John Brierley, who died last month, was a legendary pilgrim that you’ve probably never heard of. Admittedly, these days most people aren’t familiar with any pilgrims. Just going to Sunday mass is unorthodox.
The vast majority of us who respected Brierley never met him and probably, like me, never saw a video clip of him or even heard him talk. We knew him only from his series of Camino de Santiago guidebooks. But that was enough. Having been translated into numerous languages and sold around a million copies, his books shepherded countless pilgrims like me on their long travels across continental Europe toward the remarkable city of Santiago de Compostela in north-western Spain.
In a way, Brierley was there with us: the deacon had placed a photo of him from the back of a guidebook on the altar
On the last Camino I walked this June, assisting a group of rambunctious seminarians, one of the deacons announced that Brierley was gravely ill. He’d heard about it from an online Camino pilgrim forum full of concerned peregrinos, both past and present.
At midday, the group broke from the Camino trail to say mass beside the Roman bridge spanning the Verdugo River at the village of Arcade, the scene of a historic battle to liberate Spain from French occupation in 1809. A prayer was offered for Brierley wherever he was. Of course, in a way, Brierley was there with us: the deacon had placed a photo of him from the back of a guidebook on the altar.
I’ve done a lot of Caminos and most of them have been with a Brierley guidebook. I tried one Camino with another guidebook company – never again. Such shoddy mapping. Having spent most of my army career being lost, I appreciate the value of a good map. Thanks to his skills from a career as a surveyor, Brierley’s daily route maps were renowned for their clarity and helpfulness.
Following what amounted to a mid-life crisis in his forties, Brierley turned his back on a successful career that he felt had made him ‘materialistic and chauvinistic’. He went on to lead the surging popularity of the Camino pilgrimages that started in the 1990s. As he himself noted, despite the increasingly modern and secular times that we live in – and which Brierley vociferously criticised in his books – millions of people took a break from their jobs, or quit them entirely, to don rucksacks and walk hundreds of kilometres to the proclaimed resting place of Saint James the Apostle.
It was hard not to feel strong affection for him. This was partly because his guidebooks were such a lifesaver: in addition to the good mapping, they helped you to find accommodation and a place to eat and get water. But it was also because his books contained a strong spiritual component, with personal reflections from Brierley himself.
That was why he labelled his guidebooks A Practical & Mystical Manuel for the Modern Day Pilgrim. He understood the spiritual journey of the Camino, a form of searching for meaning in life and resolving our place in the universe. He also wasn’t shy about addressing God – though never in a hectoring, preachy way – or about using the wisdom of others who have searched similarly.
‘Look at every path closely and deliberately,’ Brierley writes in one guidebook, quoting The Teachings of Don Juan. ‘Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question, ‘Does this path have a heart?’ If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use.’
Well said, Don. Such exultations were followed by a paragraph exploring the ‘mystical path’ that accompanies the physical one on a Camino. The priest overseeing our Camino, a scholar and a wiser man than I will ever be, expressed reservations about these more New Age-y elements of the guidebooks. But I can’t deny that such reflections, along with everything else the guidebooks offered, helped enrich my Caminos as I grappled with transitioning from the noble, upstanding world of the British Army to the free-for-all sharp-elbowed melee of Civvy Street.
A Brierley guidebook is about the same size as the standard magazine clip for an SA-80 rifle. Both share reassuring qualities and there is no denying that clip of ammunition came in handy if you found yourself in a spot of bother in Iraq or Afghanistan. But I need not tell you which one I would choose if I could only take one.
Thank you, John Brierley, for helping show the Way to all those who had lost direction in their lives. All the best on the final stage of your Camino.
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