio
- When: June 2, 2023
- Date Became Aware of Book: Jan 9, 2019
- Why do I want to read this book: Boers was interviewed during a Mars Hill Friday Feature. During the interview it was said that Boers had also walked the Camino. In the interview Boers talks about why people walked the Camino, ranging from a believer to non-believer, from those who are seekers to those who look at it as something to do.
- What do I think I will get out of it? I am interested in walking the Camino one day. I would hold Boers gives some insight about why one should walk it.
Thoughts:
Note: I make several references to Camino-that is the Camino de Santigo. Also I use the initials JMT-the John Muir Trail, which is a 211 miles trail through the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.
Foreword by Eugene Peterson
There is nothing more pedestrian (literally!) than walking on a way, a road, a path. Good one Peterson!
Pilgrimage is the ancient practice of walking, usually with others, to a holy site while paying prayerful attention to everything that takes place within and without, soul and body, all the ways that are inherent in the Way, along with the companions who are also on the Way. This is something to think about right from the get-go. I have wanted to walk the Camino. And yet, as I have read this book, the more I ask myself why? Not from walking. That seems interesting. But what is my motivation? Is it like walking the JMT? Another trail to mark off as saying I did it? Or do I want to walk it to explore my inner being? As a way to get close to God?
Acknowledgments
Walking the Camino de Santiago was the most intense experience of solitude in my life, but I did not do it alone. This is significant as I think of doing this walk as either alone or with a small group of people who are family. But Boers points out there is a whole wider range of people who assisted him in not only writing this book, but also in planning his trip. As a Christian, it is never just you and me God. Rather it is God, our fellowship, family, friends, and me who make anything in my life possible.
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| Copied from book |
Map of Camino
Introduction
A good way to start the book: I once walked five hundred miles to attend church. It took him 31 days to walk the Camino. He goes through a brief background on the Camino. Also why he wanted to walk this path. Previously he had gone to European places of prayer to study them-he is a professor at a Mennonite college. There he discovered pilgrimages.
Why not just step out of the house and begin? Well, for one thing, not every walk is a pilgrimage. I think that is an important concept. Even walking the Camino may be just a form of exercise without a spiritual component. This may be the most important part of the book for me personally. Why do I want to walk the Camino? Would the El Camino Real be just as good as the Camino de Santigo?
How is it that people of our day, with the longest lifespans in history and a glut of “labor-saving” devices, find it astonishing to think of committing serious time to a spiritual endeavor?
He notes that many of his fellow travelers did not consider themselves Christian. That is not to demean those who walked it, but more to disperse the notion that it is by its nature a spiritual walk. To Boers, he walked it because he felt called to walk it by God.
Boers kept a journal-not from a walker’s perspective, but as a pilgrim. It gave him time to reflect on passages which seemed well known. Stefano: The Camino works in me…step by step. The Camino was a process for Boers. Change the accent and process is a verb with spiritual connotations. In religious ceremonies, celebrants and participants move in a common direction as part of their worship, mini pilgrimages.
“all the way to heaven is heaven” attributed to Catherine of Siena. Boers, and others follow this up with because he [Jesus] said, I am the Way [Camino].
Antonio Machado: “ se hace camino al andar ” or “the way is made by walking.” These well-known words have taken on a life of their own,....
1. I want to Be in That Number: Drawn to Pilgrimage
After two weeks on the Camino, the author goes to emergency with infected blisters. He is verging on depression with what he is missing. Still no place where he would rather be. This all happens to many walkers on the Camino.
Boers uses the time walking as a time of prayer for others on the Camino as well as a time of meditation.
Talks about who James was.
Saints are to be signs of Jesus; they point us toward Christ. Not worshiping but for us to understand what it means to live like Jesus.
I like to think that walking makes any place holy. I do not think this is true as I do not think walking my neighborhood makes this place holy, except in the sense that all of God’s creation is holy, we just do not recognize it as such.
