I got a phone call yesterday from a woman who had seem the posts I wrote while on my Camino. She is interested in walking it and had some questions about how to proceed. Yesterday morning I opened an e-mail from my Camino friend Rocky, who sent some great pictures from the trip. Then I got on Facebook this morning and saw that another of my friends had changed her profile picture to one of her on the Camino.
All of this whets my appetite for my next Camino. I’m planning to walk this coming May and the big question is whether to walk the Camino del Norte, which begins in Irun and largely tracks the northern coast of Spain, or the Camino Portuguese, which goes north from Lisbon. (If anyone who has walked the Camino has any comparative evaluations about the two routes, I’d be glad to hear from them.)
It is not just the walking I’m looking forward to – although the process of getting ready to move from one house to another has meant I’ve done far too little hiking this summer. And not just the sights and colors. Or even the wonderful people I know I’ll meet. It is all that, but it is also that shift from chronos time to kairos time that is inherent in an experience that pulls us out of our normal schedule for such an extended period. A shift that changes both our own perspective and makes us open to God in a different way.
May is a good ways off, and I have plenty to focus on between now and then. But I am smiling in anticipation. And if those of you in the Twin Cities see my walking around town with my pack, you’ll know I’m just getting some early training in.
Creo en Dios! 