"The path around our home is also the ground of awakening." Thich Nhat Hanh

Coming home from a pilgrimage to a foreign place is unlike any other coming home that I have ever experienced.  Bernie and I stumbled home late Friday night from roughly 24 hours of travel.  We had just walked the Portugese route of the Camino de Santiago or the Way of St. James.  I can see that it will be a long time before I am able to make sense of it all.

There was so much walking and fatigue in those few blessed days away that I could not catch my breath or begin to ponder what was happening inside of me.  Every day we rose early, were given a hearty breakfast and then headed out on the path.  Some days were hotter than others, some were hillier and dustier than others.  Some days held more encounters that caused one to pause.  Every day however the walking continued for all of us.  Walking continued to stir together every scent, landscape, memory, person, song and ache that arose.  There was no time to wonder what kind of mixture was being created.  We just kept walking.

T.S. Elliot wrote that pilgrimage often reorients one's life.  Now as I sit at home in Lexington, Kentucky, I begin to look over the map of my life from those days on the Way.  How am I being asked to change by things encountered both inside and out along the way?  Why in this particular summer did my pilgrimage in life call me away to a distant land?

One memory that stands out is depicted in the picture above.  On Monday, July 4th as we made our way from Caldas de Reis to Padron I was stopped in my tracks by what I would normally consider a very ordinary and unexciting scene.  What looked like twinkling lights peeked through some wilderness brush, lighting up a shaded path.  I had to stop and just stare.  Bernie must have wondered why I was stopped by this tangled mess.  It was different though - just for a moment in time I was able to see the more.  It was a burning bush moment.

I believe that these scenes are everywhere around us - in our own back yard.  We don't have to travel thousands of miles away in order to wake up to the beauty in life.  Most often in the day to day grind however, we are blinded to God's wonder.  I encourage you to take a short walk - see yourself put on glasses which allow you to see deeper into things.  As you intentionally walk with these new glasses,  pay attention.  What do you see that you had not seen?  Maybe you see something different in another or in yourself.  Or maybe you will catch a glimpse in nature.  Walking helps us to unwind as it frees the mind of its chatter.  

Perhaps the biggest gift of the pilgrimage is the realization that I can wear these glasses every day.  It is my choice.  Do I choose to get caught up in chaos or do I choose to wear these glasses which enable me to embrace this pilgrimage that we call life?  This is available for all of us every day...