Day 092c: Arriving where I once Was … (July 15, 2019)
There were several special places I re-encountered along the Spanish portion of this current Camino – places where great peace was known or great beauty was witnessed or great Kindness was received. And this particular spot – a small park alongside The Way as it made its way through downtown Leon – recalled a moment imbued with the latter of the three. This particular pre-Leon portion of the Walk back in 2008 had been particularly difficult for me (for whatever reasons, though it was interesting to note that eleven years later this same stretch of the Path seemed to bring forth the same feelings of desolation, hopelessness, and fatigue), and it was here in this tiny park that I had become somewhat overcome with feelings of exhaustion & sadness. And then it was also here that a Great Kindness was extended to me by a fellow pilgrim passing by – a Great Kindness that took the form of a tiny gift of chocolate and the faintest glimmer of a heartfelt smile … It was then that I remembered what I have yet to forget since: the truth that the apparent size of any gift never matters nearly as much as the earnestness of the intimacy beneath its giving.
“It only takes a split second to smile and be kind, and yet to the one who needed the same, that gentleness will last a lifetime.” ~ anonymous
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