Boers points out that travel used to have the connotation of work. It was only 200 years ago when that word started to be used in the context of pleasure and rest. Scott Russell Sanders says we “stripped the holiness from travel with our commuting, our tourism, our idle shuttling about.” So the Camino is hard work, sometimes painful.
His outlook changed as people came around him. Still in pain, but able to have the comfort of others. And then eating together tends to mend us. This is why there was no place he would rather be.
2. Seeking God's Homeland: Christian Roots of Pilgrimage
He talks a lot about The Way and how this is Biblical.
His wife walked the first ten days-left due to work. I tried to rein in my feelings of loss. One of those things which I enjoy hiking by myself. But I feel the loss of companionship when Sherri is not there.
As I am reading this book, I am caught with the thought that it matters not how fast or long you walk, but it is the spirit you are walking it in. I wonder if it is a detriment to have a goal when you are walking a pilgrimage, but you make the journey the reason for the walk. My thoughts, not his. It might be his thoughts as well as I found this from the chapter-An irony—indeed a danger—of pilgrimage is that we try to settle in a final destination, considering only that particular place holy and forgetting the call to be faithfully on the move for God. Or later on he quotes Origen “Travelers on the road to God’s wisdom find that the further they go, the more the road opens out, until it stretches to infinity.”
Journeying, wandering, exile and pilgrimage themes are found throughout Scriptures. Several examples including Adam and Eve, David, Moses, Jacob, Abraham ,... Boers points out the various places in the New Testament about the way (odos) being used. In Acts Jesus' followers were first known as “the Way” even before being called “Christian”.
We sometimes forget the association between church and walking. He notes that we have lost the connection of walking and spirituality. Many people, probably most, when they go to church, they walk. Sometimes this is many hours to get there. At times, I think it is too much of a hassle to drive there.
Augustine famously prayed, “You made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.”
3. Lord, Teach Us to Be Prayerful: Spirituality Lessons
How do you maintain practices while on your pilgrimage? You would think this would be simple. But at least when I hike, there is constant movement from the time you get up till the time you go to bed.
He asks Paul how he does it. He sings memorized Psalms, prays the Lord’s prayer, and observes quietness while walking. Yet questions remained. Would the demands of a pilgrimage affect what I could do? Would there be enough privacy and solitude in hostels for prayer in the early morning or late day? Would companions influence my practices? More importantly, would I be deepened in Christian life and faithfulness? Would I be taught by God along this way?
During times of quiet and solitude, he would pray, ponder Scripture and read from a volume of Teresa of Avila. His prayer was for friends and family. Church bells would remind him of why he was there. Regardless of the source, these peals were also a call and reminder to pray. Do they do that to me? Or do I just enjoy them?
He would converse with God. Each day, I examined a period in my life and talked it over with God. Sounds like good practice. He also used Anne Lamott’s two basic prayers, either “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” or “Help me! Help me! Help me!”.
Church Father Clement of Alexandria famously described prayer as “keeping company with God.”
He admired the trail left for pilgrims to follow-the yellow arrows and the scallop shells. I wonder what it would be like to have God’s will neatly laid out for discernment with vivid flechas. Why the constant work of prayer, journaling, Scripture reading, pondering, consulting with fellow believers? And then often we still are not sure that we have it right! You read in places where pilgrims will not find them or there are confusing signs. There I think you need to understand your destination and follow the map-both literally and spiritually. Boers would be on the look out for these blazes (flechas). He would get tense until he found one, wondering did he lose the way?
See God at work in all things. This included going to ER for his blisters.
Coincidences abound on the Camino. What did God want him to learn? What does God want me to learn as I walk through life?
4. Your Pack's Too Big: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
While there is the temptation to make the pilgrimage only a spiritual journey, the Camino will remind you that there is a physical component to this journey as well. In this case, Boers is confronted by a French volunteer who lets him know his pack is too heavy. As he goes along, he does things like cut up books and discards what he has read-something which is against his grain. He comes in with a pack of 30 pounds-which to me is a good weekend pack with food and water.
