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!