"BOOKS AND ARTICLES HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT 

IN MY SEARCH FOR GOD, 

BUT IT HAS BEEN THE INTERRUPTIONS TO MY EVERDAY LIFE 

THAT HAVE MOST REVEALED TO ME 

THE DIVINE MYSTERY OF WHICH I AM A PART."

// Henri Nouwen

"Beyond the Mirror"

Up for Air

I have words jumbled in my mind, untethered to phrases that make sense in grammatical form or coherent in the English language. I blame the papers, I blame the finals, I even blame the chaos of a city in transition to winter. But mostly, my inner landscape has been distraught with decisions – a semester ending and a future unknown; a degree approaching and questions surfacing about what I will do and where I will go. In the meantime, my classes this semester have transformed my identity, drawing me closer to His undeserving love and causing me to worship at His goodness. I am trying not to remain frozen within my thoughts, but give them space to breathe. I await the day my writing is recovered for mere pleasure instead of assignment... Oh, I long for that day with great expectation.

Seattle with the "Phil's Camino" Team

Thanksgiving Break with the best high school friends

The ever-present theme undergirding my mind is Change. My little brother Mikey got married in August, and my other brother Daniel is moving to San Diego. My days in Chicago are marked by life beside Daniel, and mourning his presence here will surely take more than the upcoming days lived in his absence. Three years in Chicago together may seem short, yet their significance is weighted by the trajectory of my 28 year old life. Each year in the 20’s seems like a disparate world with the constant transition of friends from marriage to families to homes and countries. In a sense I have lived four lifetimes in this city, and expect to be marked by the interplay of many more.

City Adventures over break

Studying is best over coffee in community

I reflect on this year with gratitude and anticipate a new year of change. Change is good for the soul – the death of one thing leading to the life of another. As the semester comes to a close, I can’t help but note the change within myself. I so often want to grip life tight and force it to adjust to my own pace, but perhaps the beauty of change is that it often catches us by surprise. It sneaks itself in so that we are thrown into disequilibrium; it is essentially in this unprecedented, unanticipated state that we are transformed. And while I want to resist unexpected change, I know it is only in the embrace of New that I can grow.

Nothing like a 10 Year Reunion to bring reminders of where you've come from
and where you're going 

A weekend of brunch when Jess is in town

And if there’s anything I hope to say about my life in this sabbatical of graduate school it’s that I have grown. I am not the same person today that I was when I entered Wheaton in fall of 2013. While my core remains the same, my perspective and approach to God and others has significantly altered in the best of ways. I often live so shortsighted and don’t note the growth in the day-to-day, but over a period of time it becomes more evident. In the close of a semester, I notice these changes and am thankful I am not still the person I used to be. Thank you God, for change.

Wheaton has opened up "more than wardrobe doors" for me

Reminders.

Lately, I walk around with my jaw dropped in awe of the popping colors of orange and yellow that line the streets of Chicago. No matter how many Autumns I experience, the vibrancy of colors year after year does not get tiring or old. It causes me to consider how what we see here on earth is a mere shadow of what's to come, which brings me to worship a mysterious and unsearchable Creator. I am quickly distracted by that other than God, which funnels into an even deeper gratitude for the beauty of nature to help me return to Him.

Autumn leaves mid-change.

Embracing fall with my dear Texans - Candis & baby Will

Last week, I took a course on C.S. Lewis, in which my professor painted pictures through stories of the greatness of God, repeatedly positing the question: "What must God be like?" As I walk around campus and take in the season, I ask myself that question. In his infinite goodness and creativity, all of nature points to Him.

So.pretty.

A weekend of fall in Denver with Mikey + Jillian!

The Heart's Choice

"When my father was an old man, 
past eighty years, we sat together
on the porch in silence
in the dark. Finally he said, 
“Well, I have had a wonderful life,” 
adding after a long pause, 
“and I have had nothing
to do with it!” We were silent
for a while again. And then I asked, 
“Well, do you believe in the
‘informed decision’?” He thought
some more, and at last said
out of the darkness: “Naw!” 
He was right, for when we choose
the way by which our only life
is lived, we choose and do not know
what we have chosen, for this
is the heart’s choice, not the mind’s; 
to be true to the heart’s one choice
is the long labor of the mind. 
He chose, imperfectly as we must, 
the rule of love, and learned
through years of light what darkly
he had chosen: his life, his place, 
our place, our lives. And now comes
one he chose, but will not see: 
Emily Rose, born May 2, 1993."

