Wednesday, September 21st, I completed 1,223,969 steps arriving at the cathedral in Santiago. That’s according to my step counter which included steps into and out of towns, stores, to and from beaches, etc. — but still, that’s a ton of steps in 32 days. No wonder my feet hurt! One of our friends from Latvia…
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Buen Camino!!
The most frequent greeting of a pilgrim and one we give to one another is “Buen camino!” What better thing to say than “have a good way! It is a good way. . The 100 km to go to Santiago marker, which I had been looking forward to seeing, appeared outside of Baamonde. In the…
The Journey
I had been up most of the night. My stomach was upset from too much of something, possibly the cheese or beer, the night before. My eyes wide open I thought from too much of the monk’s incredible dark chocolate. 😬 I felt like one of those dolls whose eyes open when they are sat…
Just the Next Step
I can’t go on.” I called to Nannette, a new friend from North Carolina with whom I had been hiking 12 hours that day. We’d started that morning at 440 am. “I need to stop,” I said. We were only 200 meters from the albergue. Clearly, the real answer, was to walk just a few…
It Begins
There’s something about dreaming and thinking about an event, that when the day arrives it feels unreal, impossible, amazing, uncanny, startling. My daughter Grace (29) and I walked through downtown Portland a couple weeks back to attend the St James’ Mass and receive our shells for our journey together. Grace will join me for 10…
Prayer Beads
My dear friend Karen Hernandez made these prayer beads for me to take on the Camino. I love how artists think — they are so intentional in what they include, whether it is the fabric chosen in a quilt, colors or mediums in a painting or the particular stones in prayer beads. Karen wrote: “The…
Half-Mast
For weeks now, flags have been flying at half-mast. It is a consistent reminder that there is much to grieve. It is like as a culture, we are all grieving, but because of the impact of multiple events one after another, we cannot finish grieving, so are left raw, and sometimes, desensitized. A good friend…
The Trail
“Let’s not look ahead,” I wrote. Karen and I were texting about situations in our days, and my statement caught her. She wrote back a while later, “I have thought two or three times already about the suggestion… let’s not look ahead. So important.” Sometimes we want to try to know the trail of life…
Snowman
I remembered Saturday night that I had signed myself up for Sunday’s Children’s moment. And I remembered the snowman. Well, that’s what it had been. It was one of those towels that get pressed into a shape and then when immersed in water again become a towel. I had been carrying this snowman around for…
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