Parishioners often tell me that they're not much of a Christian. Sometimes they even say they're not sure why they're here.

"Peregrina! Peregrina!” It was an afternoon in Spain and I had just finished my ice cream bar and left a rather grungy roadside café (the grunge noticeable only because most were lovely) and the woman who had been behind the counter was standing in the door shouting. It took me a moment to realize she was shouting at me. Not being much of a Spanish speaker (though increasingly adept at making my need for ice cream clear) I tuned out a lot of the Spanish being spoken around me. But shouting is harder to ignore. Still, I thought she was shouting at someone else because her words, words I did understand, meant “Pilgrim! Pilgrim!” Yes, I was on the Camino de Santiago, the medieval pilgrimage route that traverses Northern Spain until it reaches Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral where the bones of St. James’ are said to rest. Though walking alone at that particular point, I was there as part of the group of St. James’ parishioners walking the last 100 or so kilometers of the Camino as our bicentennial pilgrimage. We were well past the halfway mark when this occurred, so I was well into the rhythm of long days of walking. She was shouting because she thought I had left my “passport,” the document pilgrims get stamped every few kilometers to verify that they have walked the Camino, the document needed to get an official certificate in Santiago at the end of the journey. I was able to assure the woman that it wasn’t mine, though it turned out it did belong to a member of our group. That however is another story.
A woman I didn’t know, with whom I had exchanged no more than ten words, knew who I was. She saw someone walking on the Camino heading towards Santiago, a good distance from any real village, bearing a small daypack and a bottle of water and wearing a shell on a simple cord necklace. A pilgrim. Not exactly rocket science. Except to me. So why did it take me a few moments to understand that I was the person being addressed? Because I was aware of all the ways in which I did not feel like an authentic pilgrim. The Camino itself runs for nearly 800 kilometers, so 100 hardly seemed to count. We were not staying in the very simple albergues/refugios (hostels) that provide bare bones accommodations for pilgrims, but in nice (sometimes very nice) hotels. And our luggage was ferried on ahead of us, hence the small daypack. But it was not only the woman at the café who recognized me (and all of us from St. James’) as pilgrims. At the end of the journey, multicolored, many stamped “passports” in hand, the Camino office thought we qualified and gave us our certificates (called Compostelas) with our names written in Latin (actually translating Brenda into Latin was more than they could manage, but they tried for several minutes). More telling, every other pilgrim on the route thought we were pilgrims, even when we told them how and how long we were travelling. The young man who had started not in Spain but back in France (add a few hundred more kilometers), the elderly couples making their way slowly and with well-used walking sticks, the pilgrims who were walking the way (all the way) for the second or third time. They knew the simple truth that had eluded me until that afternoon. If you are on the Camino, you are a pilgrim.
Parishioners often tell me that they’re not much of a Christian. Sometimes they even say they’re not sure why they’re here, not sure what, if anything, they believe about God or what if any relationship they might have, or even want, with Jesus. While we don’t shout, “Christian! Christian!” to get your attention, we could. Maybe we should. A wise Jesuit priest once said to me that the desire for a relationship with Christ is a sign that there is a relationship with Christ. He was not suggesting, nor am I, that the journey ends there. But we do ourselves and our faith a disservice if we dismiss or demean the steps we are taking by comparing ourselves to others who, we have decided, are somehow more spiritual, more Christian than we. By all means deepen your faith. Baptism is the official starting point (your passport as it were), but there’s lots more. Read the Bible. Learn to pray. Sing the hymns. Serve others. Receive communion. One of the primary reasons for the existence of the Church is to help people, wherever they are on their journey with Jesus, to grow. So take advantage of that, knowing that each step makes a difference. The fourth day of walking the Camino felt different from the first, in part because my legs had adjusted to walking more than ten miles a day. The life of faith feels different as well when prayer and service have become regular disciplines rather than special events; there are spiritual muscles that develop as well. But wherever we are on that journey, claim your identity as a Christian.

The Rev. Brenda G. Husson, Rector