We are benefitting from a rest day today, and I have nothing but time. It feels so nice. However, it’s interesting that I am struggling to decide what to share.

While walking I feel so inspired with ideas. I think about being grounded and present, with the sites and smells and sounds, and how this is something so available on the Camino! Or I think about the hard climb I’m doing (actually happened yesterday). I think how life is really a climb sometimes, but small, determined steps get us through it. And the views at the end fill me up to bursting! Or I think about how is it possible that our bodies are still going after so many miles, and is it just mind over matter or are we causing damage 😳?

I also finished an audio book yesterday that my father in law recommended. It was called Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, and I really enjoyed it. I have read another of his books, A Man Called Ove, and I loved it as well. There were a couple of phrases that stuck with me yesterday as I walked. Both books I’ve read of his are set within an unlikely community of people. A paraphrase of the first comment that struck me is, “And since they had all learned a bit of each other’s stories, they liked one another better.” THIS I’ve experienced in life and on the Camino. Maybe you have too?

The other idea that stuck out to me in the book was mentioned this way—again, I’m paraphrasing— “It seems to me that not knowing is a very good place to start.”

I have been in a season of getting comfortable “not knowing” for a few years now. I’ve seen harm done and experienced some “hurtful” things myself from people who believe they know. This has made me wonder, “Who of us actually KNOWS and what makes us so sure we are right?”

Perhaps you’ve been curious about these things too. I’m kinda weary of HAVING to be in a place of knowing, mostly because I’m tired of the hurt it’s caused. I wonder if healing for these relationships may be in the “not knowing?”

This season on El Camino has been SUCH a gift. I really see it as such! My faith in God, in myself, in humanity has been given a giant boost! We are experiencing the most beautiful sites of creation (natural and man-made), alongside the very tangible pains of the journey, while being inspired by ourselves and other pilgrims. I am not stressed about what I don’t know, but I’m filled up with beauty and hope and love and gratitude. Life is beautiful.

Our rest day has been so nice, and we have just one more push of 6 days to the end! We’re in a beautiful place, listening to the jingles of cow bells as the farmer and his barking dog herd them down the street out front. It’s simple and lovely. I hope I can bring a portion of the simplicity home with me. I have grown to love the Spanish people and their way of life. It’s so kind of them to care for us along our path. Next time my goal is to be able to communicate more than just my order of “tortilla y te negro con un poquito leche.”

Well, this has been a bit of a brain dump. It’s what happens to me when there’s “space” in my day, which is why I thrive in busy. It’s the real me tho. Until next time. Buen Camino!