He talks about how the early disciples and pilgrims took Jesus’ injunction seriously-take nothing on your journey.
He brings this to our daily lives. How much stuff do we need? What is extra baggage in life? So for months one of Mary’s spiritual disciplines was to give up and give away an item a day from her own household! [Her mother had died recently and she was needing to go through her stuff. This convinced her that she had too much stuff as well.]
He quotes Mark 10:23, but thinks in the light of the friendly French volunteer who wanted to make sure Boers finished the Camino rather than give up from the weight of his backpack. Was this what Jesus was doing with the rich young ruler?
He notes the temptation of picking up souvenirs. In tourism, consuming may replace actual experience.
Belongings, then, always weigh on me at some level, even when I do not carry them on my back.
The more stuff we own, the more effort and energy it takes to keep, maintain, insure and protect it.
When you walk on The Way, you will stick your foot in poop.
Aldo Leopold famously lamented, “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” Our culture tends to insulate us from the issues of our living. Every action we make, such as driving a car, is a theological decision and statement.
Being a pilgrim means changing one’s lifestyle.
5. The Road That Leads to Life: Challenges of Faithful Pilgrimage
Every day is still a struggle and each one requires a recommitment,” Paul told me-both on the Camino and in life. I was continually frustrated at my inability to live up to my own ideals. Why did the Christian journey have to be an ongoing battle, I wondered. Boers remembers that Jesus said to take up your cross DAILY. This would be an ongoing struggle. Or as Law noted, each morning is a resurrection.
There was a certain freedom in not knowing everything that was ahead.
Book title comes from a Spanish saying: “hace camino al andar” or “the way is made by walking”.
Walking and the wilderness may not be as comforting as it sounds. Jesus and later the desert fathers and mothers show that wilderness is not just a place of beauty and solace but also of testing and temptation.
6. The Journey Is Long: Camino Confessions
A pilgrimage gives a person a chance to review and evaluate themselves. while I never competed with others on the Camino, one person did pressure me unmercifully. This one I could not avoid and found hard to resist. I was my own greatest problem. Hard to escape yourself.
In Boers case, he seems to overdo things in his desire to achieve. There is a temptation to compare and want to be like someone else, or better.
Addictions counselors advise paying special attention to being HALT: hungry, angry, lonely or tired.
One of the pilgrims said that the Camino got harder as you went along. He insisted that it grew more psychologically difficult as a person neared his or her goal. With my JMT hike that was true. First week was getting the body into top shape. After that it was all psychological.
The lesson Boers learnt was to be prayerful. He learned to pay better attention to God—God’s company, God’s workings and God’s interventions.
7. Well That's the Camino: Hospitality and Solidarity
At the end of a long walk day, feeling exhausted, he went to a Bed and Breakfast. He was able to get refreshed with a fresh vegetarian dinner and clean surroundings. A good night's sleep.
He found that there was a wide range of establishments and hosts. While very busy with their official duties, they did respond to friendliness. He goes through a few of the more notable characteristics of some of the refugios.
Over and again, meals inspired and drew us together in surprising ways. Seems like a plain meal would rouse the pilgrims spirits and create community. Truly, we met God in each other and while sharing food. A friend told Boers once that If you can read the Gospels without getting hungry, you’re not paying attention. Another author, Christine Pohll says that: A shared meal is the activity most closely tied to the reality of God’s Kingdom.
Boers notes that many times there were people who did not share a common language. They conversed as much as they could. There was lots of smiling and laughter. That can be a good substitute when vocabulary is insufficient.
Talking helps people connect, knowing they are not alone in a struggle. One resolution Boers made was that as bad as he is with small talk, he resolved to do better and do it more often-just to establish that connection.
There is a sense among pilgrims that the Camino will provide. While not a deity, it does seem to have a blessing to it that God gives. Maybe it is by awaking hearts to sharing His goodness.
