I am to this day not sure what Adam told the hotel staff when he made my reservation there, and yet there is nothing he could have relayed that could have explained the incredible generosity and overflowing acts of kindness they all showed me in every moment of my stay. From the extra off-the-menu dishes that Alex had his staff make for me each morning to the way Ester let me hang out in the lobby for hours on end undisturbed to Miguel letting me repeatedly use the front desk’s computer to finalize my travel plans to manager Hortensia demanding that she be the one to personally chauffeur me to the airport on my final Madrid morning – everyone present honored me in a truly magnanimous manner that the Walk itself deserved, no doubt, and yet also in a way that I was not sure I myself truly merited …

“I’m not a foreigner here, primarily because I haven’t been praying to return safely home. Indeed, I haven’t wasted a single moment imagining my house, my desk, or my side of the bed. I am not a foreigner here because I know that we are all traveling, that we are all full of the same questions – the same fatigue, the same fears, the same goodness and the same generosity. I am not a foreigner here because whenever I was asked, I received, and whenever I knocked, the door opened to family, and whenever I looked, I found great kindness.” ~ via Paulo Coelho

“Where there is Life, there hides a beating Heart. Where there is a beating Heart, there resides a selfless Soul. And where there is a selfless Soul, there lives a shining hope for Peace.” ~ inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt