Why the Camino Enchants Me

My enchantment with the Camino dates to 1969 when Sir Kenneth Clark did an episode of his Civilisation series featuring the 12th century pilgrimage churches at Vezelay and Autun, southeast of Paris.

Thirty years later Toni and I visited those two romanesque churches, as well as St. Trophime in Arles. In each of these numinous spaces, the presence of the sacred touched me.

In Sister Jean’s medieval art history course at Daemen I learned these churches were each starting points for the Camino de Santiago, which at its height in the 12th century, drew a million pilgrims each year.

In Spain, in 2013, I felt that presence again, vividly, in San Martin in Fromista, San Isodoro in León and Santa Maria Real in O’Cebreiro.  And, surprising to this city boy, I felt it also in the plains of the meseta and the mountains of Galicia.

Toni, of course, loved little bars in the ancient villages with tapas and 1 € glasses of vino tinto. Despite her complicated history with the Catholic church, I remember how deeply moved she was by the Igrexa de Santiago in Barbadelo.

As a fallen-away Unitarian, I don’t know much about God, but I do know where He lives.