8. No "Ustedes" Por Favor: The Rules Are Different Here
Where are the boundaries on the Camino? That is what is discussed here. How open can you be? How much do you share? The rules seem to be different here where you would share deeply personal items with people whom you might never meet again. Sounds like another thing to get used to is that relationships will be transient.
He talks about the former use of you in different languages vs the more informal. English does not have that differentiation, but other languages do. On the Camino, everybody is equal, consequently, informal.
Being an ignorant traveler has its perks.
On the Camino it was important to move at one’s own pace. This is something he talks about earlier.
We all wanted and hoped for each person to succeed.
I once heard social philosopher Albert Borgmann remark that a way to recognize a particularly worthwhile moment is to be able to affirm: “There is no one I’d rather be with.” This is true. There are times where we have developed that special relationship or that special moment.
Why not encourage every believer we meet with a blessing? Is it so hard to find a simple phrase to inspire others on the path, in their following of Jesus the Way, the true Camino? What would be a good blessing? Have a good day is so trite.
Philo of Alexandria, an ancient Jewish philosopher, is reputed to have said, “Be compassionate, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
9. Secular Seekers: The Disconnect of Pilgrims and Church
Many of the walkers were not religious, at least at the start. They seemed to be wanting to do the Camino like people want to do the JMT. On the Camino, religious means Christian purposes of prayer or repentance, while spiritual indicates something more than secular goals but not necessarily Christian ones.) It is a mixed lot on who walks the Camino and why.
Many people did not engage. But Boers had many conversations about religious matters, particularly after people found out what he did for a living. As a professor—and formerly a preacher—I spend much time proclaiming the right way to think or theologize, but here I was called into a different, more attentive mode. People are complex. Boers not only walked a mile in their shoes, but 500 of them. So he gained a bit of understanding. Maybe that is what we need in our culture, a bit more walking together.
Many journelers. Seemed like most people wanted something more than what our culture was giving them. He found that the best way to talk about Christianity was to talk about following Jesus rather than church matters or theology or politics. Boers feels this is a missed opportunity by Christians-to minister to those on The Way.
Talks about spiritual not religious.
Seems strange that as church attendance is diminishing, the popularity of the Camino is increasing. Originally, most Christian pilgrimage sites and routes were popularly initiated. They were not begun by church leaders or hierarchies. A while later in the book Boers interviewed Ray Simpson, an Anglican priest, who sadly concluded that church “worship has generally lost its street credibility.
Taizé-Boers spent time here a couple of years before walking the Camino. He was influenced by what he experienced here. See the third Appendix.
In an era when North Americans work longer hours than four decades ago and perpetually complain of being busy, can we provide space for sabbath and rest, renewal and reorientation? Good question. Instead we raise the threshold against inquirers if we only permit or expect them to show up on Sunday mornings for formal services. Most of the time, church doors are locked, except at times when there are services.
The author notes that Augustine said that our hearts are restless. It is understandable that our feet are as well.
10. Focal Ways of Life: Putting Pilgrimage into Practice
In this chapter Boers talks about where our lives are focused. I think this comes from a philosopher named Albert Borgemann-I only really heard of him recently through Mars Hill Audio when they interviewed him. Boers also is a disciple of him as well.
Boers starts off with how mobile we are-we are always moving towards someplace. All movement is not pilgrimage as not all places are considered hallowed even if we honor those places or the people the places it honors. Boers confesses that at times when things get tough, he thinks about leaving. Henri Nouwen encouraged me to stay instead and, in his words, “go deeper.”
He
talks about something Siguard Olsen said. Boers commentary is One
place the church can engage the spiritual longing in our culture is
to name the shallowness of how many of us live and to offer and model
more grace-filled approaches.
I wonder how Boers thinks this can be done? Focal
living helps us identify and perceive Olson’s “something more,”
a quality of life that we miss and long to find.
Boers
defines Focal
concerns are [as]
objects,
activities or practices with several qualities.
Then he lists attributes of them:
First they have a “commanding presence.” They take energy or effort; they make demands on us. Some examples he gives are hiking and cooking.
