Brian Doyle, a frequent contributor to Eureka Street, left me with one of his characteristic flashes of wisdom which has been rattling around in my mind like some half-remembered song: 'There are no great stories, only small stories told with great attentiveness.'
Recently I returned from walking the Spanish Camino to the medieval town of Santiago de Compostella, the legendary resting place of the Apostle James. Returning pilgrims are faced with the same questions, I imagine: What did it mean? Has it changed you? Was it the significant spiritual experience that people speak about?
Well, I must confess I'm not making a great fist of answering these friendly enquiries. By the time I clear my throat and fashion a few clunky words, there is often a slightly embarrassed gap and, often as not, I find the conversation has moved in some other direction.
Let me try to make sense of the experience through the lens of one small story. About the half way point in the 350 km of my pilgrimage my companion and I were coming to the end of our walking day, looking forward to the evening's stop at a village called Alto de Poio. The map told us we were a few kilometres from our destination.
A large house appeared on the track, with rows of washing on the line, a reliable sign that we had reached the refugio where we would find a dormitory full of exhausted pilgrims on their beds recovering from the six or seven hour walk of the morning. Taking the steps up to the verandah, we opened the front door and confidently walked into the house expecting the usual warm hospitality unfailingly offered to the weary pilgrim.
Wham, bam, alakazam — a rather small ancient man barred our way and attacked us with a venom normally reserved for carriers of some ancient plague, shouting in a pitch beyond fury, snarling like an enraged guard dog. We retreated as though our backpacks were on fire.
The householder's response was understandable, when you think about it. He had been confronted with two men armed with heavy wooden staffs, wildly bearded, no doubt seriously on the nose, mumbling in some unrecognisable language, invading his very lounge room.
This was not the expected place of hospitality and refuge where we could throw our weary bodies for the night. In shock, we stumbled back on to