Wrestling with answers on the Camino de Santiago

Some students take a gap year when deciding what to do with their futures. Abigail Gordiany ’18, a communications major, walked 500 miles instead.

This summer, she made a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. Literally translated as “the way of Saint James,” several routes in western Europe converge and lead to one destination: the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. More than 3,000 people make the pilgrimage every year to visit the cathedral and the shrine of St. James.

In the middle of her senior year, Gordiany had been torn between pursuing a career in public relations or theater. When a friend told her about the Camino, she decided to look for direction, enlightenment and closeness to God

For accommodations, she stayed in hostels along the route where pilgrims can get a shower, a home-cooked meal and a room to sleep in. As a first-timer, she started her walk from France because it had the easiest terrain.

The journey brought struggles, however. “It was extremely challenging to walk that stretch of road in the beginning,” she said. “My feet were sore, I wasn’t used to the flat ground and I felt surrounded by more people than I expected.”

by making the journey the summer after graduation.

But she soon settled into a routine. Each morning, she woke up at 8, ate breakfast, walked for most of the day (with stops to rest, pray and journal), reached her target hostel, took a shower, ate dinner and went to bed. She averaged about 16 miles each day.

Even though people from around the world walk the trail each year, language was not a barrier. “It seemed apparent on my journey that English was a universally recognized language, and people were more than willing to converse in English,” she said.

Despite this advantage, she sought a solitary experience. “From the start, I knew this journey was about my internal struggles and reconciling and wrestling with them and not about making friends,” she said.

Nevertheless, several people impacted her journey.

Everyone on the road sought some sort of peace or comfort, regardless of the faith or lack of faith they had,” she said. “It was inspiring to meld with people of different cultures and backgrounds and get so deep so quickly. It gave me hope.

Gordiany reached the cathedral in 25 days. “There’s something about traveling for so long and so far and reaching a holy city,” she said. “As I crept up to the cathedral, I felt a wave of absolute peace and felt calm and accomplished.”

With the assurance that God wanted her to pursue her passion for theater, she returned to her home in Orlando, Florida.

To accommodate her audition schedule, she works remotely, teaching English to students in China. She also recently received a callback to perform in Disney World’s “Beauty and the Beast” show.

“If that works out, I’ll work at Disney and cut my teaching hours down a little and keep auditioning,” she explained.

It’s a constant cycle of teaching, rehearsing, praying and auditioning. “But I wouldn’t change it for anything else,” she said, “because I feel God with me more fiercely than ever before.”

Would she walk 500 miles again to come to a life decision?

“If I were to make another trip to the El Camino, and I plan to, I would go in the off season, as to have more of a private experience,” she said. But she also says that the trip helped her take the right path in life.

“I’m a firm believer that when we openly wrestle with God, He affirms our purpose,” she said.

— Rachel Hungerford ’22