Second, focal things and practices have deep and evident connections with the wider world, including people and our ecosystem. Example can be playing an instrument connected with a composer and the listener, while a counterexample is heating up food in a microwave is done with isolation or interaction with others.
Third, focal realities have “centering” or orienting power. They help us experience and be in touch with something “as greater than myself and of ultimate significance.” He gives an example that a cathedral or a wilderness has a tendency to grab you and keep your focus and make that a focal point of your attention..
One
reason the Camino is so attractive is that it points to different
ways and possibilities for living.
Borgmans has for focal affirmations.
“When were you last able to affirm them?”
There is no place I would rather be.
There is nothing I would rather do.
There is no one I would rather be with.
This I will remember well
That should be at the forefront of my thought. Not what I am going to do next.
There
is a sense of comradery, even if a person is hiking alone. There is a
shared sense of doing something unusual together. Boers experienced
only minor aggravations from fellow walkers, not any large scale
disagreements. That may be due to the nature of this walk. If there
is someone disagreeable to you, you can discreetly drift away-walk at
a different pace.
But
he points out that there is a shared goal without competition.
What you did in real life is a common starting question. Careers can be places where we feel conflicted and torn. … We engaged questions about how we choose to live, where we expend time and energy, and how we employ gifts. Not only was there talking about occupations, but how they felt about their occupation. Some decided after the Camino to change occupations. To Boers, the Camino is a reminder that an occupation is a means to an end-to live and provide. Not the end of a matter.
11. Walking in Faith: Walking as Spiritual Practice
Like hikers on the JMT, Camino walkers discuss body issues which would almost never ever be discussed with strangers. I’ve said, rules were different on the Camino. He notes that the average American only walks a few hundred yards a day. I do not think he is right. A doctor at the Mayo Clinic puts it at 1.5 to 2 miles a day. Nhat Hanh often observes: not only walking on water is a marvel, even walking on the earth is a miracle.
Look up feet/foot in Scripture. Boers notes that it is mentioned a lot more often than we recognize.
Even before the Camino, Boers noted that extended times of walking helped to reset him. His method includes:
- Relax, take deep breaths and release tensions
- Evaluate what is causing the tension
- Gain perspective
- How did life get out of balance
- Clarity on situations
Advocates renewed emphasis on spiritual disciplines.
Prayer Walking.
I had fretted over my feet, and here they were—after a close call—working well. It was all gift and grace
12. Here I Walk, I Can Do No Other: Keeping Faith With Our Feet
The age old question for backpackers-what is essential and what is a nicety? No clear cut answers in either the book nor in real life. His immediate question concerns a small map he was given of the entire Camino. For hikers the overall picture is far less important than the immediate, which way do I turn?
Walkers need different kinds of maps than drivers or riders. The world looks and feels different on foot than in a vehicle. Cars flatten experience of the earth: while you can’t help noticing serious hills, many slopes are not perceived. I do not think Boers went far enough. When you automate something, you no longer have to pay attention to the particulars. You are more interested in how it is functioning, rather than why am I doing something. Your experiences are different as well.
If saunter really does stem from Saint Terre, then by using my own two feet I am learning to honor and cherish the holiness of place. This is a popular walking/hiking word. John Muir picked it up from Thoreau. It has an aire of aimlessness.
Walking affects not just space and distance but also time itself. In our high-speed way of living—which we intriguingly call “driven”—we miss many things. Christian faith calls us to a different pace of life, and walking is a vital way to achieve that. I wish that Boers would have expanded on this-both from why does he think we are called to this and in what form it would take. On the first, by not being driven, we have time to listen. Listen particularly to God and then listen and experience that which is around me.
Driving is an activity that is almost always merely a means to an end. Live time, however, is worthwhile in itself; it is enjoyable with its own internal, intrinsic goods. Interesting. Even in retirement, do I experience “Live Time”?
They [the Hebrews under Moses walking across the desert] learned “the word of God in the wilderness as they walked three miles an hour” with “the three mile an hour God.” That is a really interesting expression. This came from Kosuke Koyama.
