Tag: #camino

After Hibernation . . .

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I just checked the date of my last entry and realized I’ve gone a quarter of a year without blogging, and even longer without posting anything on social media. What’s up with that? Have I been hibernating?

Actually, I’ve been writing, which feels just as delightfully restorative. When I returned from the Ignatian Camino in November, I took some time to ease back into “regular” life. Knowing that my speaking schedule would pick up in February with the beginning of Lent, after the holidays I made a decision: devote January to working on my next book, Finding God Along the Way: Wisdom from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home.

Hank, the Basset Hound

What a luxury! I spent much of the last month slipping out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to write, giving myself permission to ignore all other tasks until the last of my creative energy was spent. This was particularly satisfying during the five days I dog-sat at my brother’s house; there’s nothing like snuggling up with an eighty-pound basset hound to keep you in one place. (Pictured here: Hank overseeing my progress from the back of the sofa.)

Originally, the subtitle of this new book was going to be “Lessons from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home.” While I like the pairing of “lessons” and “life” (adoring alliteration as I do), the more I wrote, the less appropriate the subtitle felt. The effects of the Camino are dynamic, continuing to unfold. The word Lessons feels too pat—like I should be tying an instructive bow at the end of every chapter. So I’ve shifted to Wisdom, which feels more open-ended. Here’s how I describe it in the introduction:

The wisdom of the Ignatian Camino is not just for those with the resources to fly to Spain, lace up their boots, and hit the road.  It is everyday wisdom, useful whether or not your life is marked by good health, financial freedom, or job flexibility.  Like all wisdom, it needs to be savored, so I would encourage you not to race through this book to find out “what happened.” 

I’m trying not to race through the book, either. After drafting a few chapters that belong somewhere in the middle (starting there because they were fun to write), I’ve gone back to the beginning, paging through my notes, photos, and reflections to stir my memories. Sometimes I get lost down an internet rabbit hole, looking at maps of the terrain we crossed, or trying to figure out the name of that church / park / village we visited. And yet, this is not a travelogue; despite veering away from the word “lessons,” with every chapter I ask myself what I learned, and how that wisdom is bearing fruit back at home. If it’s not, it’s not worth sharing.

My January hibernation got me almost to the midpoint of Finding God Along the Way, making me optimistic about my (self-imposed) June deadline for a finished first draft. Now that February is here, I still take most mornings to write, but after that I turn my attention to the Lenten programs on my horizon. Allow me to highlight the newest here:

On the weekend of March 10-12, at the Loyola House of Retreats in Morristown NJ, I’ll be co-leading a retreat called “Brother and Sister and Mother to Me: God’s Holy Family is Wider Than We Know.” The idea for this retreat came when Loyola invited presenters to design retreats for the 2023 season around the theme of “family.” My mind immediately went to how many people feel omitted or excluded—for a variety of reasons—when the Church starts using that word, and I knew I wanted to do something for them. For us.

Here’s how my friend and co-presenter Linda Baratte and I are describing the retreat:

A treasured insight in our Catholic tradition is the idea of family as the domestic Church—an honored place where, like the Holy Family, we first learn to love.  But what if our family bears little resemblance to that sacred threesome? We can often feel on the fringe of Church and parish life.  Whatever our family configuration, what would it mean to embrace the radical, wider vision of family that Jesus is inviting us to—with faith, not blood nor history, as our DNA?  In our retreat weekend together, we will explore and celebrate the richness of all the ways God has called us to be family to one another.

Now, that feels worth coming out of hibernation for! If it piques your interest–for yourself or someone you love–check out Loyola’s website for details. And be sure to visit my Speaker page for other Lenten offerings; Ash Wednesday is two weeks from today!

Now, back to Spain (if only in my brain) I go . . .

The Hardest Question

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How was the Camino?

This question is both utterly welcome and so hard to answer. Where do I begin? It’s easy to talk about miles and blisters; it’s delightful to describe gorgeous vistas and wonderful companions. However, as I predicted, the essential things all happened on the inside, in the space created by my walking, prayer, and ultimately surrender to the experience.

I was determined to keep track of the outer and inner journey, so after waking up early every morning to get hydrated and caffeinated for the walk ahead, I pulled out my bluetooth keyboard and captured everything I could recall from the previous day. This left me with lots of raw material for my next book (tentatively titled Finding God Along the Way: Lessons from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home), but it doesn’t help me answer the “how was it” question. It’s too much, just as my photos are too much; I need to cull the impressions down to a shareable size.

