San Juan Capistrano Mission. Photo by Thomas Barrat.

San Juan Capistrano, founded more than 200 years ago, is one of the most visited missions on the El Camino Real. The original church is now mostly ruins.

If I’d had my own car, I don’t think I ever would have received the lesson. But my car was a couple thousand miles away, the rental people had upgraded me to an SUV, and now I was about to pay for lack of fuel economy by running out of gas in the middle of nowhere in a state I didn’t even know had a middle of nowhere.

Which was not exactly the day I’d had in mind.

I’d come to California a few days earlier to follow El Camino Real, the Royal Road, which links together a chain of 21 missions spread from San Diego to north of San Francisco. Built from the mid 1700s into the early 1800s, the missions were not just churches. They were ranches, military outposts, trading posts, schools, houses, dorms, entire towns: self-contained worlds all of their own, converting the Natives with one hand on the Bible and one hand on the gun.

And they were built to be roughly a day’s travel apart by horse and foot. By car, I’d figured, planning the trip at home, I could do the whole thing in five easy days.

Except now I’m about to run out of gas and get eaten by vultures near the end of day three. I’d left the last mission, San Miguel, more than 40 miles back. The nearest gas pump is maybe 30 miles ahead, and the low-fuel warning bell is bonging with increasing frequency. Oh, and dark is coming down fast.

I should have stayed in the quiet chapel of San Miguel and prayed a while longer.

San Miguel Arcángel. Photo by Anton Foltin.

The standard mission chapel is quite simple in its construction: a long, fairly low building, wide enough for two rows of pews and a center aisle. Most are dark inside, since adobe walls made the placement of windows somewhat tricky, and most are plain. This is a bit of a surprise, since before these California missions were going up, architects throughout Mexico and Spain were going wild with the churrigueresque style in which every square inch of every available surface is decorated with cherubs, angels, and whatever else the artisans felt like carving that day.

But apparently, that’s not what California needed. A few of the missions get a bit ornate—Dolores in San Francisco is elaborate enough to make your eyes hurt—but for the most part, these are the churches of people who work hard, people who don’t need the idea of God to overwhelm them in endless scrollwork and bleeding saints.

And a lot of work it was. California State Parks has taken over La Purísima Concepción, near Lompoc, and they’ve tried hard to show what the compounds were like in their prime, when populations were in the thousands and herds of cows and flocks of sheep ran over ranches that stretched past the curve of the earth. Among the restored outbuildings are a blacksmith shop, a kitchen, the priest’s quarters, the soldiers’ quarters (rather less luxurious than where the priests lived), and more. Everything needed to bring the local Chumash under the sway of the King of Spain.

The motivating force behind the California mission trail was Father Junípero Serra, a Franciscan monk, who came to the New World from Spain in 1749. Serra was one of those great men who don’t seem to exist anymore: Whether you needed a roof fixed or were in the mood to argue the finer points of St. Aquinas’ Summa, Serra was your guy. Unless of course you wanted to have any fun, because he was pretty much dead set against that. Biographers of Father Serra write that he believed “laughter was inconsistent with the terrible responsibilities of his probationary existence.” In other words, life is a dress rehearsal for the afterlife, so take it seriously. “Not a joke or a jovial action is recorded of him.” And just in case he was having too much fun having no fun, “he considered it his duty to inflict upon himself bitter pain. He often lashed himself with ropes, sometimes of wire.”

San Francisco de Asís, also known as Mission Dolores, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco.
Photo by Steve Heap.

But the man got stuff done. He founded the first nine missions on El Camino Real, from San Diego de Alcalá in 1769, to as far north as San Francisco de Asís, just a bit west of the Bay, in 1776. Before he died in 1784, he had run a total of 15 more, some on the trail, some not, as far south as Baja. Even today, the Museum of the City of San Francisco says his missions “were the first settlements of civilized man in California.” Which opens up certain problems of interpretation, Native history vs. European history, etc., but that’s not the point of this article.

At the mission in Carmel, which Serra had founded in 1771, there is a glass case near the altar. Inside the glass case lie some very old pieces of wood, the remains of Father Serra’s coffin. Sooner or later, the man is going to be made a saint—he was beatified in 1988—and when he is, this tiny, very beautiful mission by the sea is going to be even more a site of pilgrimage than it is now. “We get about 300,000 people a year,” I’m told, as I buy my ticket. Make him a saint, and I figure that number will double.

But it’s quiet right now. I stop in the courtyard, try to imagine the place as it was when an outpost on the edge of the world. Can’t do it; I’m too aware of the very expensive suburb that now surrounds the mission, the distant sound of traffic. Call it a failure of either faith or imagination. I’m not sure which.

