Book review - David Downie - Paris to the Pyrenees: A skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James

Pilgrimage is an experience that is very important to me on a personal level.  Five different times, I have walked the pilgrimage route of St James in Spain, first time being in the summer of 2012 as I discerned my call to the priest, and the last time in January 2017, as I had more than 8 years of experience as a priest behind me and as I will looking to the future to changes in my ministry.  David Downie, an American who has lived for many years in Paris with his wife, wrote this memoir of walking part of this pilgrimage route in France.  As he walks along the route, he thinks about the different ethnic groups that settled in France and the mark they made on the country.   He visits old houses and monasteries and castles throughout the region.  He sees traces of France's recent history, with immigration and gentrification and changing demographics changing what he encounters along the way.  He reflects a lot on France's history throughout WWII, through those who formed the resistance and those who collaborated with the German occupiers.   I journeyed along the pilgrimage route as a priest and a Catholic, as a person of faith on a religious and spiritual journey.  Downie calls himself a skeptic, not someone who is walking in through the lens of the Christian faith, but certainly one who is trying to reflect on the journey and who is achieving different types of transformation along the way.  He does, however, refer to himself as a pilgrim, not a tourist, and that is a big difference in the way he views himself and how he looks at this journey through a particular lens and a particular stance.  I have read a lot of pilgrimage memoirs in the last 10 years.  Each one is different, reflecting the particular journey of the pilgrim who wrote it.  Thank you Mr Downie for your reflections and for sharing your journey with us.