A Chipped Rock

So I guess Spanish hostels don't like shower curtains anymore. That was liberating. Also, all the beds are pushed together. You get to know those snoring Italians pretty well pretty fast.

This is late, and I know it. I have so many aspiring blog posts, but when I've finished walking everyday I die a short death of about forty five minutes before I even begin to think about food or laundry, so blogging seems like a far off luxury. It's something I wish I had the energy for every day. There are notes scribbled in my journal and on napkin corners and in mini notepads that will probably never be read... But they are there, and every scribble and scratch is a part of me. I can imagine when I'm older, when I have a pink rose bush and a blooming plum tree and an overstuffed armchair with a hole in the seams from a history of good conversations; there will be kids with scraped knees and dirty fingers that will run into my house when the air starts to bite their noses when it gets cold in the evenings. They will wonder at all my books and trinkets from my travels and will sit on my lap and eat fresh cookies from my oven. And then they will ask for stories, and I will slowly stand, leaning on the worn armrests of my chair to pull down my journal and blow off the dust... and I will read them my mistakes and glories and they will feel the pains and joys with me. I will tell them what little children are willing to hear, but what adults are too busy to listen to. I think Jesus had it right when He said to have faith like children do... to let the children come to Him. 

But something I can't put away on a shelf is my rock. It started with the Meseta.

I started to notice the hilly vineyards turn to flat fields of grain, the villages grow more sparse and the air turn hotter. While researching I found that 40% of Spain's terrain is located on a high central plateau called the Meseta with mountains running through the middle and bordering the edges. I've been told by other pilgrims that the first third of the Camino is physically hard, the second third is mentally challenging and the last third is spiritually growing. When I entered the Meseta, I found this to be accurate in my Camino so far. The flat plains caused me to think deeply and they forced me to begin to overcome things I struggle with mentally, to capture my thoughts because I was left alone with them. It's said that thoughts are half the battle, and I think this geography has proven that. I think the geography has effected the history, culture and people of the Meseta much more intensely than any other region's geography has effected them because it forces people to expose things to themselves that can be easily covered. The culture was more unique than anything I had experienced. It made me feel like I was walking through a country foreign from everything I was familiar with. The houses were made from adobe and their ruins were left to crumble. I noticed oversized nests taking over the pinnacles of gothic buildings and the darting of hundreds of birds in the early morning that chirped in the same air I breathed as I cinched my pack tighter and started another day.

A few days out of the Meseta, we came to Cruz de Ferro. This is a historic place where people leave a rock from their home at the base of a cross. There are many interpretations as to what this symbolizes. My rock is from Gaviota Beach. I picked it after my last training hike, two days before I left. I had put off choosing a rock because I thought I needed to find something incredible, something that would perfectly represent who I was. But when I took a moment to step back from my own air ball of perfectionism I realized that God didn't choose perfect people to represented Himself. That He actually chose the most crippled of them all. So, I went to the most ordinary beach and chose the most ordinary rock I could find, because I want the thing that represents me to be ordinary, to be broken, so that if anything good comes from it people will know it's not from me.

As I was walking the five miles to this monument, I thought. I thought about what this rock was going to symbolize. I thought I needed some huge epiphany to make this pinnacle point of the Camino the pinnacle point of my Camino. But then I caught myself. I was trying to force meaning into a rock. I was freaking out about the very thing I was trying to give up. So then I gave myself permission to not have an epiphany and I simply told God that I wanted this to mean something, I just didn't know what.

I got to the monument and swung my pack from my back and dug out my rock. I cradled it in my chapped hands... I mulled it over, studied it, searching for some kind of meaning in its splits and rifts and fractures and chips. But it didn't speak to me. So I decided to set it down and open my Bible to where I last left off, in Matthew chapter 26. At the crucifixion of Jesus. But I noticed something I hadn't before, that the story of the woman who poured oil on Jesus was included in the same chapter as His death. The disciples thought her gift was a waste of money, that it was silly... but Jesus' words caught me:

"For she has done a beautiful thing to Me."

The chapter goes on to tell about one of Jesus' best friends stabbing Him in the back, about the last time He shared a meal with the people He loved. About how He begged God to spare Him the pain He was about to go through. But those words stuck to my bones, they clung in my throat and pulsed through my wrists and brain. "For she has done a beautiful thing to Me." I realized my rock wasn't an epiphany or a huge enlightenment... it wasn't even slightly expensive. But I left it at the base of the cross, and I can only hope that God will someday say that about my life, despite my splits and rifts and fractures and chips. I want the reason of my life to be what Jesus said about that unnamed woman in Matthew chapter 26, "for she has done a beautiful thing to Me."

