The Way is Many Ways

“And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”        ~Rainer Marie Rilke

“How are your feet today?”   

“What are you doing for those blisters?” 

“Where are you stopping this evening?”

The questions of fellow pilgrims along the Camino de Santiago were questions about the immediacy of the moment. The now.  In some tender way, these questions came to convey sentiments of “I’m walking right here beside you.  Your worries of the day are my worries; your pain is my pain.”   

Yet there was one question that landed in a way that was so personal and occasionally so elusive: “What brought you here?”  For some, the reason was a defined searching as they sat in a liminal space. Losing a job, a spouse, retiring, looking for their next move.  For others, the journey was simply for adventure or health.  There were as many unique responses, paths, and experiences as there were pilgrims.  The Way is many ways. 

As Tom and I began our pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, a thousand-year-old, 520-mile walk across Spain, my head and heart were foggy. Why this journey, this place, this time? Something or someone had drawn me, but I was at a loss to name or describe this calling.  In Paris I wrote in my journal asking God to help me live the questions as we embarked on this six-week journey.  As I held and pondered the questionsthroughout the following forty days, I came to understand that finding answers was not the point of this journey,or of life.  Like Jesus’ time in the desert, this time was about hearing, seeing and walking with the Divine. It was about squarely facing the woundedness and temptations in myself, and allowing and witnessing transformation and growth.  It was about finding the Divine in the pilgrim beside me and the world around me.

What We Carry 

Pilgrimage starts well before the backpack is strapped and the first step is taken.  What do we carry?  What bags, shoes, and clothing serve us best on this journey?  We pack intentionally, and what we carry says just a little bit about each of us.  From the young man that carries nothing but a daypack, to a woman whose pack is bigger than her body, to the middle-aged couple with full suitcases transported ahead each day. In each of these bags we tuck a few of our fears, insecurities and hopes, as well as our needs for adventure, comfort and distraction. 

By day four, the weight of our packs was just heavy enough, the day’s walk just long enough, that blisters appeared reminding us of the fears we carried.  Fear that we might not find food; fear that our hostel may not provide what we need; fear that we may not have “enough” or that we may not be safe. There was a gift in those blisters. We needed to look at our fears squarely, and by day eight were having to ask for help.  We went through our bags eliminating the “just in case” items - extra clothes and gadgets that found their way into our packs were given away.  We limited the food we hauled, trusting that there would be tortillas and croissants in the next town.  We reminded ourselves that there are so many fellow pilgrims we could lean on.  And, in what felt like a bit of a defeat, we even had a transport company carry one of our bags each day to take some weight off our very sore feet. 

One of the sayings repeated on this pilgrimage is “The Camino provides.” What we need will be provided.  How do we learn to trust? We had not trusted that there would be a place for rest over the next pass and a bed at the end of the day, or that food would be plentiful if we could wait another half hour.  We were not trusting in the help and compassion of others, but instead were trying to be self-reliant by carrying too much.  Thom Rutledge asks, “How might I be different if this fear did not live inside my chest?” and as I pondered this, I prayed: “The Camino provides, The Way provides, YHWH provides,” and then wandered back to a psalm that has carried me in difficult times - “When anxiety and worries are many, your consolation brings joy to my soul”  (Ps. 94:19). There was, and is, so much joy in the journey when we can release what we carry, living in the full knowledge that The Way provides. 

What is it you carry that might need to be released? 

Was it yours to carry to begin with?

How might you be/live differently if this "fear did not live inside your chest"?