Truth

Mario. There are some people you know you will remember the moment you meet them. Listening to him talk was fun... like playing Mario Brothers on Nintendo 64. Not fun like a Saturday morning cartoon, but the blowing up marshmallow Peeps in the microwave kind of fun. We met in Saint Jean. His colorful rimmed glasses complimented his triangle gages as he gently pushed my hammock while joking with the other pilgrims, effortlessly chattering between Spanish, English, French and some other language. He told us about how he slept on the floor of a castle because an elderly lady gave him the key last night. He told me not to eat all of the cherry plums off the trees. He teased us for being Californian. He made me want to be like him. To connect with people in a way that digs deeper than forcing depth. I believe if we seek authenticity, the depth will come in time.

My mindset of the Camino is slowly changing from "getting up in the morning to walk" to the walking actually becoming a lifestyle. I used to think that "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) was choosing to walk on the right path, but I am starting to understand that the "way" isn't just a path we take, but the lifestyle we adopt. The "truth" isn't just a moral to develop, but an all-encompassing life change. One of my favorite things about the Camino is the yellow arrows that mark the path. Sometimes they are etched into concrete or spray painted on the back of street signs. But they are always visible. They are easy to follow in the country, but as soon as the path approaches a town, there are countless other distractions of other colored arrows marking different paths and false yellow arrows advertising directions to a hostel or tourist shops. If I only followed someone else's description of the arrow, I would be lost, but I'm so familiar with the right arrow because I have been following it closely and relying on it to guide me that anything false just falls away. That's how I want to translate living IN "the way, the truth, and the life..." to have the truth so engrained in me that it leaks out into all my conscious and unconscious thoughts and decisions. I believe that's the true life Jesus was talking about, because "then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

My friend encouraged me to pick a word to represent where I want to be by the end of the trip. My word was "solidity." I wanted to work on solidifying my faith in Christ, being solid in what I believe, in health and life and relationships. But this morning I was reading in Matthew about how Jesus walked more humbly than I ever have... and ever could. Every day on this trip I walk to a secure hostel with an assured meal and safety when there was no room for Jesus to even be born in a building. As much as I love and completely support the idea of meditating on a word for five weeks, I've realized that it is impossible for me to ever be solid. I cannot work hard enough to find solidity in Christ or what I believe. Christ gives it. It's not about me at all. It is not about a deep concept or an epiphany I could get while walking. It's not about some spiritual experience or a sudden realization. It's about His grace filling my frailness, and I will just continue to live incomplete and unforgiven if I continue to think I can do anything to gain my security. It's about dying to myself because Christ died in my place and it's about living life as best as I can to reciprocate a fraction of my thankfulness for second chances. It's the fact that I will continually be flawed without His grace. His amazing grace. His mind blowing astoundingly beautiful grace. It's like seeing the dirt in the bottom of the shower after hiking 18 miles and two bars of soap. So, if I could choose a word, it wouldn't be "solidity," but "I-only-live-in-the-grace-through-Jesus-that-I-need-more-than-oxygen," or it wouldn't even be a word at all. It would be falling face flat on the dirt road overwhelmed by how much my perfect, holy God suffered for someone as flawed as me.

Blisters

I stood in LAX, my backpack clingling to my shoulders, my hair grabbing my neck while I watched a man with a handlebar mustache graze a boy cuddling a lap dog. Millions of footsteps pattered into the air and walls, the clicks of heels and taps of sandles meshing with the sweat beading its way to the travellers´white knuckles grasping a bit too havy suite cases. The owner of the stroller beside me meekly walked from the bathroom with a Bambi eyed boy plotting along behind her. ¨Tank you.¨ Her broken English seemed to leap from her eyes. Eyes that know pain. Eyes I will remmeber. Eyes I will probably never see again. But eyes that connected with mine for a brief moment in time. I am now at my fourth hostle on the Camino de Santiago. Last night there was a thunderstorm. I lost at spoons with the other pilgrims... six times. A trilingual elderly lady at the last hostle dressed my eight blisters while juggling paperwork and stamps and while giving in french. I ate fish in the same diner as Hemmingway. My skin is darker. My knees are scraped. I ate white asparagas for the first time. I lost my walking stick. My heart is full. My God is good. 

My hat has a logo that says ¨live simply.¨ I think living simply can be one of the most complex concepts to grasp. I walked and talked with a middle aged pilgrim named Maurizio on the first day when we were crossing the Pyranees mountains. He smiled when I bought sheep cheese from a vendor. We explored an old shepherd´s hut. We talked about God and brothers. About ¨sheeps¨ and shoes and hard boiled eggs. I spoke the limited Spanish I knew. He spoke the limited English he knew. It was simple. But it was some of the most memorable communication I have ever had.

