Called to Prayer on the Lycian Way
Having done the Camino to Santiago de Compostela a few months ago, my wife and I are now on the Lycian Way along the Mediterranean coast of Turkey and I've been reflecting, among other things, what the difference might be between an ancient pilgrimage route and a long-distance hike.
There is certainly a lot in common between the two. One thing is the pleasing simplicity to life on the road. You pack your world into your rucksack in the morning and you walk. That's it! A lot of the usual worrıes of life seem to drop away and the biggest anxiety becomes making sure you don't get lost! Or where the next cup of tea is going to come from! Or whether you'll find somewhere to sleep that night. There's just something calming and centring about walking. One of our Camino friends commented to me recently how 'the brain chatter was mostly silenced by the routine and daily exercise.'
The lovely landscape is also therapeutic and in Turkey we have been treated to one amazing view after another as we pace up and down the mountains that fringe the Mediterranean. There is a heightened awareness of the natural world: the sunrises, the sunsets, the spring flowers that appear as if out of nowhere. Food is deeply appreciated and I don't think that a meal at a Michelin restaurant could have satisfied me as much as the bread, cheese, tomato and cucumber I ate one day on a beach, which we'd reached by a rocky and slightly hair-raising trek down a mountain.
The encounters along the way are equally appreciated. Some days there has been nobody else on the Lycian Way but one day we saw a grand total of four other hikers. And we really did meet each of those four, taking the time to share some of our story. A young Australian told us how he'd arrived late the day before in a village with no accommodation open and a local man had let him stay in his house. Two young English guys, it emerged, had been at the same college in university as our youngest son. And a Russıan man, Dimi, confessed that he had left his homeland three years earlier following the invasion of Ukraine.
Yim Soon and İ have also been on the receiving end of multiple acts of friendliness and kindness from the locals. Just like on the Camino, the Lycian Way passes right through the heart of the country and I love the little daily encounters that occur. The al fresco meal on the beach mentioned above was supplied by a man at the hotel who couldn't have done enough for us and who had gladly packed up some of the leftovers from our Big Turkish Breakfast. Also in common with the Camino, you are out of your comfort zone and in a kind of liminal space and therefore particularly receptive to human contact and acts of kindness.
So what is the difference between an ancient pilgrimage route and a long-distance hike? Is it the spiritual element? Well, even that has been provided for me to a certain extent on the Lycian Way, and in an unexpected manner. Wıth Turkey being a Muslim country, we have constantly been hearing the call to prayer. There are five prayer times in the day. The first is before dawn and it gets slightly earlier each day. At the start of our trip the call began at about 6.45. Now it's 6.27 and İ wait for it eagerly every morning. It really is a call, and it comes through loudspeakers so you can't miss it! It's a cry that's plaintive, melancholic, other-worldly, and hauntingly beautiful.
The next prayers are mid-day, afternoon, before sunset, and night, each of them preceded by the call to prayer. And in a big town or city there might be a few going on simultaneously from different mosques! But it never jars. And as someone who often stays at monasteries I'm very at home with the day being punctuated by times of prayer. I've also enjoyed the sheer beauty of the mosques. When we were ın Istanbul we got to see a couple of its gems, Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. But even a small vıllage will have a mosque and they're normally set on high ground so that the dome and the spire are the first things seen when coming towards a town.
I notice how my own prayer changes in these days. I spend less time than usual in formal prayer and it's as if the walking and being out in nature becomes my prayer. I wonder if I'm becomıng a little more open to the Ignatian concept of finding God in all things.
Whether it's a pilgrimage or 'just' a long-distance hike, how grateful I am for this experience of walking every day in a beautiful place, for the multitude of gifts that are being given, and for being called to prayer on the Lycian Way.
Eddie Gilmore
For more about Hearts in Search of God collaborator Eddie Gilmore and his writing on pilgrimage and follow this link.