Peterrrrr

I saw a man bandaging his blisters as I walked to the patio of the alberge. I gave a sympathetic look and he smiled. He said they looked worse than they were. But I don't know how a blackened toenail and the blisters that had eaten three of his toes and heel with a growing appitite can look worse than it feels. "What is your name?" I asked. He answered with "Peter," first the English way, then rolling his "r"s. I tried to say it and he smiled with his eyes. I asked why he was doing the Camino, he sighed, seeming overwhelmed with the question. "For many reasons... one, two, three... many.." He said he was from Poland. That he was a priest. That he was doing the Camino for his 25th priesthood anniversary. "I am fifty" he said, "I am very old." He told me about how he had looked up to the men who had been priests for five or seven years and that he wanted wisdom like that, and now he was fifty years old. I told him how muched I loved the respect Catholisism has for God... that I can sense their love for God through the ornate cathedral walls and I can feel their reverance during mass. He smiled with hazel eyes that had a dark blue ring on the outside and he asked what I was studying. I told him about creative writing and art. About learning Spanish and how bad I was. About general ed and studying abroad. He lit up when I talked about art. I showed him the postcards of the watercolor artist I had just bought on the path today. Art Manton Lowe. I gave him the one of Molina Seca. The one with a building with mountains and rivers. I gave it to him because it was the one his fingers lingered on and the one that made his eyes dance. He liked the postcard of the praying hands too. As his eyes rested on it I thought about hands, about how they are beautiful things, that hands tell a story. They show pain and joy with those little wrinkles that act as smile lines, or as wrinkles that look like crevices.

But the thing that mesmorized me about Peter is that he is the director of men and boys' Gregorian chant choirs. That's when I sat down next to him and took out my notebook and asked him to write down suggestions of chants to look up. He wrote down the chant Dum Pater Familias. He said that he sings it when he walks, it's what helps get him through. So I shook his hand, I smiled back into his blue rimmed hazel eyes, and I thanked him. I continued to the patio and put in my earphones, blocking out Ruby Tuesday and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and listened to it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=33jeQutO58o and it was beautiful. The funny thing is that I almost passed it all by. He was almost just the man in the red shirt with the blue eyes that was bandaging his black toe nails. But now I know he is Peter, he is Peterrrrrrrrr, the priest from Poland who directs Gregorian chants and loves art and God and travel. We shared words. We shared a postcard. But we shared a bit of ourselves, and I think that is beautiful.

Counting Cats

There is something about a cat. There's something about a cat's fur when you brush over it, the way it can stand up or stiffly caress your calloused fingers, your white nails, your dirty nails, the kind of dirt from walking sticks and from zipping up weathered rain jackets and putting on faded, turquoise trucker caps. There's something about a cat that's missing an eye, that has a broken leg, all deformed and curled up, that flicks around when it tries to scratch it's ear. Ignacio knelt down beside me, his hand on its head, the cat leaning into his palm. "Where are you from?" I asked. He smiled as he looked up and told me about Madrid in perfect English. I told him about my week there. He told me about his American school and how many of his friends are from California and how he wanted to visit. We walked into a church, our words hushed by the ornate Catholic gold cascading in front of the eldery wooden pews. He told me what the old Spanish ladies were saying as they arranged the flowers and I told him how good his English was. I thought it was the last I would see him. It wasn't. I saw him again in San Juan de Ortega when we stayed the night at the same hostel. He smiled when the wind blew my hair into my eyelashes as I cradled my hammock while I sized up the trees rationalizing themselves as planter decorations. "El gato!" I half laughed, half sputtered through my hammock thoughts when I saw him. We started to talk about the Camino and spirituality and traveling and life pursuits. Of guitars and favorite animals and about learning in college that we actually don't know anything. He laughed when I over-pronounced his last name, trying to say it correctly. We left the last shards of sunset as we ran inside when we saw the nuns locking the doors for the night. Ignacio and I are the same age. He is the first pilgrim I've met who is in the same place in life as I am. Meeting him was a visual reminder that while I am living in my self-absorbed life at home, people just like me are living in Spain, in France, in God-knows-where in Iceland. They are living with the same aspirations that are staring at them just as straight in the face as me. My conversation with him was like looking in a mirror but seeing the background behind the tiny spek of a face I so often can't see past.

In my experiences in hostels I've only found one universal language: snoring. It can actually be beautiful... the different pitched choruses sighing together...  It's like being suffocated in a room of multi-cultured murmers with no breath of silence. The earplugs I stole from the library have helped a bit. The headphones from the plane have been nice too. Who knew public facilities and transportation systems could actually be useful? The other day I sat under the stairwell of a hostel run by nuns. Ha. Run by nuns. Nuns on the run. I hadn't seen a real live nun before this trip. I guess they don't like the idea of massages, or being asked if they want one. I never thought I would participate in a nun sing along, but I found myself facing them sitting indian style wearing a grey beanie I found. It was incredible. The room was chorused with the accented voices of Germans and Dutchmen and Spaniards and Californians. We sang songs in each of our languages, one of the nuns passionately strumming an old Classical guitar. It was Amazing Grace that got to me. Some people didn't even know English, but they sang anyway, reading the words off their crumpled song sheets marred by their sweaty, dirty hands. I love how God can see past our sweat and dirt and language barrier to give us that Amazing Grace. The nuns were leading strangers in songs they didn't know to put the focus back on the thing they've committed their entire life to... that Amazing Grace. Nuns are some of the most beautiful people I know.

