The Way of New Beginning

On my fourth day of walking, in that day’s journal entry, I wrote “today I cried.” I had spent the previous night in Larronsoña and was walking through Pamplona to Cizur Menor covering 22K (13+ miles). After eating my breakfast, which consisted of groceries I had purchased the day before, I began walking around 7:30 a.m. I had been walking for a little over an hour, nursing my right knee, when I came to the bridge at Zuriáin spanning the river Arga. Looking down toward the riverbank, I saw a pilgrim I had met a couple nights previously. She was at the water’s edge, dripping wet, and was struggling to put her pack on. When I went down to see if I could help, she told me how she had been standing on the bridge taking a picture when she dropped her phone into the water. Not thinking clearly, she rushed down to the river, threw off her pack, and went in with her clothes on. Once she was in the water, however, she could not see past the surface due to its reflecting light, so she asked a couple of Korean pilgrims who were passing by on the bridge to guide her toward her phone, which they did. After retrieving her phone, which still worked, she came out of the water, changed some of her clothes, and was trying to get her pack organized when I showed up. She was shaking so badly I had to help her attach her wet clothes to her pack, put on her poncho to help her warm up, and then get her pack on. For the next hour or two we walked together and talked as she slowly recovered and began once again to look outward toward the larger Camino experience. When we arrived at the point where the Way splits with the traditional trail going off to the right and up the mountain into Zabaldika, and the easier newer trail that continues to the left following the river, we went our separate ways: she to the left and me to the right. I can be a bit of a stickler for following the “old ways.” The trail up the mountain was narrow, a bit overgrown, and steep. When I arrived at the top, there was a plain 12th-century church dedicated to San Esteban. I was planning on walking by when an elderly woman came out and motioned for me to come into the church. On the Camino, when the unexpected happens, there is a good chance it is a gift. So I took my pack and hat off and left them on the threshold with my staff and entered the church. Directly across from the entryway was a life-sized crucifix of Jesus carved in wood and surrounded by yellow post-it notes with the prayers, hopes, and favorite quotes of hundreds of pilgrims. Though I was intrigued, I turned to the side, read some literature about the church, then explored the church including going up into the ancient belfry where I rang the bell. Coming back down, I stood in front of the crucifix. I wanted to touch it with the brass cross I was carrying in my hand, but that was generally something I had done privately, surreptitiously almost, as if I was afraid I’d be seen exposing a vulnerability of which I was ashamed. I could not do that here, since the woman was standing right there beside me. So using hand motions, I asked her if it would be okay for me to touch Jesus with my cross. She nodded yes, so I reached out with my cross, which was in my left hand. As I was reaching, I paused for a moment wondering where I should touch Jesus. And then I knew: the heart of Jesus. As my cross made contact over the heart of Jesus, I was flooded with an overwhelming sense of love, of joy, of being at the right place and doing the right thing, and of being loved just as I am. I felt connected to God, myself, and everything. I wept. Not just a few tears in the corner of my eyes, but uncontrollable weeping. Tears ran down my face as they have done only a handful of times in my life, and as they are threatening to do now as I write this. I sat in that pew at the foot of the cross and wept as the woman gently and perhaps knowingly looked on. This experience at Zabaldika was the spiritual highlight of this Camino for me. In fact, it remains one of the spiritual highlights of my life. It was a moment of unexpected and extraordinary grace—a unitive or nondual experience—an experience of connectedness with everything. One can go a lifetime, if not multiple lifetimes, and never have such an experience. An intentional pilgrim who may hope for such an experience can walk the whole Camino, even multiple Caminos, and never have such an experience. But on my fourth day, I had this extraordinary spiritual experience. On the one hand, this allowed me to relax for the remainder of this Camino—I was no longer desperate for such an experience and could now relax. On the other hand, it set up a hidden and unexamined expectation that another Camino, perhaps even a longer one, might result in another such spiritual experience. In the spring of 2023, five years later, I was able to return for this longer Camino.