Walking is an act of dissent; it is countercultural. Is a 30 minute wasted time?
Conclusion
Talks about his arrival to Santiago. There was the bittersweet of meeting people whom he had walked with so far and yet would never see again in this life. I imagine the afterlife to be an opportunity to catch up with those I’ve lost touch with along the way: friends and family, brothers and sisters in the faith, casual acquaintances, and even historical saints who inspired me from afar.
And then there is the sadness of accomplishing a goal and wondering, is that all? Meister Eckhart that I heard at a low point years ago: “Whatever happens to you is the best possible thing for your salvation.”
Taizé verse:
Bless the Lord, my soul
And bless God’s holy name
Bless the Lord, my soul,
who leads me into life.
And then there is a fitting quote from Abbess Samanthnn to end the main part of the book: Since God is near to all who call upon him, we are under no obligation to cross the sea. The kingdom of heaven can be reached from every land
Appendix 1. Recovering and Reclaiming Christian Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey undertaken in the light of a story. A great event has happened; the pilgrim hears the reports and goes in search of evidence, aspiring to be an eyewitness. The pilgrim seeks not only to confirm the experience of others firsthand but to be changed by the experience.
Talks about a Celtic tradition where they believe there are “thin places” where God seems more accessible to humans. Not sure that is true, but I suspect there are places where we are more accessible to God-not that God cannot reach us anyplace, rather we let our defenses down and it is a place where we are more receptive to listen to God speaking to us.
Does a brief history of Christian pilgrimage and resistance to it. An unknown Irish leader warned about the fruitlessness of pilgrimage unless you already had your house in order. “To go to Rome means great toil and little profit. The [heavenly] king whom you seek can only be found there if you bring him within yourself.”
This is the question I have: Tourist or Pilgrim? Boers is not opposed to being a tourist, just do not wrap yourself in the cloak of a pilgrim if you do. Boers sees this as a continuum rather than an either/or. He suggests five tests to help determine what you are doing. One of them struck me particularly: Pilgrimage has a purpose, goal and destination of meeting and encountering God and God’s truths.
We should first visualize our daily walk in this life as a pilgrimage. Even going to church should be done in that spirit.
He concludes this with several elements of pilgrimage, including this one: The pilgrim goes with a spirit of openness, hoping to encounter God and anticipating the growth that this encounter invites. Pilgrimages are not done casually but require time to prepare and ready oneself.
Appendix 2. Planning a Christian Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage can grow from all kinds of motives: need for rest, realization that something about your faith has grown dull or stale, facing a transition, trying to process a major crisis, longing for healing or resolution, inexplicable attraction to a particular sojourn, desire for more intense prayer, yearning to explore and better understand your beliefs, wanting to review your life or set a new course.
What would be my motivation for doing something like the Camino? Pray, talk through it with your small group and family. Keep a journal of thoughts about it. Read.
Once you have gone, ponder what you have learned and felt.
He notes that it is hard to have other people interested in his experiences. I found this with the JMT. They only wanted a couple sentences to summarize 24 days, 221 miles. I wanted at least a page to share, if not a chapter.
Don’t underestimate the power of corporate support for pilgrimage.
Appendix 3. Pilgrimage Destinations
Boers lists other sites which might work as pilgrimage sites. He says this is not an exhaustive list. With each of the places listed below, he gives a description based upon an author and then some reference books.
- ASPEREN, SOUTH HOLLAND, NETHERLANDS
- CANTERBURY AND THE PILGRIMS’ WAY, ENGLAND
- COVENTRY, ENGLAND
- CROAGH PATRICK, COUNTY MAYO, IRELAND
- GLENDALOUGH, COUNTY WICKLOW, IRELAND
- HOLY ISLAND, LINDISFARNE, ENGLAND
- IONA COMMUNITY, SCOTLAND
- ISRAEL/PALESTINE
- JULIAN CELL, NORWICH, ENGLAND
- MEDJUGORJE
- ROME
- SYRIA
- TAIZÉ, FRANCE
Appendix 4. Camino Pilgrimage Resources
He provides a list of books about the Camino. Some are guidebooks, some are more biographical and some are spiritual.
