Our Camino was a journey of gratitude. Sitting here, warm and comfortable in that life we left eight weeks ago, it becomes easy to see. The awkward attempts to describe our adventure, to articulate the experience, have only just begun. Courteous inquiries skip along the surface of something that we are just starting to understand more broadly. There is no short answer. How do you sum up so wide a range of experiences in 60 seconds or less? You don’t. Like all good stories, it will continue to unfold, making smaller appearances in the broader sweep of a life in motion. Changing as we do. Meaning more as we continue to grow.
Thank you for following along. My hope is that the story of our experience on the Camino has met you where you are and brought you something that wasn’t there before. I pray that this small collection of words has touched you in a way that helps you on your own journey – in your own growth. At the very least, perhaps you found something entertaining in our journey. That is the beauty of projecting a collection of words into the world: they inevitably become something else when they land in the minds and hearts of another. May that something be meaningful to you.
To those we met along the Camino de Santiago, thank you for sharing your journey with us. Each of you has brought something to our lives and changed us in the bringing. I hope we were able to do a bit of the same.
To those who made our Camino possible: family, friends, and team members who covered for us, picked up the slack, and made sure our home world did not stop while we were away, we are forever grateful. We carried each of you in our hearts as we walked; longing for reunion even as we stepped into the joys and sorrows of that waiting adventure. Thank you for loving us enough to enable us to go.
Where do we go from here? That is life’s grand question. I feel certain that the Camino will continue to provide inspiration and cast its magic upon us for years to come. If you follow what I write, you will likely see it re-emerge. We were told that we would be changed. Five hundred miles into our adventure, I thought that was not likely. Five thousand miles away from our adventure, I see that it is clearly the case. I can only hope that the change makes us better for the world in which we live.
Thank you for walking it with us.
Amazing journey. Truly inspiring. Thanks so much for bringing us along with you on your beautiful journey, Phillip.