A few days ago I was listening to Counting Song by Denae Templeton. I tried to look it up on YouTube to post the link, but I guess it's just too hipster. So, here's some lyrics.

I was busy counting 1, 2, 3. 

I forgot, forgot, forgot, forget to see. 

Remember, remember, remember, I forgot to remember...  

God above I know You love me,

God of love You're closer than above me.

We walk but we don't run one step then two steps three four not three nine ten and we

glory in each one two three four five six seven eight nine then

we forget to count, make me forget to count, to count, cause You're the fountain.

I was busy playing games for three and four and keeping score

oh when will my heart be silent?

Holding up my fingers once more, 

You ask why and said there's no game and there's no score, 

just You love me.

It's one thing to listen to music with the intention of escaping from the world, but it's another to listen to it with the intention of making the world seem more picturesque. I don't either are bad, but walking with the second mindset was like living in a movie or like getting to be an artist's brush stroke in a painting. Milage and hours have no relevance or power in my life anymore. I have been freed from society's conception of time... of keeping score. I forgot to remember that time and the trap of sizing myself up to my surroundings was actually only me creating barriers for myself. I tell myself I'm too busy to spend time with God or pursue Him further but I'm only limiting myself to human's conceptions of how life should be. Please don't misread this, I definitely think the conception of time and calculating it correctly is crucial to maintain an organized society, but when it becomes an excuse to not revolve our day around the things we deem important, I believe it has started to control our lives.

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

Decaf Green Tea

My wanderlust led me to a little coffee shop. The vision I had for myself was a hybrid between a lumberjack sipping black coffee and a surf rat with my bare feet propped up on the mismatched material of the chair across the table. But I ordered a decaf green tea. I wonder if lumberjacks ever order decaf green tea.

This place breathes familiarity. The the man in a poser name-brand sweatshirt cussing in the manliest of forms about a lost kitty. The hipster concerts. The tentative touches my fingers made as they encircled the wind-chime magic of a chipped, twelve string guitar. In my stupor of nostalgia, the friendly smile behind the counter reminded me that my frequent flyer card only counts toward espressos, not decaf green teas. When have I ever ordered a decaf green tea? After carefully climbing the squeaking, narrow, old-man-groaning, rickety stairs, I sat catacombed in the loft like a nesting pigion, pinning my beady eyes at a tree outside the window encased by concrete and cigarette ash.

Wild. What does it mean? My dictionary.com tab is legioned with definitions. Not tamed or domesticated. Uncivilized. Of unrestrained intensity. It's the title of a book I'm reading about a meth addict who backpacked the Pacific Crest Trail with no training. It seems there are more definitions of what it is not than what it actually is. Is it's ferocity something to run from? Or is it's whispering something to draw close to?

All I know is I would rather have my life be free then domesticated. Fierce than tamed. I'd rather fill my lungs with the breath of adventure than be constrained by safety. God is wild. In the Narnia series, Aslan is a lion, the essence of wild. Fierceness in it's purest form can not be captivated by the restraints of a cultured mind. It's a risk to believe in the wilderness of God. Just as Mr. Beaver said about Aslan, Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you. 

By risk, I don't mean that believing in God is stupid. His freedom is balanced by love. What good is something that is not tamed or domesticated if it isn't doing something? God's love for us is what hung Jesus on the cross. ‘Course he isn’t safe. But His love is what makes it possible to draw close to the heart of God, and I believe the essence of God is the definition of wild. But he’s good. I am thankful that the heart of God is wild. His love for me is not tamed or domesticated. Uncivilized. Of unrestrained intensity. I think believing in something wild means that you won't ever be able to understand it, because it's very definition cannot be tamed. But I'd rather believe in that than something I can understand, but does not have that same all powerful strength that I can trust in. He’s the King, I tell you.

When we run from God, we run from the essence of wild. We run from freedom. Take a risk. His love can hold us and comfort us in a way that something we can understand and constrain could never do. Take it from a girl with sand between her toes drinking decaf green tea in an little coffee shop who has only gotten through life by clinging to the wings of the wilderness of God and the unrestrained love He bled for us.

He is the playfulness of creation, scandal and utter goodness, the generosity of the ocean and the ferocity of a thunderstorm; he is cunning as a snake and gentle as a whisper; the gladness of sunshine and the humility of a thirty-mile walk by foot on a dirt road.
~ John Eldredge