Notes
The Bible is an outdoor book: Wendell Berry, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation,” in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (New York: Pantheon, 1992), p. 103.
Evaluation:
Arthur Boers walked the Camino de Santigo in the mid-2000’s. This book is a series of reflections on his adventure. It is not a travel guide nor a series of meditations, but how the Camino affected him, particularly places which he has felt too comfortable in our world.
Boers has been a Mennonite pastor and is currently a professor at the Mennonite Seminary in Elkhart. He approached the Camino as a Christian who is Dutch from an Anabapist tradition. As such, some of the Catholicism of the Camino was a bit foreign to him, along with the language-he was sufficiently conversational in Dutch, French and Spanish to make himself understood. But during the Catholic services there was a lot which over his head.
This was a good book for me to read as I have a desire to walk the Camino myself. But there are question he asks: are you looking for this to be walked as I would hike in the Sierra or a pilgrimage. This book is helping to clarify my thoughts on it.
Notes from my book group:
Why did you read this book?
Were you more or less interested in walking the Camino de Santiago after reading this book?
How do you want your life to change because you read this book?
What makes a long walk a pilgrimage? How are the two different?
Boers asks the question: How is it that people of our day, with the longest lifespans in history and a glut of “labor-saving” devices, find it astonishing to think of committing serious time to a spiritual endeavor? What is your answer?
Along the Camino are markings, Flechas, which show the pilgrim where to go. Was there a time when Boers lost these markings? What was his reaction? How does Boers show this is how God also gives us directions?
As Boers starts his Camino walk, a volunteer encourages him to lighten his load. How does Boers use this experience in chapter 4? In what ways do you carry too much stuff?
If you have done a long walk, did you find yourself being more prayerful or touching things more spiritually? If you have not, what do you think it would be like?
Boers talks about how the simplicity of a meal seemed to have the pilgrims bound closer together. Why do you think that is? Has this been your experience when you have eaten with other people where you are having a shared experience?
Boers said he did not do small talk well, but he resolved to do it better and more often. Why? What benefit did he find in small talk? Do you agree?
When someone has had a great adventure such as a pilgrimage or a long walk, how do you listen to the person?
He felt that he was called by God to walk the Camino. How does he describe this calling?
Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.
Why the title of The Way Was Made By Walking?
Does this story work as a spiritual reflection?
Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?
In what context was religion talked about in this book?
Was there anybody you would consider religious?
How did they show it?
Was the book overtly religious?
How did it affect the book's story?
Why do you think the author wrote this book?
What would you ask the author if you had a chance?
What “takeaways” did you have from this book?
What central ideas does the author present?
Are they personal, sociological, global, economic, spiritual?
What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas?
Is the evidence convincing...definitive or...speculative?
Does the author depend on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?
What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?
Are these idea’s controversial?
To whom and why?
Describe the culture talked about in the book.
How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?
What economic or political situations are described?
Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?
How did this book affect your view of the world?
Of how God is viewed?
What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?
Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
What was memorable?
New Words:
- meseta-plateau
- liminality-a term used to describe the psychological process of transitioning across boundaries and borders.
- Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
- Pilgrim’s Regress by C. S. Lewis
- The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris.
- ??? volume by Teresa of Ávila
- Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot
- Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
- The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
- Time by Design by Linda Breen Pierce
- Later Rule by Francis of Assisi
- The Way of the Lord: Christian Pilgrimage by Tom Wright
- Martyrs Mirror by Thieleman J. van Braght
Good Quotes:
- First Line: Walking the Camino de Santiago was the most intense experience of solitude in my life, but I did not do it alone.
