One Week

Leon to Santiago - my Camino.
The trail I will follow for 3 weeks.

When people hear I am leaving for Spain in a week to walk a total of 152 miles, they often focus on the amount of physical exertion it will take to carry all I own in a backpack through a trail of inland mountainous villages. While this pilgrimage will be challenging in the aspect of walking 10-14 miles daily, finding a bed to sleep in at night, and relying on locals to show me the way of yellow arrows, in many ways it will be even more a process of the mind & spirit.

The Camino, with its thousands of years of history, is a spiritual path that will remind me of the many that traveled before me in search of religious freedom. Persecuted Christians walked this trail to flee the religion of eastern Spain and seek solitude & freedom in the steeples of Santiago. The Camino will be blisters and sore backs, but it will also be sunrises and siestas and contemplative prayer. It will feel lonely and individualistic, and it will be rich in family style community. The distance will feel long and tiresome, yet the trip will go by so quickly.

In many ways, I have no idea what the Camino will be like at all. But I know that there will be many times when I will probably question why I'm there... and in those valleys, I will learn more and more that God is enough. And that truth just never gets old.

In one week: Buen Camino!