The simple way

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance  I would like to redefine the terms of the simple pilgrimage.  Life itself is a type of  pilgrimage and every day leads us down a different road. Perhaps the path is not marked by travel guides and maps or a time frame, but the path is marked by the living of life. Some days we walk down a practical road, other days a meditative one and some days can even be arduous; our way markers tend to be to do lists.  The prize comes in the form of check marks next to each task followed by a sense of accomplishment.  Life is the camino.

Although I plan to walk the Way of El Camino Real later this year, I believe my walk began long ago.  My walk has been a simple walk and my camino began with a search for self.  In all, I have  walked many caminos: the camino of a student, of a daughter, an illustrator,a  musician, a wife,  a mother and now what I affectionately call as the camino of my renaissance. El Camino Real is close to my heart because it is different in that it binds me to 2000 years of pilgrims searching for a great and moral spiritual reveal on the same country roads. I embrace that commonality.

I am on a walk now.  I recently committed to an eight week retreat in a Women's Group. My intention was to receive the message of this course and essentially escape from the world for two hours a week for eight weeks.  After the third session, I realized that God had a sense of humor and was not going to allow me to escape - the world followed me into the meetings.

My life motto came back to bite me: "Idle hands are the devil's worship". As it turns out, the group dynamics of these meetings ensure that we not only do homework in the form of thoughtful reflections, in advance, but that we face all of our demons in the context of our group.  In the end, we have a choice, we take these feelings home and rejoice to a sense of peace or fester in  frustration.  It is no secret that group therapy is work. I can now add that  spiritual renewal is harder.

After number three, I came away with an uneasy fit.  I always keep in mind that it is possible that my vision of the world is twisted so I always step back and try to sort out my thoughts . Phase two of the process led me to think that this was not for me.  The obvious decision would be to quit the group, but later I realized that quitting would only be an immediate fix and not a  solution. In revisiting the conversations of the previous meeting,  I  discovered that the world is going to follow me everywhere and I have to learn to find my peace in it. No one can steal my peace unless I let them. Still walking...

Peace and Buen Camino!