Fellow Pilgrims,

My vehicle console has a phone-charging cubby, but I use it as a catchall for assorted Camino trinkets. First came a simple, quarter-size clay token imprinted with “thanks” that a potter purposefully placed in my hand after I made a purchase. Though not from the Camino, it reminds me of a core pilgrim value: gratitude. Next a tiny clay concha glazed in blue and yellow, a lagniappe from another potter at an Annual Gathering of Pilgrims. Then a small, pendant-size scallop shell that my German pilgrim friend Anja gave me at the end of our first Caminos.

There’s also a button-like eucalyptus pod found on the path from Muxía to Finisterre. A small stone with a hand-drawn lighthouse signed and presented at an end-of-the-earth dinner by Giorgio, the Venetian elder of a grandfather-granddaughter duo who’d become Camino family. A casino poker chip from fellow hospitalero trainee Andrew of Las Vegas. An origami crane from another hospitalera-in-training, Beth, who kept mental focus in class by busying her hands folding a flock of the delicate symbols of peace, hope, and healing. And from my chapter-coordinator and hospitalero-training Camiga Tresha, a nickel-size “Buen Camino from Memphis” pin featuring a concha and an Elvis-style guitar.

My random collection of baubles speaks both to the connections we make with the far-flung assortment of people we meet as pilgrims and to a shared Camino culture we create.

This La Concha issue celebrates the cultural exchanges we foster on Camino and bring back into our daily lives. We have several book reviews, including three pilgrim-inspired novels for your summer reading list. You’ll find reflections and poetry that appreciate the distinct cultural expressions we experience in the communities we pass through, and the unifying multiculturalism felt along the pilgrim path and around a pilgrim table. There are also recaps of the joint Gathering of Pilgrims held in May in Vancouver, BC, and a trip American Pilgrims members made in June to experience the culture of the autonomous community of Castile and León.

We also have several pieces from pilgrims who sought stable footing on Camino as they entered a new world after a spouse’s death. As we prepared this issue, those reflections especially touched me because two members of Team La Concha were on my mind and in my heart: husband-and-wife duo Thom Ryng, copyeditor/proofreader, and Francine Mastini, creative director for the past five years.

In late April, Francine was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive, and fatal brain disorder, propelling her on a 62-day journey through a foreign land of hospitalization and hospice care. Thom lovingly and faithfully walked beside Francine every day of this unthinkable journey, and I remain in awe at how he also managed to bring along family and friends scattered around the globe through daily updates that made her last days as meaningful and memorable as Francine. Some of his accounts were unendurably heartbreaking, others an endearing glimpse into their relationship, all were beautiful testaments to the universal language of Benedictine hospitality.

Francine and Thom’s example shows us how the same attentive presence, responsive kindness, and selfless service that inform the spirit of hospitality ingrained in Camino tradition, also imbue a good death (and a good life for that matter)—filled with grace, dignity, kindness, comfort, support, and love. I know so many in our pilgrim community join me in sending love and light to Thom, their family, and all of us charmed to know Francine’s effervescent joy, fierce passion, warm hospitality, versatile creativity, and devout faith. Find other tributes to Francine here.

Join us in this La Concha exploration of cultural exchange and the interchange of traditions, tales, and tenets we carry on and bring home from Camino that enrich the journey for all.

May your journey be sacred,

Amy

Thom Ryng and Francine Mastini. Photo by Thom Ryng.