The Blog Redux – You’re Gonna What???

Yep, it’s true.  We’re gonna walk 475 miles or so along the Camino de Santiago in Spain.  That’s our next big travel plan, set to take place in mid-August through the entire month of September of this year (2013).  Most folks we talk to have heard of the Camino de Santiago, mainly through the movie “The Way,” which came out a couple of years ago and starred Martin Sheen.  The Camino de Santiago, known also as The Way or simply The Camino, is an ancient religious pilgrimage dating back more than a thousand years when pilgrims from all across Europe began making their way to the Cathedral of St James the Apostle in the city of Santiago de Compestela in the far northwest corner of Spain.  They traveled for various reasons – as a penance, to gain an indulgence, or perhaps to give thanks for a special healing.  Pilgrims have continued to come to Santiago de Compestela in varying numbers ever since; however, the numbers have recently soared, and tens of thousands make the trek every year.  While it has always been a religious pilgrimage, primarily for Roman Catholics, more and more people are walking the Camino as a secular adventure that has nothing to do with their religious beliefs or lack thereof.  In particular, for Europeans, I guess you might say it’s their equivalent of the Appalachian Train, the Colorado, Trail, or the Pacific Crest Trail.  The recent resurgence in awareness of the Camino de Santiago can be traced not only the Sheen movie, but also to books by Paolo Coelho, Shirley MacLain, and others who for various reasons have made the walk and written about it.

But enough about the general background – why are we, Jeanette and I, doing this?  I can only speak for myself, of course – perhaps Jeanette will pop in sometime and talk about her reasons.  For me, I have heard about the pilgrimage to Santiago and the traditional tomb of the Apostle James (the Spanish word Santiago means St James) for many years.  I have heard stories of people – friends of friends and so forth – who have walked the path or at least portions of the path in the past, and while it has always aroused my curiosity, it was never to the level of actually examining my conscience to determine if I felt the call to make an actual pilgrimage.  So what has changed?  It’s hard to say, but my prayer life has grown over the past year as we’ve been attending healing services at a place called “The Barn.”  This is an actual barn located between Conifer and Evergreen, Colorado, a couple of mountain communities just west of our home in Denver.  It is a actual barn which has been “redecorated” as a non-denominational chapel for weddings, funerals, and similar small services.  On Tuesday nights, a prayer group called the Intercessors of the Trinity (IOTT), founded by Deacon Brian Kerby and his wife, Dee, meets at the barn for healing prayer.  While Brian is a permanent deacon at Christ the King parish in Evergreen, the IOTT is not a ministry of that parish.  My prayer life has grown immensely through the physical, emotional, and spiritual healings that we’ve seen take place there, and as a part of the growth, I’ve come to feel the need to do something really special and meaningful to thank God for all the blessings in my life – thus the calling to make the pilgrimage along the Way of St James.  Yes, the movie was something of a catalyst in that it showed us what was actually involved in making the Camino de Santiago and eased our minds about the logistics of such a journey.  So beginning just about a year ago we began to plan in earnest and start training for the physical challenges of walking 12 to 15 or more miles a day for six weeks.

Most of our friends and family members who followed our blog as we traveled to Alaska and back in our motor home two years ago have known of these plans, and have been bugging us to rekindle our travel blog on this journey.  My standard answer has been, no, I don’t plan to write a blog about this trip, at least not concurrently.  The nature of a pilgrimage is focusing on inward reflections.  While I do plan to keep a written journal, I can’t see having or spending time on a computer each day writing a blog.  Besides, I don’t have the room or the capacity in my backpack for a computer or even my little Samsung tablet.  But Jeanette found an app for her smartphone (I’m not taking mine) that will allow her to make blog entries and even post a photo or two along the way, so she will be posting brief entries here as long wi-fi and/or 3G/4G access is available in the albergues (hostels) where we’ll be spending most nights.  Meanwhile, either she or I may be posting more info regarding the Camino de Santiago and our planning and training in the days ahead before we depart in five short weeks, so keep in tune.