He is still sorting it out. Call it a self-debriefing or decompression. There are all kinds of phrases that could be used to describe what Trinity Lutheran Church Pastor Stewart Miller is going through, a few short weeks after completing the challenging 800- kilometre pilgrimage of El Camino de Santiago that took him from the borders of France to the city of Santiago de Compestela in Spain. Yes, that's the same city that was rocked with sorrow when a rapid transit train jumped the tracks and crashed two weeks ago, killing 80 people, many of whom were probably en route to the same shrine at St. James that Miller made his way to at the end of his 31-day walk.
Miller completed the entire trek, similar to the one documented in the movie The Way, which served as one of the stimulants that helped him make up his mind to take up the challenge. He said that some who make the pilgrimage don't cover the entire distance and use several other aids, according to their needs and capabilities, but he stayed true to the demands of the 800 km or more original path, plus a few additional kilometres tacked on for good measure after discovering he had strayed off course and had to backtrack with the backpack.
"It was a kind of in-joke among the dedicated trekkers, they would look at the boots or shoes of the other trekkers and if they looked too new compared with ours that looked like 40 miles of bad road, we knew they were taking an alternative," he said with a chuckle, "but we must understand everybody does their own Camino, and it ends when we come to the bones of St. James in the church."
They walk it now for some version of a Roman Catholic devotion, spiritual and/or religious need or a life-changing spiritual or physical challenge.
Miller said he took on the challenge for a variety of reasons that could be described as spiritual, devotional, physical or even mid-life crisis, but by the end it was a true spiritual experience, not in the classical religious way, but rather, he said, "my whole life is a spiritual journey and this has been a part of it.
"The experience of walking by yourself for large chunks of 31 days, then walking in community and living in community, does things to who you are, regardless of how religious you are at the start. There are just things that happen to your heart and your mind.
"You spend a lot of time thinking about how and who you are in the world. It is a microcosm. You get some sense of yourself in somewhat broad strokes. When you set down in Camino, who you are sort of shows up and how you bounce off other people just is as clear as the light of day, because we're all there and all in it together.
"I didn't expect the community to be as quickly developed and as intimate as it really was."
Miller said it was hard to put into words what the multi-faceted journey means to him.
The physical aspect of it, the training, the conditioning, the physical challenges of the walk, take up about 20 per cent of the experience.
"The rest is about walking and talking to yourself and God and walking and talking with fellow Camino people who are your family. It's larger and more intimate than you could ever imagine."
The nature of the walk, taking in certain sections in a set period of time meant that a true family of 40 to 50 trekkers would often end up in the same location at the end of the day. He had a tendency to meet them in the evenings in the hostels.
"It was a spiritual, emotional, physical community. Some days you were caring for each other's blisters. Or other days you just walked along together because it was hot and you needed to urge each other along."
Sometimes he said, "you'd walk along and listen to stories that would break your heart." He recorded some of these experiences in his blog that he filed when Internet conditions allowed.
The experience breaks down your personal façade, he said by means of explanation.
Since his return, Miller said one aspect of the pilgrimage he misses is the simplicity of the walk, something that his new friends also state in their e-mails to him since their return to daily routines.
"I miss the straightforwardness of the task at hand. It was simple because we just lived together."
The guidebook the pilgrims used offered suggestions as to where they could stop over and how many kilometres might be accomplished each day, but that changed with weather and needs and sideline items that would detract walkers from time-to-time.
"But we tended to be among 40 or 50 people, some would go 25 instead of 30 kilometres and then make it up the next day. So it became difficult to make it to a big city and take a day off because you wanted to get up and get going,"
The community experience was powerful and as Miller added, "God speaks to people in so many different ways."
He didn't discover the next new thing about God, but he did experience the next new thing about the church and being a pastor in the real world.
"It was a privilege and challenge to be a pastor and walking the Camino, because religion is either incredibly distasteful to people or incredibly frightening to people because of past experiences. What goes on inside those weird buildings and what the church and God is really about as Christianity expresses it. The unfortunate thing is what most people know about Christianity is what people catch in the news and articulate it. Unfortunately, that's the West World's Baptist version of Christianity, which is violent to people's spirits."
He said he often heard among his fellow trekkers that if all pastors were like him, they'd go to church, but his response was always "actually there are more people like me, you need to go and find them."
Getting lost on the trail was part of the adventure, he explained. Often a 35-kilometre expectation for a day's trek became a 1- kilometre journey because he would take a wrong turn and then have to return. "I would be embarrassed when that happened," he said.
"It's difficult to put into words what has gone on in my heart and head. Not because there have been any profound changes but because I just can't put names and words to the changes. I do know I have been deeply touched by conversations with myself, God and other people in a good way."
Miller said he expected to spend more time alone, communing with nature and himself and God and less time in the company of others. But he learned, "God was just as capable of talking to me among these people as he was in silence."
There was another clergyman who Miller became close to during the trek, but "I had some very profound conversations with 20-year-olds and 70-year-olds too. So it was across the spectrum."
He said he has achieved a stronger sense of "being pastor Stewart. It was good to be reminded by the people I talked with that people are really hungry for a connection with something bigger than themselves.
"It's exciting to know that people are looking for something, but daunting insofar as even pastors aren't certain how to connect with them apart from this great thing. Nobody is going to connect to me to re-invigorate the church," he said with a laugh.
"But I did learn we need to make a stronger effort to be accessible. Me and the church."
Now that he's back home in Estevan, Miller said he's enjoying the experience of being a pastor, with new perspectives on who and what he is as well as being in the church and among friends. He said he has always found Estevan to be a wonderful, accepting community because we "still know one another. We're going to run into one another all the time, so there isn't any need for false impressions. It's a true community with spirit."
