Customer Reviews

Walk in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons from the Camino

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Back in the summer of 2003, I visited a former seminary roommate in Leon, Spain. I showed up a couple of days before his wedding after backpacking through Amsterdam, Paris, London, and Madrid. While strolling together through Leon, my Spanish friend remarked that people thought I was a "Pilgrim" because of my clothing and backpack. I asked him to clarify, and he replied that Leon was on the path of the Camino Pilgrimage. Thus began my interest in the topic.

"Walk in a Relaxed Manner" was the first book I read about the Camino. It's newly published, written by a 60-year-old nun who walked the Pilgrimage around the time I was in Leon. She hit the trail with a retired priest, and this book was born from that experience. The subtitle and theme is "Life Lessons From the Camino," and each chapter is based on a way she grew due to the Pilgrimage. For example, the book's title is shared with a chapter where Sr. Rupp describes how she learned to walk slowly and thoughtfully instead of quickly and competitively. Other chapter titles include "Savor Solitude," "Deal with Disappointments," and "Live in the Now." Such topics may strike some as trite. But I found it impressive that more often than not, it was the walk's difficulties that enabled her to internalize these truths.

The author writes in a clear and readable manner. She rejoices in the high points of the Pilgrimage, and is honest about the lows as well. Each lesson is presented in a thoughtful manner, and all are applicable to everyday life. However, like many spiritual insights perhaps some sort of defining experience is required to truly own them. But reading about these truths may be a way to prepare the heart for their eventual actualization. Although a Catholic nun in the Servite Community, Sr. Rupp keeps things fairly ecumenical throughout her tale. In addition, practical advice about the Pilgrimage is sprinkled throughout the book, and a list of helpful Camino resources is included at the end. There's even an authorized website based on Joyce Rupp's name if you want more info about her.

Someday I'd like to do the El Camino Pilgrimage. I hope I don't have to wait until my sixties, but sometimes you have to let things happen in their time. If I do walk it, I'll be glad if I learn and grow half as much as Sr. Rupp did. Recommended for all travelers and pilgrims.

UPDATE 9/7/07: Well, I only had to wait until I was forty to do the Camino. On 7/14/07 I stepped off in St. Jean Pied-de-Port (France), and on 8/24/07 I walked into Santiago, Spain. After returning home to the US, I went through this book again. It was nice reading about familiar places on the Way, and also to identify with the lessons Ms. Rupp writes about. Recommended even more now that I've actually done the trek.

As she approached her 60th birthday, spiritual writer and retreat leader Joyce Rupp abandoned her plan to hole up for a six-month sabbatical by the ocean to bask in solitude. Instead, she embarked on a 37-day walking trek across Spain with her friend Tom Pfeffer. The two prepared and trained for a year before making the historical pilgrimage from Roncesvilles on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees to the Cathedral of St. James in the city of Santiago, a journey commonly referred to as "the Camino."

Walking in the "relaxed manner" in the title was one of the first lessons these two self-described productive-oriented people learned. At first, Rupp explains, they believed their goal was to reach Santiago, but they eventually discovered that the walk itself imparted spiritual empowerment. Rupp goes into some detail about her competitive nature as their self-prescribed 12 miles was surpassed regularly by other "pilgrims." For the first few days, the two succumbed to their natural tendency to rush, rush, rush, and push, push, push. In the end, they agreed to take the advice of a friend who had walked the Camino earlier: "drink more water and walk in a relaxed manner."

Rupp laces the story with such insights, always connecting the events and experiences with "routine" life and sharing the positive effects the journey had on her. Her chapter on realizing "a tiny bit" what it is like to be homeless is especially thought-provoking. Following a transaction at a bank, Rupp was convinced the clerk thought, "This smelly pilgrim with her dirty hiking boots dug into this pack of weird things and, whew, the odor that came from that bag, it was enough to gag me..." The homelessness image also came up when she found herself in settings for which she was not "appropriately dressed" and other situations where she was "pierced" by disdainful looks and rejection.

Like Rupp's other books, Walk in a Relaxed Manner is filled with down-to-earth stories and deeply spiritual reflections.

This is an amazing book about an amazing experience--walking across Spain--and well after midlife. We share the hardships and blessings of this journey and are able to walk, talk and think in a relaxed manner while reading it. There are lessons subtly given that everyone can shsare.

I was extremely disappointed in this book. It almost turned me away from my planned Camino later this year. Ms Rupp (who sort of disguises her true persona as a Catholic nun) complains about everything, not once, but continually. There is the filthy communal bathrooms that digust her. The food is substandard, and in short supply. Fellow pilgrims annoy her due to their physical appearance (she describes one large Spaniard in detail) and mannerisms. Her walking companion gets on her nerves at times. She senses disdain and disapproval frequently due to her appearance. She struggles with the difficulty of having to unpack and repack her things each day. She is constantly anxious about where she will sleep each night.

It is the constant repetition and dwelling on all these difficulties that left me wondering what she was expecting? She contrasts her life in the US, where she has a choice of many outfits to wear each day, her precious privacy, her sumptious meals, her plethora of "material things". Indeed, she succeeded quite well in disguising her true identity as a Catholic nun

She is even suspicious of 3 friendly priests when she finds they are Opus Dei. God forbid. Yet she is able to "suck it up" and realize the lesson that even conservatives can be good people, and we should not judge them. But in her heart, she really wanted them to be Jesuits.