__________

“II” by Wendell Berry.

Allowing the heart to lead.
// Photo: 35mm film on Diana mini
Seattle, WA 2014

Birthday (Again).

"The old woman I shall become will be quite different from the woman I am now. Another I is beginning."

// George Sand

// read in "Traveling with Pomegranates by: Sue Monk Kidd

When my roommates told me to block out this past Sunday for a surprise birthday, I approached it with an air of hesitation and excited anticipation. I've never been good at surprises; always begging for information until it "accidentally" leaks out and performing my form of undercover sleuthing behind closed doors. I recall scouting for Christmas presents in my parents' closet and finding hidden gems for my birthday buried under their bed. Dashing down to my room, I practiced my surprised gestures and phrases until they became natural and ready to be enacted upon unwrapping. As an "Activator," I have to continually work on my levels of patience when it comes to waiting for something I want; waiting for timing or finances or the right thing to come along. 

Surrendering Sunday to the art of Surprise was only made possible by remembering the history of Lily celebrations. I was comforted by the fact that when the Lily celebrates, we really celebrate.

The most perfectly delicious fall meal

I came home to the smell of butternut squash floating through the apartment, a brand new "Day of all Days" birthday banner posted above the piano, Sweet Mandy B's cupcakes surrounded by confetti, and a beautifully wrapped gift waiting in the corner. I am continually humbled and amazed by these two women I live beside... How do they love me so well?!

And what if we always waited a month after our birthday to celebrate?! As a new believer in the tradition of the Belated Birthday party, I have been awakened to the wave of opportunities that come with celebrations in a new season. Since returning from Spain, I have had three fall celebrations, letting the crisp of fall air and crunch of leaves usher in this new year, a nice change from the heat that is characteristically August.

Everyone gets a chance to blow out the birthday candle!
Always more reasons to celebrate...

My roomies and I talked about transitions and newness; change and journey; where we've been and where we're going. We passed the birthday candle around and replaced "birthday" for "job" or "school" as Jayme and Ash blew it out. They asked me what 28 feels like and all I could reply is "adult." A new form of leaving childhood behind and embracing the maturity that comes with growing older has sparked within me. For years I have fought this reality, but now I have nothing but expectation for what lies ahead - wisdom with years and all those questions of who I will become unfolding. A new Me is emerging, not simply because of numbers in a birthday, but because the journey continues to shape me, God transforms me, and living in the tension of joy and tragedy becomes more real with more years lived. I am so thankful for this one beautiful life and the people who are in it. Inspired by the possibility and anticipating the adventure, I approach 28 with a sense of peace in the story God is writing with my life as I search the core of who He made me to be and wonder where it will lead.

The gift of a typewriter for all my Inspired Writer needs...

Welcoming in a new year multiple times has brought questions to the surface: What am I passionate about? What continues to be themes in my life? What are my gifts and how will I ask God to use them? Where will I take my master's and how will it shape what I do?

I am so grateful to have others alongside me in this process, the ones who never miss a chance to celebrate, who give to me beyond what I deserve, and encourage me to lean into the day-to-day run-ins with just how chaotic life can be. Perhaps the best thing about birthdays is that they are a reminder of the beautiful souls that fill our lives, which easily becomes the best gift of all.

"Our world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy observes, "Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself." Let us be among those who believe that the inner transformation of our lives is a goal worthy of our best effort." 

// Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 11

// Samos, Spain
Camino de Santiago // August 2014

As graduate school picks up and the to-do list starts to impede, I have to remind myself of priorities.

Transformation is not something you can check off or accomplish. It is the lifestyle of surrendering to God and allowing Him to do the work. It requires patience. Discipline. A hungry heart. So often I forget... I want to achieve and conquer and be successful, but the daily surrender to God is the true life to my soul.

His love is not to be strived for or earned. It's a free gift, worthy of my life.

"God made man because he loves stories."

// Elie Wiesel

// The Gates of the Forest

I've always had a slight intolerance for the most cliche marathon verse I know: "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize." 

But today, 1 Cor 9:24 and I made amends.

I suffered through a 14-miler and was forced to cling to Anything it would take to finish. This verse circled and re-circled in my mind, beckoning me to pay attention in a new way.

