The High Tolerance

3:55 PM, August 2, Pereje Municipal Albergue, Bed 12

I have always felt that my tolerance for people with other cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs was high when compared with other Americans. However, I didn’t realize how much intolerance disturbs me.

Yesterday, while walking, Dan and I discussed our plans for when we arrived in Santiago. We both planned on being part of the pilgrims’ mass at noon, and we both agreed that we would go and get our Compostela certificates by showing our stamps and claiming that we did this pilgrimage for religious reasons.

I added, though, that I also wanted to visit the confessional, as I’ve been told there are confessionals in 12 or more languages every day. I’m not Catholic, nor do I ever plan to be any denomination of Christian; however, I recognize that forcing myself into a confessional at the emotional climax of my journey will make for a very interesting and revealing experience and could perhaps offer the emotional closure of my Road. I think it will also serve to help me better identify with my Catholic friends who—inexplicably to me—feel very emotional about the Church.

Dan said he would never go into a confessional because it’s wrong. He says that he is Lutheran, and Lutherans do not do that ever. I challenged that this entire pilgrimage is “Catholic” to begin with, and that he will say he’s Catholic and religious to receive his Compostela, so what difference does it make to continue playing dress-up with the Catholic religion and learning more about it. Dan couldn’t agree and said it was something he would never do because it is not right and it’s an idiotic piece of the Catholic faith.

Today, while walking, Dan said something insensitive about Allah, and I challenged, well it’s somewhat your god, too. He disagreed; he explained to me that the Jewish God and Allah are different than his God, and that he would never pray to my God (referring to the Jewish God). He went further, arguing that the Muslims of the world don’t accept either of our gods, and hate us for it.

I explained, very intellectually, how the God is relatively the same God, how the Muslims study Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, how all three religions are essentially three branches from the same tree, and how Western society was just as much the original aggressor in the Middle Eastern and Western conflict and it’s not fair to say that the Islamic world hates us now because of our religions.

Dan couldn’t agree. Dan couldn’t see the brotherhood among the three religions. Dan said he wouldn’t ever say a prayer to the Jewish God or to Allah, because they aren’t his God.

It’s weird, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at Dan in the same way. I don’t want to blame him fully either, because I know that my tolerance stems from my upbringing and culture and education, and his intolerance must stem from the same. So perhaps this is a cultural thing, something that stems from being a Lutheran 19-year-old in Germany. It still gets to me though. I never really realized how much intolerance and this subtle form of racism bothers me. But, truly, it does.