A sign by the doorway of the chapel points out that San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo, the mission’s full name, is in an earthquake zone, and adobe doesn’t always hold up so well in earthquakes, especially not 300-year-old adobe. I watch a couple people read the sign, peek in, then walk around to the small graveyard at the side of the church, where the graves are outlined in abalone shells the size of dinner plates, their nacreous colors catching the afternoon light and throwing it back at the church like incense.

Inside, the pew creaks, just a little, when I sit down. And that’s about the only sound I hear until I stand up again, an hour or so later, hesitant to get back in the car and back on the road. But I have more missions to see.

In all, El Camino Real stretches about 600 miles. As a practical matter, for the modern pilgrim, this means a whole lot of driving along Highway 101. By the end of the second day, I’d developed a routine. Leave one mission, set the GPS for next, never forgetting a quick prayer to Saint Christopher, because if the GPS fails, I’m going to need all the saintly intervention I can get. Drive through traffic. Repeat. But then, somewhere north of Santa Bárbara, I leave what I think of as California­—a very long line of cars surrounded by pink roofs—and enter something entirely different. An emptier world, one moving at a slower pace. One where the missions still fit.

Santa Bárbara, or Queen of the Missions, was completely rebuilt after an earthquake destroyed it in 1925. Photo by Linda Armstrong.

I get to three or four missions a day; each has its own unique moment of beauty. The gigantic tree in the courtyard of the mission at Santa Barbara. The smell of incense at San Buenaventura, when I walked into the chapel right after a funeral. It was the only time I went into a mission while it was being used, and for just a moment, it was as if the missions were still holding their communities together.

Over the centuries, some of the missions have become the center of towns. San Luis Obispo is huge, and, unlike the usual long, low building, is airy and L-shaped. Others, like Santa Inés, are so far off the beaten track that if the mission trail did not create a track of its own, they would have slipped completely from history. And still others, like Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, are threatening to return to the elements: The old adobe walls have melted from two centuries of rain, surviving only as stubs, like broken teeth.

I don’t see any swallows flying around San Juan Capistrano, which, of all the missions, is the one that’s most figured out how to make tourism work for it. The highest admission price, the biggest gift shop, and signs that point out the best place to watch swallows—when there are swallows to watch. And that’s the only reason most people come here, or have even heard of the place, swallows flapping back on the same day each year.

With the actual old church at Capistrano nothing but a ruin, the mission has consecrated a small chapel for prayers: And here, it’s the usual long, low box of a room, two cramped aisles of pews. But there’s also the most elaborate altar of any of the missions, and the racks of burning candles make the gold reredos glisten as if wet with new rain.

It is after visiting San Miguel Arcángel—founded in 1797 and now the most complete original chapel—that I find myself in trouble. The chapel is so beautiful, so peaceful, not another person inside, that I linger maybe a bit too long. And when I finally leave, I discover that my plan—buy gas near here before going on to San Antonio—was a bad one. No gas stations. Okay, fine. Map shows a town down the road, they’ll have gas.

Except they don’t. “We like it that way,” says the man in the lone business in the town of … well, I can’t exactly tell where I am, because what I thought was a town on the map was really just a crossroads, and the GPS kind of gave up in disgust a half hour ago. “But the military base might sell you a few gallons.”

The air outside smells like onions, like farms. Back when the missions were first built, all of California was this empty.

What we forget, rolling along so easily in our cars—what I’m about to remember as my car sucks the last fumes out of the gas tank before the military base really does take pity on me and sells me enough fuel to get to the next mission and the next town—is that it wasn’t long ago, not long at all, when the world was a much bigger place, a place where you needed to know there was something familiar at the end of the day. A star to point yourself toward.

Father Serra saw all this space as a clean slate—never mind the people already living there—and thought, yes, I can do something with that. I can do something that lasts, that matters. I can make something beautiful.

And so he started building missions. A place to rest from work. A chance to touch something bigger than even the vast emptiness of the landscape.

I light a candle of thanks in San Antonio, throw a little extra light on the world, climb in the car to the sound of screeching chickens. The mission waits for its next visitor.

The Mission Trail The Saturday Evening Post

“But you’re not religious,” said a female acquaintance. Her remark spilled across the tablecloth like a tipped-over glass of red wine.

“I used to go to church every Sunday,” I said, somewhat defensively. “And I went to Christian youth camp one summer.”

I went on to explain that Lourdes gets more than six million visitors each year, and I highly doubted every single person who visited the famous grotto of Massabielle was a staunch Catholic.

But who was I trying to convince, her or me?

True, her verbal stoning made me momentarily doubt my bonafides as a miracle seeker. But though not a devout Catholic, I had a good reason for the pilgrimage; being diagnosed with malignant melanoma at age 50 was reason enough. My cancer is what clinicians call Stage IIIB. Look it up. Words like “prognosis somewhat poor” and “very little chance” leap off the screen. Still, my decision to make the trek had been built on monumental hope. For months I had been imagining myself there, miraculously saved. In the end, I took this woman’s ugly remark as one of the many disconcerting side effects of having cancer and handled it the way I do with doctors’ sad faces and negative statistics—I ignored it.