- Last Line: I pray the Camino bears fruit so that indeed “I will walk in the presence of the Lord.” (Psalm 116:8)
- How is it that people of our day, with the longest lifespans in history and a glut of “labor-saving” devices, find it astonishing to think of committing serious time to a spiritual endeavor? Chp 1. I want to Be in That Number: Drawn to Pilgrimage
- The path to heaven lies through heaven, and all the way to heaven is heaven. Catherine of Siena Attributed by Dorothy Day in On Pilgrimage
- You made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you. Augustine, Confessions.
- In tourism, consuming may replace actual experience. Chp 4. Your Pack's Too Big: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
- The more stuff we own, the more effort and energy it takes to keep, maintain, insure and protect it. Chp 4. Your Pack's Too Big: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
- One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Aldo Leopold, Round River, pg 165
- Jesus and later the desert fathers and mothers show that wilderness is not just a place of beauty and solace but also of testing and temptation. Chp 5. The Road That Leads to Life: Challenges of Faithful Pilgrimage
- Truly, we met God in each other and while sharing food. Chp 6. The Journey Is Long: Camino Confessions
- A shared meal is the activity most closely tied to the reality of God’s Kingdom. Christine Pohll, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition
- Being an ignorant traveler has its perks. Chp 8. No "Ustedes" Por Favor: The Rules Are Different Here
- Why not encourage every believer we meet with a blessing? Is it so hard to find a simple phrase to inspire others on the path, in their following of Jesus the Way, the true Camino? Chp 8. No "Ustedes" Por Favor: The Rules Are Different Here
- Be compassionate, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. Attributed to Philo of Alexandria
- One place the church can engage the spiritual longing in our culture is to name the shallowness of how many of us live and to offer and model more grace-filled approaches. Chp 10. Focal Ways of Life: Putting Pilgrimage into Practice
- “When were you last able to affirm them?”
- There is no place I would rather be.
- There is nothing I would rather do.
- There is no one I would rather be with.
- This I will remember well. Albert Borgman, The Moral Complexion of Consumption
- Walking affects not just space and distance but also time itself. In our high-speed way of living—which we intriguingly call “driven”—we miss many things. Christian faith calls us to a different pace of life, and walking is a vital way to achieve that. Chp 12. Here I Walk, I Can Do No Other: Keeping Faith With Our Feet
- Whatever happens to you is the best possible thing for your salvation. Meister Eckhart, posted on wall in St Georgy’s Abbey, Three Rivers, Michigan
- Since God is near to all who call upon him, we are under no obligation to cross the sea. The kingdom of heaven can be reached from every land. Abbess Samanthann- I could not find a direct reference, but a couple of people quote her. Boers quotes it from a book by Edward C Sellner.
- Foreword by Eugene Peterson
- Acknowledgments
- Map of Camino
- Introduction
- 1. I want to Be in That Number: Drawn to Pilgrimage
- 2. Seeking God's Homeland: Christian Roots of Pilgrimage
- 3. Lord, Teach Us to Be Prayerful: Spirituality Lessons
- 4. Your Pack's Too Big: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
- 5. The Road That Leads to Life: Challenges of Faithful Pilgrimage
- 6. The Journey Is Long: Camino Confessions
- Photograph Section
- 7. Well That's the Camino: Hospitality and Solidarity
- 8. No "Ustedes" Por Favor: The Rules Are Different Here
- 9. Secular Seekers: The Disconnect of Pilgrims and Church
- 10. Focal Ways of Life: Putting Pilgrimage into Practice
- 11. Walking in Faith: Walking as Spiritual Practice
- 12. Here I Walk, I Can Do No Other: Keeping Faith With Our Feet
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1. Recovering and Reclaiming Christian Pilgrimage
- Appendix 2. Planning a Christian Pilgrimage
- Appendix 3. Pilgrimage Destinations
- Appendix 4. Camino Pilgrimage Resources
- Notes
References:
- Publisher's Web Site for Book
- Author's Web Site
- Amazon-Book
- Amazon-Author
- Barnes and Noble
- GoodReads-Book
- GoodReads-Author
- Direction-A Mennonite Form
- Christian Century
- Catholic Books Review
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