Walking, thinking, praying, talking. This is what the Camino was for me. These are also the things that touched my soul in the nine days that we traveled along the 900-year-old trail. Walking, one foot in front of the other, I came to realize how small I am but also how capable I am. I can walk and walk and see many things that are far bigger than I am. Mountains, fields, and the sky are far large and older than I. Time and space go by, and still, I am only a small distance from where I started. Yet, as I walked day after day, I slowly ate away at the great expanse. I took in the things around me and slowly moved on. I may be small, but I can go far and do much if I take it day by day.
As I walked, I thought. I thought about the past and what has happened over my life. I thought on both the good and the bad – which if I think long enough on it becomes good. That’s why I enjoyed it. I could get to the positive and see the benefit in whatever has happened. I also thought about the present. What am I doing now to go, improve, impact, grow, and simply live? Lastly, I dreamed as I thought about the future. I thought about what could be, where God is calling, and my hopes for the future as well as my plans. I also thought about creation and the things that make it up. How things work, what is happening, the people around me. I processed and chewed on it as my legs ate away the miles.
Walking and thinking lead me to prayer. Almost by necessity and nature, this leads to prayer. It’s simply a running dialog with God as I eat up the miles as well as the thoughts. He enters what I am thinking about giving His view and correction. Straightening out my thoughts as they meander as much as the trail I am hiking. Up and down, right and left, He straightens them out with a knowing, wise, and loving hand. I also rejoiced in and marveled at Him as I walked. I saw His creation around me. The concrete things He has made. I saw it in myself as my body works to make me walk and to perceive the world around me. I also saw His handy work in my life and rejoiced in it and talked to Him about what is happening. Simply sitting in His presence as I walked and thought and existed. Being with my Creator through the ups and downs. The hard and the easy. Constantly steady.
Walking, thinking, and praying leads to the action of talking. First, I talked to my teammates who were around me. They have walked beside me every day for 11 months, and that hadn’t changed on the Camino. We laughed, we cried, we processed, we lived with each other in those moments. We talked about the year past and the years to come. We covered many topics as we covered many miles. When we came together, the time, miles, and thoughts sped up and what we are capable of becoming so much greater than when I was going it alone. As we talked others joined. People from other places, and times who are there to eat away the miles and sometimes to eat away the mountains they are facing. We listened and poured out and sometimes got poured into as we walked and talked. Life is given and received in those small moments of time.
This is the Camino I walked over the ten days, eating away at the 130 miles we traveled. Processing the past year, pouring into other people and enjoying it more than expected. These things changed my life, and I helped change others as I walked. I reached people from all around the world as I ate up the miles. My squad did the same. The amount of beauty we have seen and has come out of our time on the Camino cannot be matched. We brought the answers we have and gave them away but ended up coming away with more than we brought by the time we reached mile 130. We could have let those miles slip by and simply walked but we chose to grow with each passing mile.
We ended up not just talking a long walk but rather a journey. This is the thing which makes the difference both on the trail and off. I can simply take a long walk through everyday and the rest of my life, but I will choose to take a journey from here on out. Eating away the miles to climb the mountain that is in front of me. Processing, talking, and praying all the way. I will take this and make this a journey rather than simply taking a long walk for the years to come.
Buen Camino – Good Journey,
Elise