I am running alongside track 19 through the Montparnasse train station toward the silvery vessel that will transport me from Paris to the Pyrenees to the place I’d been dreaming of since I was 15 when I watched the film classic The Song of Bernadette. The thought of standing at the grotto where a young peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, saw the Virgin Mary appear 18 times in the year 1858 makes me euphoric.

I have less than two minutes to find the designated rail car stamped on my ticket. It seems a never-ending distance. Traveling too fast, my suitcase tilts on its rickety wheels and falls over.

“S***!” I scream. As I collect my bloated baggage sprawled across the pavement, a nun crosses my path. Uh oh, I think. She’ll probably send up word on high that there’s a foul-mouthed American woman on the way. That won’t bode well for my chances for the “miracle” list. Boarding the train, I notice a sickly bald lady who looks as though she’s undergone intense chemotherapy treatments. Near her is an extremely frail teen boy in a wheelchair reading a French translation of The Hunger Games. Both of these angelic souls seem more worthy of a miracle than I. I’m certain neither of them has ever cussed in front of a nun.

Lourdes, France, became world famous after the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous. Photo courtesy Jill Paris.

Looking at me, you’d never know my plight. People say I look “fantastic” six months after undergoing two major surgeries. The first excised the tumor on my upper left arm and removed two sentinel lymph nodes to determine if the cancer had spread. The cancerous culprits indeed had set up camp in the first node. And my physician, the world-renowned Donald L. Morton of the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, California, next recommended removal of my axillary lymph nodes (which form a sort of chain from the underarm to the collarbone) despite the painful side effects such as permanent nerve damage and the potential threat of lymphedema, or swelling.

“You don’t have to have chemo?” some people question. “No radiation?”

“Nope.”

“Wow, that’s great,” they say.

I guess that the thought that I won’t lose my long, blonde locks and shrink down to a skeletal frame or puke uncontrollably while sporting a headscarf is an upside. The downside is that there is no treatment or cure for this stage of melanoma—only more cutting should a new cancer emerge. My job is to be vigilant should I note anything suspicious, then to hightail it into the office for further study. This is, quite frankly, terrifying. No neon sign points to the location of a fresh melanoma. My doctor says that the next one will most likely not sprout directly on my skin, but just under it, so I’m supposed to gently rub my (numb) five-inch scar where the first growth emerged, feeling for a new invasion.

The chance of recurrence is quite high. In fact, when you’re Stage IIIB, it’s not a matter of if, but when. So every six months I undergo PET scans or chest X-rays to detect if the cancer has progressed to the dreaded Stage IV. I call it the “mean test.”

They tell me my five-year survival chances are 60 percent.

Melanoma—a cancer of the skin primarily caused by sunlight —is often confused with curable basal cell and squamous-cell skin cancers. But melanoma is the eighth most common malignancy in the U.S., and its frequency is rising faster than any other human cancer. In the 1930s the survival rate for this disease was extremely low; now 5- and 10-year survival rates of Stage I melanoma are well over 80 percent on average. But there are different forms, stages, and classifications that each have different prognoses.

I have nodular type, which is the most aggressive. Even when I discovered an abnormally large mole that quadrupled in size in less than three months, both the nurse and a dermatologist I initially visited assured me it was “nothing.” I sensed that they were both wrong and demanded its removal and biopsy. A case like mine—where skin cancers masquerade as something normal—is a perfect example of why people should get checked regularly. Don’t let your best friend, partner, neighbor, or even your family doctor discourage you from seeking expert attention. Had I listened to my healthcare team, I may have left that HMO allowing my already aggressive cancer to flourish, and I would not be writing this today.

Living with cancer is a learning experience. Part of that learning is to avoid the many misconceptions. Everyone knows somebody who has, or has had, cancer. They are quick to offer medical, herbal, even spiritual advice as well as clinical trial information. Truly, I am touched whenever someone offers any hope they feel may erase my diagnosis. But if I hear one more person tell me the story of their Aunt Jean who had skin cancer for four years and now is totally fine, I’ll lose it. (No offense Aunt Jean.) All melanomas are not alike.

“Is this your first time at Lourdes?”

I look up at a frail-looking pilgrim just beside me in the line for the sacred grotto.

“Yes,” I say.

Also in search of a miracle, Selam — whose name means peace — befriended Paris while at Lourdes. Photo courtesy Jill Paris.

The woman’s name is Selam. She has come from Vancouver, Canada, but originally hails from Ethiopia. She is 40 years old. Within seconds we are swapping war stories.

“Melanoma, Stage III,” I say.

“Colon cancer … I’ve been given six months to live,” she whispers.