It became clear and inescapable: "run in SUCH A WAY as to get the prize." 

While my eyes are continually focused on the goal, staring at the finish line, I am reminded that the Finish Line is not It. 

It's the way that matters. Run in such a way as to win the prize.

In the ways that the marathon parallels life, this is perhaps most visible. It's not about finishing, but the manner it takes to get there. For the marathon, it's training. For life, it's the joy, love, and grace with which we choose to live.

Lately, this has not been my heart. The word "gratitude" comes to mind... and how much I have lacked in it. I want to run the race in thankfulness - through the exhaustion, in the midst of disappointment, and straight into the questions. The manner you run the race matters; not the prize.

These runs are hard. Grad school is taking over. My job is time-consuming. But I will choose HIM - He will be my way. Only in Him can I bear any fruit, and I must turn my eyes and my heart to HIM alone to transform me as I run and "run" this race marked before me.

Homecoming.

When a journey comes to its end, it bids a sense of calling; a return of purpose, a reflection of process. The nature of an end is that it opens one to a new beginning as the transformed version of yourself plants itself back into the rhythm of your retrieved life- roommates and a city, a car and clothes and phone and calendar. The arrival at the end allows one to consider the meaning behind it, how to return as a new  you, what it is you will take back.

In the kilometers walked, interviews filmed, and people met along the way, I am confronted with the story of my own journey. Most days, I´ve wondered what it will amount to, what Santiago will reveal to me in this second homecoming of sorts... How it will feel different or the same or just as new as it did in August of last year after walking 500 miles to arrive.

Gazing upon the cathedral, watching tired pilgrims saunter into their destination, my sense of End does not come. A longing for a different end surfaces, an end of a summer of scrambling and travel in a backpack, the desire to simply be in one place is where my gaze rests. A horizon of my true home that holds the end of this journey, the start of school, and the continuation of friendships and community in Chi.

While this past year has been spent dreaming of a return to the Camino, I realize I am ready to lay my seeker heart to rest. What is it I seek in travel after travel? What is it I now long for? The next phase of my journey appears before me- the readiness to be home compounded with the desire to perhaps make a new home. This ancient cathedral shows me my Return; it took a second Camino to let it go and lay my wanderlust heart to rest for a bit.

To Chicago I return... Tired by the restless nature of this job, burdened by the planning and unexpected stress of it all. But also thankful for the release of this Camino pedestal, the captivity it held on my heart now free to fully settle into where I am home. Yes, it took a journey to bid the journey goodbye.

Goodbye Spain, I love you so much that I am finally ready to let you go for awhile.


// Uploaded from Blogger Mobile™

The Journey of Place: Santiago

"Journeying is the predominant means of developing one's self in this culture, not the habitation of place. It has been true of me. Always the seeker. Yet at this phase of my life, when I look at my house at the edge of a marsh, I want to learn how to be in it. I want to behave like a finder as much as a seeker. The irony is that I had to go on an elaborate journey to figure this out. So much of my growing older seems to be about paradoxes. The reconciliation of opposites. The bringing to balance."

// Sue Monk Kidd: Traveling with Pomegranates 

Letting Go.

In the continual un-pack / re-pack of the bag, routine of walking, following (/finding?!) Phil, and scouting arrows heading westward in the glow of the morning, I often question what it is I am doing here... The constant flow of sweat, sleeps in rooms of snorers, and grueling hills of the Camino are not exactly "summer vacay" status. While the routine feels natural and the walk expected, my purpose has remained in balance.

so many masses to attend when #followingphil

Yes, I am here to sustain vision, work audio, and take care of my crew. My knowledge of Spanish allowed Todd and Jess to get where they need to be, sufficient taxi and bus transit, equipment to the next locale, and even assisted Jess to get an official notary in Spain. But that is only a portion of my time... As I walk these tiring k's towards Santiago, I wonder if God has purpose for me beyond this job, a life lesson or goal or intention to follow here today?!

nightly interviews... happening best over chocolate and wine...

Mine & Hers ;)

My mind is flooded with past walking companions, remembering the conversations under specific trees and coffees at particular cafés. As I walk the meseta right now, I feel as though the ghosts of past Camino pilgrims haunt my mind, building comparisons and the judgmental undergird of what the real Camino truly is... (MY way, of course...)

singing nuns in Carrion! Same ones as last year

when the sun rises, my favorite time on the path...

