“Yes,” we answered. “We are pilgrims.”

For many years, I have understood myself to be on a pilgrimage in the sense that life itself is a pilgrimage. But until asked that question last April, I never had claimed identity as a pilgrim.

My two companions and I were on our way to Roncesvalles, Spain, to begin walking the Camino de Santiago, the 483-mile medieval pilgrimage route that crosses the north of Spain to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. In 16 days, the three of us covered 215 miles of the Camino -- the first 65 and the last 150 miles -- on foot, more than enough to be considered official pilgrims.

We quickly discovered the man’s question to be more of a statement, for our hiking boots, our backpacks and our quick-dry clothes marked us as members of a tribe, a stream of pilgrims heading west on the same path, a stream that began flowing hundreds of years ago from all parts of Europe to the alleged resting place of the relics of St. James (Santiago), brother of Jesus.

I found being part of that stream rather awesome as I greeted those we passed, or who passed us, along the way, with “¡Hola!” or “¡Buenos días!” The reply, particularly from village residents, was often, “¡Buen camino!” One man even blew kisses at us over his garden wall!

Each day we rose early to load up our packs and walk the next 12- to 20-mile stage of the journey, passing through open countryside, forests, mountains, dozens of rural hamlets, many towns and some larger cities. Some days we walked in warm sunshine, some in steady rain, and one day we crossed over a mountain in blowing snow. We encountered people from all over the world -- though few others from the United States -- with whom we shared the common ground and camaraderie of pilgrimage.

As we neared the end, I realized I had not been thinking about the destination. I was engaged in the journey itself, a journey that included both physical and spiritual pleasures and pains. What a privilege it was to have that time to be fully in the present moment, whether it was struggling up a hill, thrilling at the sight of spring wildflowers and snow-covered mountains, tending to a blister or even doing laundry. The journey was a prayer, undistracted by e-mail, the phone or worries about deadlines, a time of gentle nearness to God.

Our pilgrimage ended with a noon pilgrims’ Mass in the huge cathedral, packed with the faithful who had come from all over Spain -- joining those of us who had walked the Camino -- to make their confessions and pay homage to St. James in that Jubilee Year (when the Feast of St. James, July 25, falls on a Sunday).

Reflecting on our walk on the Camino, I realize that it clarified for me how the practice of pilgrimage can inform -- and form -- my life as a Christian. I believe a journey or an undertaking can be understood as pilgrimage if it includes the elements of intention, attention and connection. Some pilgrimages may emphasize one element more than the others, but, for me, all three are part of the practice.

Pilgrimage is intentional. Not only does it have a goal or destination, such as the Cathedral of Santiago, but the way itself, the how of the journey, must be intentional. Arrival at the cathedral was the fruit of a carefully planned and strenuous effort. Its meaning grew out of the journey.

Pilgrimage invites the practice of full attentiveness to the present, a shedding of distraction. Ever since reading the work of Simone Weil back in the 1970s, I have known such times of full absorption and attention to be a form of prayer, a pathway into deeper communion with God. For Weil, any real effort of attention has a spiritual dimension and is a practice for that complete attention on God that she defined as prayer. Fully attentive to the walking and my surroundings, I was open to experience whatever came my way.

Another kind of pilgrimage

In August, six members of Episcopal Communicators plus two fellow pilgrims spent a week exploring El Salvador and experiencing the work of the Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador (IAES) and of Cristosal, the Vermont-based foundation that walks with the Salvadoran church.

We journeyed on what some call the via crucis of El Salvador: places of violent death and remembrance from the recent civil war. In the chapel where Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated March 24, 1980, we saw the vestments he was wearing that day. At the University of Central America, where the Salvadoran military killed six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her niece Nov. 16, 1989, we saw artifacts of their daily lives alongside bloodstained clothing and a Bible riddled by machine gun fire.

These sites are holy places, sanctified by the blood of innocent victims, where we can connect with deep truth about our humanity. We connected with the courage of Oscar Romero and the Jesuit priests who spoke truth to power on behalf of the poor and dispossessed, with the ordinary humanity of children, women and men murdered to terrorize others.

These holy places force us to connect not only with the best we can be, but also with the worst. I was acutely aware that the guns and bullets that killed were made in and provided by the United States, that the killers were trained by our military. I also am aware that similar places of pilgrimage exist in many countries of the world and that new ones are created daily.

If these sites were only about the evil we do, we could not bear it. But the connection they allow us to make with the goodness that we are can help us to bear -- and confront -- the darkness. And, I hope, to learn to say, “Never again!”

We need to be pilgrims and learn from pilgrims. We need to make the intentional journeys to all sorts of holy places, whether scenes of martyrdom or miracle, agony or joy, devastation or beauty. We need to touch and be touched by the reality they disclose. We need to ask if the connections we are making and the actions we are taking are life-giving or life-denying.