I did manage to write five short essays for the Ignatian Volunteer Corps to email to those following our journey. Here are my Reflections from the Road, which capture some of the experience as it was unfolding.

The point of pilgrimage, however, is transformation, and transformation takes time. The true measure of the Camino will be taken after my feet have healed and I am fully integrated back into my “normal” life, not thinking of Spain almost every waking minute. What changes will persist after the drama of the physical journey has subsided? That’s what I’m eager to know, yet only time will tell. For the moment, let me share just two words that I hope will continue to mark this experience: solidarity and indifference.

Solidarity

During one of our group reflections, I shared that I was trying to let the challenges of the Camino connect my heart to people who do hard things every day. Walking across a desert on blistered feet, for example, I tried to hold in prayer all those refugees who make arduous desert crossings without LL Bean hiking poles in hand or a pilgrims’ shelter on the horizon. “So many people’s lives are impossibly hard every day,” I said. “This is just a month, and we volunteered for it.” At that, Fr. Jose cracked up. “Volunteered?” he laughed. “You PAID for this!”

Indeed we did. This exercise in solidarity was imaginative at best, and is valuable only if it is also transformative, keeping me mindful of and compassionate towards those who suffer hardships that my month-long sojourn only hinted at.

Indifference

How much longer will we be walking uphill? Is it going to rain today? When do we stop for lunch? Will we sleep in private rooms or a bunk room tonight? Is there a washing machine at the next hostel? These and countless other questions popped into our heads and flew out of our mouths all day long, but Fr. Jose kept encouraging us to stay focused on the now. This path. These companions. This moment. This prayer. These smells and sounds and sights and feelings. He was teaching us to unhook our minds from a preoccupation with what might be, so as to be fully present to what was right in front of us, and to welcome with open hearts whatever came our way.

Of course, this was rendered easier by the fact that we had so few choices available to us (other than, in the words of Victor Frankl, the freedom to choose our attitude). Now that we are home and get to decide every blessed thing for ourselves again, it is easy for those superficial wants to clamor for attention. My hope is that I can allow my passing preferences to matter less, so as to be more present to what is, and allow that to call forth, as Ignatius would say, a deeper response to my life in God.

How was the Camino? It was the hardest and best thing I’ve ever done. Yet ultimately, we will know this experience by its fruit, and it’s not even close to harvest time.

Stay tuned!

Fresh pilgrims depart from Loyola.

Journey’s End: Manresa!

Buen Camino!

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“What’s going to happen?”

In 2014, when my father was near the beginning of what turned out to be his final illness, my brother and I asked each other that question continually. Would Dad be able to keep living alone? Was there any chance we could persuade him to move somewhere without six bedrooms and three flights of stairs? Could we possibly shift our lives and responsibilities to care for him ourselves? What’s going to happen? Over and over we repeated this unanswerable mantra, until life unfolded and we lived our way into the answers. (Which turned out to be, for the specific questions above: no, heck no, and absolutely.)

As I prepare to depart for the Ignatian Camino–the pandemic-deferred pilgrimage I’ve been dreaming about for more than three years now–I find myself echoing the same question. What’s going to happen? My logistics are as ready as they’re ever going to be. My socks are double-layered. My shoes are broken in. My satchel and suitcase are organized. There’s a decent chance I’ve overpacked, but my bag remains dramatically under the weight limit. And, unlike the trip to Peru I joke about in my “Take Nothing for the Journey” retreat, I’m not bringing a single Whitman’s Sampler.

I’ve been focusing on the externals because they are all-consuming, yet I know that, once I set foot out of Loyola Castle, they will be far from all-important. Everything essential will be happening on the inside, in the space that my prayer and my walking create for God. Although I have mental images of what it will be like to stand in the room where Ignatius recovered from his cannonball injury, or to pray in the Cave of Manresa where he developed the Spiritual Exercises, or to walk step after step through the same mountains and vineyards and deserts and villages he saw, the only thing I know for sure is that I will be surprised.

Therefore, as my spiritual director wisely advised, all I can do is strive to be open to the grace that will be meeting me there. And I do know, from that hospice experience, the power of being met by grace.

I’ll return to this blog space after the pilgrimage; in the meanwhile, I hope you’ll follow our journey on the Ignatian Volunteer Corps website, which will be posting whatever photos and ruminations I manage to send from along the way.

What’s going to happen? God knows.

And that’s enough for me.