On & on & up & up I walked, eventually cresting the “mountain” and coming to rest at the famed Alto der Perdon – the “Height of Apology” (or, probably more accurately, the “Summit of Atonement”) – and its moving sculpture-tribute to pilgrims long-since passed … “Our courage doesn’t suddenly disappear just because we choose […]
And here on this awe-inspiring summit yet another beautiful tale began to unfold. I had briefly met the Huntsman family a few miles beforehand back in Cizur Menor, and my ego had been less than impressed during that first impression. Maybe it was the seemingly aloof way they had spoken with me about my Walk […]
I remember that it was HOT on this particular day – hot and dry and glaring, both up on Alto der Perdon’s summit, and just as much so on the long and stony walk down its farther slopes. And yet walk-slide-slip-&-stumble my way downward I did, meeting up with Mary from Colorado along the way […]
“Work that is good & true, whether it’s creative work done with your hands or inspiring efforts relayed by words written or spoken, ever bring forth a sense of Divinity at play. And the only prerequisite for these endeavors is that whatever the work happens to be, it is done earnestly & courageously and in […]
I ended up meeting up again with my Canadian friends, who like I had decided to walk the alternative route offered that day – a route that led to the relatively secluded wonderment that was the church of Eunate. Eunate had been one of the small handful of places I intensely wished to revisit* on […]
We all walked together to the next town of Obanos, and it was here that I intentionally lingered to allow my Canadian friends to move along. And I did so for their benefit, to make sure that their selfless generosity that had been so Joy-fully given up to that point, from morphing into a sluggish […]
I headed back out onto The Way and soon enough made it to the town of Puenta la Reina. The parochial hostel at the edge of town exuded an exceptionally “cold” vibe and the people there were less than inviting or kind, and so I wandered on a ways – stopping first into the open […]
I decided to check in with the local parish to see if they had any accommodations available for mendicant pilgrims and, after hearing my Walk’s tale (as usual, both its hows and its whys), Father Richard told me to head back to the parochial hostel and to wait there. I amicably chatted awhile with the […]
My relatively rapid walking tempo meant that I ended up covering more miles in a standard walking day than most pilgrims ever mustered, which in turn meant that I found myself steadily outdistancing the “pilgrim families” I continually met along The Way – leaving one well-met group of long-lost & newfound Friends behind to inevitably […]
And so it was that I peacefully made my way back to the hostel, and so it was that I sat in the hostels’ garden under a dancing cloud of swallows and wrote a bit of The Walk, and so it was that I lovingly deflected a hospitalero’s open aggression towards me having “the gall” […]
The “off” vibe of this particular place made it easier than usual to rise extra-early and flow out into the pre-dawn gloam; back onto the smooth ever-onward that is the way of the Camino, and the resolute life of Loving others anyway that is The Way itself. “Life is tragic simply because the Earth turns […]
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