As I walk, a new awareness floats to the surface. After returning to the US last year, perhaps I subconsciously elevated the Camino with phrases like "the Camino will provide," "the Camino always makes a way," "the Camino calls..." - appointing a self-proclaimed role of "Camino evangelist" of sorts. In walking the same path, I realize the Camino is just one avenue towards knowing God... It is not the only way, the best way, or the 'you have to' way, as I too often believe. While I still uphold the healing power that comes from this pilgrimage, I also see it for what it is... a road that carries one through churches, cathedrals, cafés, and community as one makes their way to Santiago. The familiarity of the route has allowed me to let go of what was and make room for what could be. To allow the same road to show me that the goal is never the Camino itself, rather the seeking of God Himself. 

walkin in James' shoes...

A certain element of clarity comes in a return... Like returning to your college campus the year following graduation (guilty...). I distinctly recall longing for Baylor after moving home to Chi, convinced that just being back in Waco would provide me the joy I felt while living there in college. In my post-grad naïveté, I packed up my '88 Cadillac and drove the long road back. What I found instead is that it was not the same Waco of my dreams- the happiness and life was not specific to Waco itself, rather to what I had created there- memories that cannot be relived. Any effort to do so would surely end in disappointment. 

nights of sangria = necessary

Team Time at sunset

It is not the Camino itself that brings transformation, rather it is inviting God's presence to the Camino that allows the change. If I expect a magical, enlightening experience simply through the return, I surely will not have it. I have been walking this route expecting its very nature to change me, but it cannot. The Camino does not inherently hold that power simply through strapping on a pack and walking. The awareness and ability to find God in the process is ultimately what shaped me last year, and what I have to turn my attention to right now as I step. Relying on the Camino to do the work will not bring about change... I must seek God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

I am so lucky to walk this...

People continue to ask me - how do I live like this at home? The goal is not to return to the Canino, it's to bring it back with you. To be changed in a way that makes Home a Camino itself.

Who knew that a return to the Camino would actually show me how to let go of the Camino...??! 

same photo here, one year later...

// Uploaded from Blogger Mobile™

It was only three days after celebrating my birthday in Santiago last year that I stated: "There is no amount of money I would accept to walk again."

birthday celebrations with Camino Familia and pastel de Santiago 2013

And yet, yesterday I rang in another Camino birthday as I walk with the co-producer job I recently accepted a few weeks ago. Sometimes life is crazy like that...

my wonderful APOC hospitalera who made my day!

birthday presents come in the form of packets of almond butter on the Camino...

Jess and I were granted special access to the church apex after pronouncing to the hospitalera in Granon that it was my birthday. The eve before concluded with the best gift to receive: the highly coveted peanut & almond butter packets. I was awoken to light piercing through stained glass, a carried handmade pennant all the way from Ashley Peters, and a group breakfast song of "I would walk 500 miles..." When Jessica asked me what I wanted to do on my birthday, I answered: "I want to walk the Camino!" So we did. Through sprawling sunflower fields and echoed 'buen caminos,' eating my way through chocolate and croissants dipped in coffee, and the whole time loving life in my birthday crown.

It wasn't until we arrived 20k later to the town of Tosantos that life started to feel a lot less like my birthday and a lot more like a Camino Low. We entered the albergue as sweaty, exhausted pilgrims to an angry priest, a missing bag of equipment, and a completely lost Phil. I forgot my towel in the shower of cold water and the wait for the one toilet was about 12 people long. When I picked up my bag to carry it to my portion of floor space, everything fell out in a mess before my eyes. It wasn't until I learned that the only bar in town was closed because the owner was sick that I ran away with tears to the nearest spot of shade on the trail.

As I sat in the tear-stained dirt, I wondered how a day could turn so ugly... a day that should be about joy and presents and cake and celebration and all things I love most in life. That's what a birthday is, right?!

In these moments it feels like the Camino is so naturally handing me life lessons I will turn to for wisdom in days to come. Perhaps year 28 is blessed as it begins with this range of emotions, this contrast and conflict, joy and pain. I am reminded of the human experience in the gladness and grief. Yesterday, I am lucky to have had the gift of both... a glimpse of what I hope to feel as this year continues. Sometimes all it takes is a birthday breakdown to reveal it.


