Dispatches Del Camino

The town is small. Postage-stamp small. The village of Ambasmestas is nestled within the Galician mountains like a Spanish fairytale. Rock-paved streets, ancient buildings, crowing roosters.

It is raining. I sit on a bench, reading a book, waiting for my hotel to open in another five hours. I am sopping wet. Even my socks are wet.

Somewhere in the distant mountains, my wife is hiking the Camino. I should be with her, but I am here with shin-splinted legs and swollen calves.

But somehow, I am in a great mood. Somehow. I feel marvelous, reading my book in the rain. Because my personal Camino is, for the most part, finished. I now have the distinct pleasure of bumming around Spain, without a schedule, gaily drinking cervezas with locals, playing my American fiddle in taverns where no inglés is spoken, and they give you free beer if you have shin splints.

I could think of worse places to be.

Across the street is a stone church. The doors are open. These doors represent the only open doors in the village.

I trot across the muddy street, squishing in my boots, wincing in pain with each step, carrying my backpack and fiddle.

I have been following the Camino via taxi the last three days. Today, my taxi driver, God love him, did not like Americans. He charges Americans three times more than people from other countries.

Yesterday, for example, I took a taxi with a French woman. The driver assumed I was French, so he charged me 15 Euros. This morning, however, I told the driver I was from Alabama, his demeanor changed. He drove less than five miles and charged me 55 Euros.

When I paid, I smiled and said in Spanish, “This is a little expensive, no?” His reply was—I’m not making this up—“This is MY tax, Americano.”

The driver seemed surprised when I handed him a €10 tip. I replied in Spanish, “You deserve it, you work very hard.”

He blushed. Then he shook my hand. But he didn’t squeeze very hard.

I enter the church.

The stone walls chill the air. I can see my breath. I am alone. I use a hanky to dry my wet body.

I dip my index finger into the font, I cross myself. I do this simple gesture because my forebears have been using this gesture since it was illegal.

I plop my dripping derrière onto a pew. The rain on the church roof sounds like a percussion section.

I still have five hours to wait. So I decide to pray.

I have been hiking the Camino de Santiago for a solid month as of today. And in those 30 days, I can honestly say I have learned one thing. Nothing.

No, that’s not true. I’ve learned to pray out here. And I discovered that I never really knew how to pray before. I understood the concept, yes. I knew what you were supposed to do, of course. I grew up in a fundamentalist church where saying grace at a potluck social took 45 minutes just to finish praying for the shut-ins. But I never truly knew how to pray.

I do now.

I’ve leaned that you don’t say a word. You don’t speak. You don’t have to speak, He already knows what you’re going to say. You don’t even have to tell him what you need. He already knows that too.

No mantras. Repetition is nice, but it doesn’t do anything. No key phrases. No magic words. No copyrighted prayer method.

You don’t have to be loud, or stand in public and bellow. Neither do you need to remind God who He is, or what He can do. You don’t even have to call Him “God.” Trust me, He already knows He’s God.

You don’t have to beg, either. You’re His kid. Kids don’t have to beg parents for what they need. You don’t even have to speak.

I am not a smart man. But I am a scarred human being. I am the survivor of a traumatic childhood, the victim of domestic abuse, and paternal suicide. And throughout my painful years, I learned this. Prayer is not asking God to change stuff; it is asking God to change you.

Thus, for real prayer you don't have to do anything. In fact, prayer is just that. Nothingness. It is beautiful, fully complete, impossibly rich, absolutely majestic nothingness. Which is actually not nothingness at all. But everythingness.

As I am praying, I am interrupted.

There is a woman sitting next to me. Also praying. While she prays, she begins to sing. Her voice grows louder. I cannot explain why, but I feel moved to remove my fiddle from its case, and I start playing along with her.

Soon, we are both signing. I don’t even know what we’re singing. She is singing in her language, and I am singing in mine. But it works. And I’m thinking about how the people back home are going to think I’ve completely lost my sanity.

But I think the truth is, maybe I’ve finally found it

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