Searching for/ Living a life of meaning

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along..

I awoke on this chilly first day of February thinking of the Marge Piercy poem “To Be of Use” and my 36 time-out-of-time days on the Camino this past fall. I was thinking about the people I met along The Way and how they were all seekers, highly privileged seekers. I don’t mean that as an insult. It is a fact: They—and I—had the privilege of moving out of our separate worlds, our separate lives, to explore and ponder what we were doing and where we would go from here. We were in a position to choose this journey, this challenge, unlike so many whose daily life is challenge enough.

I was thinking about my fellow pilgrims, the ones I walked with for minutes or hours or days: the Israeli men fresh from their military service, the Korean girls with their TikTok accounts, the burned-out political fundraiser from Massachusetts, the nurse from Colorado, the new widow from the Netherlands, the tough/tender bear of a man from Sweden, the Irish guy with his bunions, the beautiful young French woman with the sad eyes. They were walking to take a deep dive into who they were. They were walking to understand their lives, to make a change, to find meaning.

And then, because today is my regular shift at Food for Lane County’s Dining Room, where I help to serve hearty sit-down meals to those in need, I was thinking about my fellow volunteers: the nurse, the former middle school teacher, the retired magazine editor, the community college guidance counselor, the store owner, the yoga instructor. They are not out walking the Camino searching for connection and meaning. They have found it. At the Dining Room, helping to nourish and support the community they love, they are living a life (or at least a few hours) of purpose and meaning.

I admire the spirit and heart of those I met along the Camino who search for meaning. But I celebrate and deeply respect those who have found it, who submerge/in the task, who go into the fields to harvest/and work in a row and pass the bags along.