// Uploaded from Blogger Mobile™

To Spain... Again

Even now as I steer myself around the Denver airport with the familiar extension of my back resting on my shoulders, my home for the next three weeks, the pack that consistently reminds me how little I need to live and causes me to shed less and less- it doesn't feel real.

This was never the Camino return I expected and to say I wasn't hesitant to re-join pilgrim life in this capacity would be a lie.

[ ^ surprise bday celebration with roomies before leaving ]

Over the past few weeks people have asked me if I am excited and what I feel and what it will be like to return. I know what I should feel going back to this country that feels like home & this route that changed my life, but what do I actually feel??!

It is a road I have seen, a lifestyle I know; and yet a path I have yet to walk. Observing someone else's journey, walking with Chicago friends, producing a short film and working sound... It is a journey I do not know along a medieval road that I can't seem to escape. It beckons me back and my only choice is to say yes. It's least expected, unprepared, and slightly inconveniently wedged between my brother's wedding and the start of school... the timing feels so specific that I can't help but think there's a reason I am going in this moment for a specific purpose. 

[ ^ the team. Sound mixer, co-producer, DP ]

The truth is I am not lacking emotions, rather my mind & heart are an entire mess of emotions; too many to feel one way or the next. But the journey continues on, moving forward with courage, knowing that I am walking into a beautiful gift of the Camino with its road of challenges and triumphs, anticipating the people I will meet and experiences yet to be lived, excited/anxious/overwhelmed/scared... In wonder and awe at the great God to whom I point this journey. 

Thanks beyond thanks with a full heart. And a BUEN CAMINO.

Until Logrono...

[ ^ O'Hare. Where the journey began for these two a week ago... ]

// Uploaded from Blogger Mobile™ 

Since Returning

I've been home officially two weeks and will leave again in one more.

The day I returned my car died, our locks were changed, we had a new roomie move-in, and I hosted the co-producer of "Walking the Camino." The next day, I marathon trained 10 miles, reunited with friends at a wedding, released the film in Chicago with a tapas celebration of thirty friends, and co-hosted a bridal shower for Michael's beautiful fiancé (my soon-to-be-sis-in-law!) Jillian. The day after, I was offered a job producing a documentary short along the Camino, assembled a crew, continued to work full-time for "Walking the Camino," and was handed a plane ticket to Spain taking off a week from today.

.... Is it any surprise that I collapsed on the couch around 7pm on Saturday and called it Bedtime?!

I'm busy, overwhelmed, and certainly missing the peace of the Wilamette River.

At the same time, my heart is so filled with thanks & overflowing with gratitude for such loving friends that surround me and opportunities I never could've predicted... I wouldn't trade a single bit of the Crazy for an ounce of Normal.

I don't know how it is possible: the stress weighed with the joy, the light with the dark, the busyness with the peace. I'm learning to find each day as it is: a new opportunity to walk with God and respond to what He puts in my path.

Although it is still completely surreal that I will be returning to Spain (this time with a backpack of DSLR's & a crew of close friends) there's an ease with which I approach this new journey; this path that fills my thoughts & opens my heart. The foreign country that feels more like home than USA most days and the trail I was on just one year ago that changed me forever. While the past year has fully affirmed the saying the real Camino starts when you return home - the phrase has never felt more alive than in this very moment.

I will walk the same path, but a different Camino. A new story for a dear soul, Phil. It is hard for me to put words on... so here it goes - ultreia & buen camino!

Sometimes when I stop to consider the chain of events following an eighth grade love for Spanish in Miss Rose's class leading to a houseboat on the Portland shore, I wonder what else in life is contingent upon This Moment. I think about how each decision, as minor as it seems at the time, unequivocally leads to the next.

One year ago today, I wrote a post on Courage to face the unknowns of the Camino the night before I left (7/7/13). Now I work for a documentary film about others who have undertaken such courage and embarked on the Camino, so that those who view the film may be encouraged to do the same. 

Pilgrimage, as a spiritual discipline, has uniquely changed my life in a way that constantly bids me to return. Not necessarily the physical return, but the daily reminders of life's gifts in simplicity -and the discovery of God and oneself in the process.

The power is out on the river tonight and the stars are brighter than ever. As I sit by candlelight listening to the rhythm of the waves, I wonder if life could be more perfect.

(// and subsequently this post was not published last night when it was written due to lack of wifi...)