February 2019
I’m going to walk the Camino de Santiago and today I’m starting my blog about it. Actually I started this blog in my head about six month ago, but today I am finally putting words to paper (screen?).
How did I decide to do this? Most people answer this question by saying they saw the movie The Way and they decided to walk the Camino. Well I saw the movie when it first came out. I though it was a great story, excellent acting, beautiful scenery. I got all the symbolism of the story and it really impacted me. I’ve have recommended The Way many times when someone asks about a good movie. But somehow I missed that the Camino de Santiago was a real thing.
Two years ago I was at a spiritual retreat in Georgia called The Five Day Academy for Spiritual Formation. One of the guys in my covenant group told us he was going to walk the Camino and that’s when I learned it really is a thing people do, but I didn’t think about doing it myself.
The six months ago I was a t another spiritual retreat, The Two Year Academy for Spiritual Formation (because five days wasn’t enough). My roommate next door had invited a friend to attend one of the weeks and that’s when I met Sarah. Sarah had walked the Camino and shared with me all about her experience. Over lunch with others the topic of the Camino came up again and a little seed was planted. I spent that whole week asking questions about the camino and that little seed grew.
When I came home I told my husband about the Camino and his response was, “That’s a great idea. We should do that.” And I thought why doesn’t he ever show that kind of enthusiasm when I suggest couples’ pedicures? So we talked about it. And talked about it. And talked some more about it. It’s all we talked about for two weeks. What would we need? When would we go? How long would it take? How would we manage the time off? It was “all Camino, all the time”!
The talking eventually slowed down but it never came to a stop. After two months I asked, “Are we really going to do this?” The answer?
“I think we are.”
One day I decided to go for a walk... 