Lessons – Date 4/10/2025

So again, I am at REI.  They have a fake mini mountain terrain to stand on complete with a railing.  I learn that I will have my toes hitting the ends of my boots if I stick with the boots I already own.  This is clear as I stand on the little fake mountain.  I don’t want to bruise my toes which is exactly what the author did in the book I read.  All 10 toes!  So I buy the size 8.5 and I let go of thinking my shoe size is 7.

Next, I get a lesson in shoe tying.  Really?  First I learn I don’t know my shoe size and now I’m learning how to tie my boots.  I let that go too.  Along with my thought I’d be able to walk for 6-7 miles without a struggle.  After learning how to tie my boots I learn that walking on pavement or even crushed gravel is not the same as walking on grass while playing golf.  I guess I’m learning I need to clean the slate and just accept my lessons.  Little did I know that I am just beginning to accept.

I start hiking in the Fall around my home.  I live in northern Illinois and there are many wonderful forest preserves all around me.  I begin to hike 3 times a week and get my stamina up to 7 miles.  Over the winter I increase my times to 4-5 and even 6 times per week.  I start walking the sledging hill since the terrain is mostly flat where I live.  My first attempt on the hill I tell my daughter I plan to walk up and down the hill 10 times.  If I don’t return, look for my body on the local hill.  Turns out I could do 10 and then did another 20.  No body on the hill so I returned home feeling somewhat triumphant.  It helped me brush off the scars from my shoe-size and boot tying lessons.

As I practice hiking, I decide I will walk most of my time without listening to anything.  I am an avid podcaster but I intend to walk the Camino in silence as I am taking it on as a spiritual journey.  I want to listen to what God has to say to me.  Did you ever read the book The Shack?  In that book the main character’s wife calls God “Papa”.  I like that.  It gives me the feel of a friend that I don’t necessarily get from the label God.  I do believe Papa is always talking to me but I am learning that I am not always listening.  I want to improve my listening skills.  I believe it is learning to listen to the quiet.  To stop the talking in my own head and just listen.

My other lesson that I am seeking on this journey is a reset.  A reset in my life.  I have more questions than answers.  What am I to do now?  What do I want to do in the 4th quarter of my life?  What am I uniquely created to do?  What creative, imaginative entity am I here to produce?  I don’t know the answers to any of these but I know what Papa wants me to do.  He/She wants me to listen?  I’m to pay attention to the nudges I keep getting.  

Walking this Camino is way outside my comfort zone.  I don’t know the language, I have little history in hiking and no history in traveling such a long way on my own.  But I feel drawn to walking this hike.  I am putting most of the “should and shouldn’t messages” up on the shelf and trying to focus on listening.  Yes I regularly take those messages off the shelf asking myself why am I doing this?  Does it make sense what I am doing?  Back on the shelf those questions go.  Clearly I must practice listening more and asking questions less.

Today I leave you with a prayer I found in a book I was reading.  Again, it is another nudge for my journey:

The Pilgrim’s Prayer

By Thomas Merton

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself.

And the fact that I think I am following your will

Does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you, 

Does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this,

You will lead me by the right road, though

I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust you always.

Though I may seem lost in the shadow of death

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

And you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Amen.