Gratitude (part two)

God, Guard these your children who, for love of your Name, make a pilgrimage. Be their companion on the way, their guide at the crossroads, their strength in weariness, their defense in dangers, their shelter on the path, heir shade in the heat, their light in the darkness, their comfort in discouragement, and the firmness […]

Gratitude (Part One)

O Lord, I am astonished at the difference between my receivings and my deservings, between the state I am now in and my past gracelessness, between the heaven I am bound for and the hell I merit. (A Puritan Prayer) I am sitting in a small cafe, only 100 feet from the entrance to the […]

Magi Hopes and Sunrise Dreams

I didn’t sleep last night. Today was the day I would enter into Santiago de Compostela after 29 days of walking almost 800km (500 miles.) I had it all planned. I would rise by 5am, quietly slip out of the guesthouse (trying to not disturb my 13 roommates), set out alone in the pre-dawn darkness. […]

Yours Are the Hands… for Victor

This is Victor: I met him today on the Camino. I have not written about my many, many companions on the Way, but today, the day before I arrive in Santiago, I wanted you to meet Victor. Victor and his wife walked the Camino in 2013, just after she started her treatment for Ovarian Cancer. […]

Bad Pilgrim

I woke up this morning in the remote town of Samos. I stayed across from a gorgeous monastery: After some hours of wet morning walking I found myself in falling apart little town with mud streets that could be the set for a medieval horror movie (if such a film existed.) I followed the Camino […]

Cross of Sorrow

I have been counting the miles to see what I saw today. I walked 13 miles and up almost 2000 ft and then I saw it: I had heard about the Cruz de Ferro (Iron Cross), I had prepared for it before I left and I had been looking for it all along the 500+ […]

Penance

Penance… with all the medieval churches and imagery along the Camino de Santiago, coupled with the fact that the pilgrim journey has a pain soundtrack, it is hard not to think about penance. I know… I get it. Penance is not a popular topic. Some of you are already cringing. And with all the imagery […]

Single-Tasking

It takes me up to 30 minutes to prepare my feet each morning. Often I am sitting in the dark, surrounded by a dozen beds, whose inhabitants are in various states of consciousness. Each movement is slow and deliberate, releasing the smallest of sounds, I… inspect, clean, massage, prepare, trim, medicate, bandage, wrap, limit friction, […]

Limited

Will I even finish the Camino? For the first 9 or 10 days, I felt unstoppable. I was walking beyond the recommended stages most days and at a good clip. I had been warned to not give into my hubris and so I tried to stop regularly, air out my feet, change my socks. Then […]

Dying

I’ve passed so, so many graveyards along the Camino… …as well as all the tombs in churches and the memorials to pilgrims who died along the Camino. That’s a lot of death to witness… and to process… My nephew, who died of cancer when he was only four, is my symbolic companion along the Way; […]