I asked Maurizio what life advice he would give. He laughed. ¨Take it easy¨ he breathed through fainted laughs and calculated breaths from climbing with a pack. ¨Follow Me.¨ Christ´s words are simple. We are the one´s who make it complicated. It´s taken me flying to Spain and carrying my life on my back to even start to grasp what it means. It´s taken eating apple cores and packaged almond butter instead of home cooked meals. It´s taken living with a nail clipper as a luxury. It´s taken washing the clothes on my back with the shampoo from my hair, the smiles and nods of a language barrier and the card games and the feeling of fat rain drops to see what matters in life. When everything is stripped away, the things your beaded, sweaty fingers are desperately clinging to, that´s when you know what your life is founded on. That´s why this trek is already life changing after only four days. My foundation is Christ, and when everything is brushed away, a dirt path and blistered feet can be the most powerful direction a person can take to realize it.

El Camino: Pre-Trip

The International Program seminar was one of those moments... the redeeming ones. The lights dimmed. My heart started to flutter as images of France and Africa and Switzerland and Fiji flew across the screen. Then El Camino de Santiago slid discreetly through the room, its presence like a favorite ornament on the Christmas tree only noticed by those who deem it the favorite. It screamed in my ears, but it was beautiful because it sang to my heart.

I am choosing to trek El Camino de Santiago because I know I am supposed to. I don't expect everyone to understand, but I know that my life has been directed to this pinnacle point by a force bigger than I. The Camino de Santiago is a 500-mile trek averaging 20 miles per day. Applying was an act of faith and a belief in the hope God promises. It's different to read God's promises and actually believe they can happen than to stand back from yourself and watch them pilot your life.

I equate the name "The Way of Saint James" to my thoughts of the Camino. It gives me goosebumps every time I think about the name and the origin and history it seeps into whoever listens to its wizened story. El Camino de Santiago. The nine syllables rool off the tongue like hot honey.

A little over a year ago, I could barely get out of bed. I read through my diary from that time the other day. It's like the pages are lined with pain that can still knock the breath out of me when I read my own scratched writing. I didn't know if I would be able to finish high school, let alone start at a university. I finally went to a hormone specialist and was told that my adrenal glands had been burned out. Used up. They had crashed. There was no more adrenaline left in my body for me to function properly.

I started taking Hydrocortisone, a medication that gives support ot the adrenals and the natural adrenaline time to rebuild and to replenish itself. It's the reason I have been able to survive Pepperdine. It is a slow process. I have needed to eat healthy foods and listen to my body. I have had to be patient. It's been hard. This is why it was such an act of faith for me to apply for the Camino. My parents allowed me to apply, but with the understanding that they wouldn't let me go if I hadn't healed by June 11th. My circumstances told me no, but although it felt impossible, I felt a force beyond myself guiding my path For some reason, I knew I would go.

Why my adrenal glands failed, I could barely walk one mile around my neighborhood. I remember physically not being able to finish Gaviota Peak. Now I walk my neighborhood two or three times on my "off" days. I have hiked up Gaviota in 80 minutes with a weighted pack. I have done things physically that I could never have imagined doing even just a year ago. I am grateful for this in my life, because it has taught me how to rely on God's strength when things seem impossible.

I have lived Matthew 19:26, "But with God everything is possible." He has smiled at my "mustard seed faith" and cradled me in His arms. I am now only taking a quarter of a Hydrocortisone tablet every other day. I have my doctor's and parents' encouragement and blassing to trek the Camino. God has provided. THat's why I like to think of it as the Way of Saint James. I am following in the footsteps of the people that have loved God so dearly. I will be walking where people whose faith meant so much to them that they were willing to walk 500 miles to pursue it. I imagine each of their steps as a glimpse of what their hearts treasured so much. I want my steps to align with theirs. I want to give the love and grace I have been shown back to Him with every step of my life. That is why I am going. Although it is by faith alone that I am able to trek the Camino, I feel that my relationship with God is not as strong as I would like it to be. I need to put Him above everything else in my life.

This is the thing... I have absolutely no idea of what to expect. I don't know what it will be like. I don't know who I'll meet. I don't know what I'll experience. I don't know what I don't want to experience. I could say the standard things like that I don't want blisters, but honestly, I want to experience what God has for me on the trail whether it's good or bad by my standards because I know that His perspective is so much bigger than mine. I am nervous about all the unknowns. But I don't think there can be excitement without nervousness. I don't htink there can be growth without being uncomfortable. There can't be faith without unknowns. I am prepared that it might be one of the hardest things I have done, but I want it all. I want it to grow me closer to God, whatever it takes. I want to meet God in the midst of His creation.  I want to let go of myself. I will know I have accomplished this when Christ is clearly the priority of my life. This isn't something that is stopping at the end of the Camino. I plan for the Camino to be the start of the rest of my life. At the end of the road, I don't want to be thinking about how I am different I don't want to be thinking about myself at all. I want to be thinking about Christ in me. I don't want to "take away" anything from this experience, but I want to leave everything on the Camino. I want to leave my pride and leave my self-absorption. I want to leave everything I am and replace it with the plans God has for my life, because I know that His plans are good, whatever they might be.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares The Lord, "plans to prosper you and not ot harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. THen you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
~ Jeremiah 29:11-13