I let her step in front of me and study how she grazes the grayish stone that leads to the niche with her left hand, stopping every few feet to kiss the rock. A white rosary entwined in her right hand swings gently from side to side.

I begin to copy her every move. If she makes the sign of the cross, I do, too. If she pats the water droplets that trickle from the cave-like surface and touches her face, I do the same. It is as if she’s been sent to me as a personal guide. Nearing the sacred spot, she begins to weep. I stroke her back the way a mother would soothe a child with a skinned knee.

She kneels before the statue of Mary resting high in an alcove. Dabbing moisture from the stone, my hand presses the gash on my upper left arm, but I forget to ask Mary for anything because of a deep concern for my new companion. Selam’s despairing sobs grow louder—agonizing wails echoing in an already hushed enclave.

Minutes later, she rises and turns toward me.

I open my arms wide and she collapses against me. We hold each other in a long embrace as though lifelong friends.

“I want you to have this,” I say, reaching into my bag for a vintage religious medal of Bernadette that a dear friend sent with me for luck. “Pin it over your heart. It will protect you.”

“Oh, thank you, my love,” she says. “I prayed I would meet someone here.”

Who knew my presence alone would answer a dying woman’s prayers? Fear of what I lacked spiritually had been eating away at me in the days leading up to this moment. But her words are like a salve.

Writer Jill Paris touches the smooth, moist walls of the Grotto of Massabielle, believed to be a source of healing. Photo courtesy Jill Paris.

As the two of us walk arm in arm, we sing aloud, butchering the lyrics to “Ave Maria,” giggling in between verses. We pass thousands of invalids, some on gurneys and many in wheelchairs, most assisted by unpaid hospitallers—volunteers who look like a combination of nun and nurse. I have a sudden, unexpected calling to be one of them.

Selam tries to disguise the immense pain she is suffering and insists on our sitting together for hours at a sidewalk cafe, wiling away the afternoon sharing our hopes, fears, and her desire to find one last love. As we sit and talk, any need to justify the depth of my religious belief seems to vanish.

I had arrived alone at the holy shrine, a restless soul beside those green fields, and rather than glimpse the image of the Virgin Mary I had my own singular and singularly valuable divine visitation. Melanoma had brought me to Lourdes and given me Selam, the woman whose name means “peace.”

Three days later, fighting back tears and promising we’d meet again, she gives me a final gift: a pocket Holy Rosary booklet complete with tiny red beads and crucifix.

“See? Now you never need worry,” she says sweetly. “You’ll always have the right words.”

Six months later, after a chest X-ray, I am classified as disease-free. I harbor much hope, but there is always my next scan. Upon returning from Europe, I would speak with Selam twice. Her cancer had rapidly spread, and she was bravely undergoing extreme bouts of experimental chemotherapy. Her last words to me were, “I’ll call you next week, my love.” That was several months ago.

Just recently I have signed up with Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality North American Volunteers to become one of the thousands of companion caregivers that Selam and I had seen. Some of the pilgrims will understand English, and some will not. Yet I’m not too concerned about the language barrier. Selam showed me that faith does not require proficient verbal skills.

If she were here with me now I’d say, “Can you imagine? Me? Speaking French? Might as well be Swahili!”

She’d just smile and make the sign of the cross.

Miracle Seeker The Saturday Evening Post

I am, however, a Catholic. But I rarely go to church, and when I do, I don’t understand half of the motions I’m going through, and I have never sacrificed anything for Lent … until now.

This past Sunday I attended a mass on a whim, my pathetic attempt to—dare I say— “check-in.” I usually take the hour to daydream, plan out the rest of my day, or worry about the upcoming week. But this time was different. At one point, the priest asked each one of us to come up and take a pebble from the “desert” display near the altar. We are to keep the pebble throughout the Lent season (which ends Easter Sunday) as a reminder to resist the temptation of indulging in whatever it is that we are giving up for 40 days.

This is one of the traditions I have never fully understood. How is giving up chocolate for a few weeks going to better the world? If anything, it will only make me more cranky and difficult to be around, right?

But then again, I like a good challenge. And I always feel a little stronger every time I complete one. So I thought, why not? I have the pebble … But what to give up? It needs to be something I enjoy almost every day. Coffee? Never gonna happen. Gum? No. (How would I cover up my coffee breath?) Diet soda? Hmmm … I do love diet soda, especially in the afternoon. Just hearing the can crack open makes my mouth water. This would definitely be a challenge.

And so it’s on. I don’t think my boycotting of soft drinks for 40 days will change the world, but it will change me. I will be well trained in resisting temptation and be a stronger person for it, or so I’m hoping. And oh how sweet that first sip will taste come Easter.

Have you ever sacrificed something you enjoy in order to experience personal growth?

I’ll Just Have Water The Saturday Evening Post