She decides not to let anyone know that she is a "published author" or a nun. She wants no special treatment due to her self-perceived real life status. I found this very strange. When I walk the Camino I pray that God lets me meet Catholic priests and nuns who are not in disguise.

If you want to tread through Oprah-like introversion and self-analysis, this book is OK. Despite her clever chapter titles that suggest wonderful life lessons, this book is laden with negativity.

This book is a very disheartening account of one person's experience walking the Camino. If you would like to be discouraged from going, then this is the book for you. The author shines an unforgiving spotlight on anything and everything that is negative. She places herself in the position of judge and finds herself to be cleaner and smarter than the giving and kind people who run and operate the refugios, restaurants and shops along the way. The spiritual lessons she gleans are uninspiring in contrast to the glee she appears to get from dissing just about everyone and everything. Why didn't she stay home? She never finds a satisfying answer to that question. If you are called to walk the Camino and are excited and happy about what awaits you, skip this account. Your experience can only be better than this one. Blessings to Ms. Rupp.

I initially thought this book would be an engaging and spiritual description of the Camino experience. Rupp's complaints and negativity quickly took their toll on this reader and left me disenchanted with her whole experience. However, every pilgrim finds individual purpose in his or her own journey and I respectively leave that manifestation without ridicule if this is what moved her spiritually.

Reflections of this Catholic sister, as she walks the Camino with the semi retired priest of her parish.

This journey of two people of faith met with all the challenges the Camino can offer. Joyce started out as what I call an overachiever, and Tom as a steadying influence.

A couple concepts stuck in my brain from chapters of this book. Enjoy existential friendships. Return a positive for a negative. Negative things do happen, but Joyce would make a determined effort to see the positive - a concept I accept, but sometimes have difficulty applying.

I enjoyed this thoughtful book.

Based on the reviews (which was prior to the one by Thomas Heckel) I purchased this book. I have to totally agree with Mr. Heckel. I was shocked and disappointed.

Ms. Rupp, who proclaims from the outset that she is a Catholic nun, totally belies the position. I was confused. Granted not all nuns are like Mother Teresa, however, I was under the impression that nuns are more non-judgmental then the average person. I also must have suffered from the delusion that nuns are loving, open, helpful, and gracious. This account is contrary to those thoughts.

Ms. Rupp's personal insights were disturbing. Her incessant complaining, judging, and paranoia regarding everyone she meets, (including her walking partner), and everything she experiences do not seem to tell the tale of a "religious" or "spiritual" person, let alone a person of faith. She is FAR more comfortable with the comforts of her home and lifestyle, as she reminds the reader throughout the book. What was she expecting on the Camino?

She shows no trust in fellow man. Why is she a nun? Her writing lends itself to self-importance by telling the reader that she consciously decided not to tell others that she was a "published writer or nun" (I'm guessing that she feels superior in her own eyes). However, I think had she told the people she met that she was a nun, they would have been just as shocked as I was, and not in a good way.

When she and her walking partner, a priest, return home still she has no real "life lessons" to provide either herself or the reader, although the chapter titles would lead you to think otherwise.

I've kept a library of books I've read regarding the Camino as I plan to walk it very soon. This book, however, I did not keep, nor do I recommend to anyone.

This is a worthy read for those who are preparing to go on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela or for those who just want to learn how to live life in a calm manner. Rupp is a writer of comfortable prose that leads the reader from one page to the next. There are nuggets for contemplation in each section that invite a you to reread again as you learn to live in a calm manner while the world goes crazy around us. Enjoy it and keep it close to the bedstand.

My wife and I earned a compostela walking a portion of the Camino Frances in May of 2004. Since then I've read many books on pilgrimage, including several accounts of other pilgrims' journeys on the same road we traveled. Many are what another reviewer describes: diaries of the interior lives of the author, focusing mainly on their hardships and triumphs, as if to point out how they changed the camino, rather than how they were changed by it. If I felt that this were all to this book, I wouldn't recommend it. Instead, I think this book provides a wonderful balance between soulful reflection and the pragmatism of the all-too-physical journey. Walking the camino does appear to have all the ingredients necessary for earning a 'spiritual experience merit badge', and some seem to walk it just to earn pilgrimage street cred. Even were that Rupp's intention, and I doubt very much that is the case, she's provided a great perspective for potential pilgrims and useful material to aid past walkers. It's true that she does not shy away from describing unpleasantries of the road: dirty accommodations, illness, rude pilgrims, bad food, and bad weather. These are very real likelihoods, and she discusses them very frankly; pilgrims do not float along the road, barely touching the earth, and any idyllic expectations soon come face-to-face with harsh reality. Rupp does not bring up these issues merely to complain, however; the benefit of this book is how she treats these subjects as well as her prayerful introspection as equally engaging points of reflection and provides a useful perspective on integrating even these issues into a larger pilgrimage experience. The subtitle of the book, however, is "Life Lessons from the Camino", and that's the true value of these observations: her effort in showing that much of our day-to-day life is filled with just these sort of experiences and just this sort of potential for reflection, appreciation, and understanding.