Seeking Santiago

Seeking Santiago

“Y sólo pido que no pedirte nada, estar aquí, junto a tu imagen muerta, ir aprendiendo que el dolor es sólo la llave santa de tu santa puerta. Ámen.” –Gertrudís Goméz de Avellanda

I only ask that I ask nothing of you, just to be here, next to your dead image, learning that pain is only the holy key to your holy door. Amen.

All year, that small snippet of a poem hung from my desk on a little yellow paper. The Spanish is beautiful, the words powerful, but I think what was intriguing to me is that I knew I would never be able to fully understand it.  

I would kind of gloss over the pain part.

Until now, when I rediscover this quote three days before I leave for Europe, sitting on the couch icing my ankle for the umpteenth time today.

This is not how I expected my adventuring to begin.

 “The best thing to do for your tendinitis is to rest it for a couple of months. It’s your Achilles, so a brace won’t help.”

“So, hypothetically…if I were to do a 250 mile walk across northern Spain?”

Laughter.

“I’d say have fun, and expect some physical therapy when you’re back.”

So I’m resting when I should be breaking in my shoes. I’m on a regular diet of ibuprofen (in addition to antibiotics for five weeks of bronchitis, which is a whole other issue).

And I’m coming to the point where I have to make a decision.

I am going to Europe, no question about that. I am going to walk the Camino, Lord willing. I’m so stubborn that I know it’ll have to be my teammates who stop me if I’m clearly in un-walkable pain, because it definitely won’t be me who stops my feet from moving.

The choice is in how I view pain.

Not just physical, either.

The pain of inevitable homesickness,

of weariness after long days of travel,

of being in uncomfortable social situations, even when it’s my ministry to talk to strangers.

It will not be an ideal summer, by any stretch of the imagination.

But I’m trusting that it will be full. For every moment of pain, it is inevitable that I have the choice to be joyful.

And it doesn’t begin on the Camino of weeks 3 and 4. It begins now.

Seeking Santiago, our destination city, isn’t an end goal.

It’s a mindset.

Seeking Santiago starts with how I love my family and friends continuously. It’s how I treat that person who just hurt my heart. It centers on walking with God in these final days of preparation, because being in Europe won’t suddenly make me more spiritual.

I am a broken vessel.

Some days I feel it more than others, and I can only pray that I stay on my knees this summer, understanding that whatever mood I have in whatever city I’m in, I am loved and carried, and can hopefully express that to others.

Being broken is just as much an opportunity as anything else.

Enter Sleeping at Last, my favorite musical genius, with his song Jupiter:

Make my messes matter

Make this chaos count

Let every little fracture in me

Shatter out loud.

Amsterdam.    Seville.    Bruges.    Barcelona..

Paris.         Madrid.       Haarlem.

Valencia.    León.

Santiago de Compostela.

 May every crack I carry only be a way to let more light escape.

May I seek Santiago and that holy key to that holy door.

(And have a little fun along the way).

¡Buen camino!

To Twenty Years

To Twenty Years

It struck me as I wrote the title. I have lived an even number, two perfect sets of ten slices of life.

Everyone always asks, “Do you feel older?” on your birthday, and I think it’s safe to say that this is the first year that answer is yes. I am now in my twenties. The time that I have always thought about as life really starting. The years when all of my sought-after plans could begin to come true- travel, graduate college, go to grad school, get married, start a family…the age to be.

            

            Lord willing, all of those things will happe at some point. I suppose spending the summer hostel-jumping in Europe is a good start.

            But today I carried all of the contents out of my dorm room and realized that I am halfway done with college, with more confusion about where I want to end up than when I started as a naïve freshman.

            See, that’s my problem. Everything in my mind is two steps too far, and when the present yields no answers well, I get frustrated.

            So tonight I thought the best thing to do is to turn 180°. Instead of hyperventilating when I see my lack of direction, to reflect on the ways that God has blessed me. I take comfort in this verse: 

“Your own ears will hear Him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left” (Isaiah 30:21). 

God isn’t dragging me along, making footprints for me to step into, a flawless future with no room for hesitation. God is there, but He is behind me, nudging me forward when I am timid, or pushing me with complete force when I’m stubborn, which is most of the time.

            Future? Yes, it’ll be hard. It will also be right, because it’s ultimately God’s. Past? What a beautiful time to think back.

           

So here are twenty thoughts for twenty years of life.

1.     This world we live in is pretty darn amazing. I’m so thankful God has blessed me with a heart that longs for nature and feels so deeply trapped by buildings and spaces that aren’t open-air.

2.     Sometimes people suck. A lot. Making friends is tricky business and keeping them is even harder (those of you who have stuck by my side- I love you more than you will ever know).

3.     Vanilla pudding is heaven in a plastic cup.

4.     Growing up in the area, the sentiment I’ve always heard is, “You may move out of Wheaton, but you’ll always move back” and, “Wheaton is too safe and boring”. True, it may be a bubble, but what a wonderful bubble to grow up in. I’m not going to be crabby about something that most people would be thrilled to have.

5.     Know how many people are in the world? A lot. Know how many people you are? One. That’s right, we’re pretty insignificant.

6.     …But we are significant enough that the person who most loves us just so happens to be the Creator of the universe. No big deal.

7.     Education is the best career field. Try to argue, and prepare to be proven wrong.

8.     No child should ever have to lose a parent.

9.     In the same vein, empathy is an incredible and fragile gift. Use it carefully, and use it often. And if the only thing you can think to say is “There’s a reason for everything” or “I understand, I just lost my dog last week”- it’s probably best to shut up.

10. People really are kind. Talk to a stranger, they’ll surprise you.

11. It took me way too many years, but I am so thankful I am at the point where I can break into spontaneous song and dance without feeling embarrassed. Everyone should reach that point.

12. Become friends with people who will make you do things that scare you (here’s looking at you, Ali…)

13. There is always time to watch another episode of Friends (this bullet point reflects a recent discovery).

14. Make lists to look back on. It may not be an 84-qualification list for your future husband at age 13, but I guarantee, any kind of list with goals will make for a good chuckle.

15. Heartbreak is real. But mourn and move on, because if they don’t have enough decency to tell you what the problem even is, then the problem is no longer yours.

16. Spend time with people of all ages. You may find that the advice you get from a four-year-old makes the world stop spinning.

17.    58 is a lot of National Parks, but I will make it to all of them.

18. Always try to find ways to surprise people. Hide little parts of your identity–it’s a lot of fun to let people discover you love to rap or that at any given moment you think you would like to drop out of school and move to Nashville.

19. Mental illnesses are neither fake nor funny, so stop making jokes before you unintentionally hurt people you love.

20.  Life gets too complicated and messy because we forget that all it takes is loving God and loving others. The days I intentionally wake up and say “I’m going to try be pleasant today” always end up so much better.

I don’t think I’ll end with a clever conclusion, I have to go explore this whole “twenties” thing.

Love,

Emily

Oh yeah, and here's a picture. Reference #2.