Remembering, Re-Calling, and Re-Entry

I slept in 24 different places in my 26 days away. And while I give thanks that for the past five nights I have slept in the same place, I am even more grateful that place is with my family. People have asked me if I’m over jet lag and how re-entry into ‘normal’ is going. That’s the real question, though, isn’t it? Not jet lag, of course, because re-entry entails more than recovering healthy sleep patterns. Yet what does ‘normal’ mean now. Conversations with other pilgrims about life after Camino leads to thoughts on integration and living into a new ‘normal’. Yes, you could return to life as before, yet that wouldn’t honor the transformative experience that Camino offers. I spend a lot of time remembering. I realize I’ve only been back a handful of days, yet I find myself thinking of last Thursday at this cafe or two Tuesdays ago on that trail. Yesterday as I took Caden on a walk past fallen pine needles, I thought of three Wednesdays ago when I turned a bend in the trail and saw Don sitting down with the biggest grin on his face and eyes smiling as he said, “This experience is such a gift.” Yes, what a gift! A gift to walk. A gift for people to take on roles and duties to enable us the space to walk. A gift of employment that allows us time to walk. A gift of joining in a centuries old story that our walking is not alone - nor is it only for ourselves. As I remember, I also rejoice at the gift of re-calling that happened for me while walking that helps with re-entry. This experience reminded me of certain gifts and my calling to use those gifts in particular a way as I seek to join God’s holy work of healing the world. Here’s a clip of an email that I sent to a friend as I prepared to walk to the end of the world last week: “I feel so light, so peaceful, so encouraged today. And in leaning in to this feeling, I didn’t realize how impotent, anxious, and exhausted I had felt in life and ministry before this. Like a shell of myself. An exoskeleton left on the ground. At first glance it looks like the big strong bug it was - yet a little wind would easily blow it around - the slightest touch would crush it. Had I really become that pathetic? While I don’t think so, sometimes I feel like it could be the truth. I feel like tears might come while I write. I don’t want to show the shell of who I was (or what I have done) to people trying to impress them or get them to want me to work with them. I’ve been reminded on this Camino that I can work with people of all ages. I can relate to and work with people from various backgrounds. I can write. And, I’m good at these things. I’ve learned (well, I knew this before) that people who are jerks bother me - especially when they think they’re fine and don’t know they’re being jerks. When I’m living in the shell of my past, I allow the jerkiness to steal my joy. I can’t allow it to steal my joy any longer. I am trying to embrace the re-calling of who I am now, not the shell of who I was. “ Re-entry and living into the new ‘normal’ of life after Camino (or as one priest said during Mass in St. James’ cathedral, “Your walk is over, now the real Camino begins.”) does not mean trying to live into the shell of what we were, yet living fearlessly into the future of who we are - and what, with God’s help, we can do to transform the world. It reminds me of the prayer, “We have not seen this day before, so help us see it with fresh eyes and renewed hope.” Yes, circumstances can be difficult, and poor choices from yesterday (or yester-year) may have residual effect upon today - yet we can choose to live with different attitudes and perspectives today. I wonder in what areas of your life you’ve been trying to live into a shell of the past. I wonder what it would look like for you to live into the future of who you can be, by taking the steps of being who you are today.