I have thought about walking the Camino de Santiago (The Way of Saint James) for many years. It is a path from the Pyrenees in France through Spain, ending at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. There are several trails, so you can choose which to walk, though they eventually merge into one. Pilgrims have been walking this trail, which stretches about 500 miles, for 1400 years.
Several of my friends have walked parts of it. Some have done the last 100 miles, others have done the last 100 kilometers (62 miles), and a few have done the 500-mile trek. Most do it for spiritual reasons, hoping to find some connection with the divine. It is not an easy thing to walk. The trail is long, sometimes hot, often lonely. People stay in rustic hostels, sleep on the floors of small chapels, and may go for a long time before finding a place to eat. Yet all those who have walked the Camino have said it was positively life-changing.
Now that I am old enough to have the time to walk it (and it would take me a long time!) and have the financial freedom to do it, I do not think my body could take it. My energy level has dropped because of my age and the medicines I take for my cancer. And I have become used to the comforts of my bed, and, dare I say it, my bathroom.
Still, I have the desire to do something like it. So I have decided to walk the equivalent distance, 500 miles, I hope, here in Florence.
Several years ago, while hiking in the Brecon Beacons in Wales (a place I highly recommend), I saw a book, Everest England by Peter Owen Jones. Jones, a local outdoor enthusiast, decided to hike the equivalent of Mount Everest in England, ascending 29,000 feet on 20 hill climbs. He wrote in incredible detail about each trail, the people he met, and the things he learned. It made me decide to try the same thing with a Camino in Florence.
I will take much longer than most people walking the Camino in Spain. And I may not walk every day. But I will attempt to walk 500 miles on the streets of this “land between the rivers.” I have already walked a few days, just a little over a mile each time. I know it will not be the same as walking the “real” one in Spain. I will have my bed and bath waiting for me each evening. I will not have to try to carry food. I will not have the occasional companionship of other pilgrims. And I will not have all the little chapels to stop by along the way.
But I hope to see something new every day. I pray as I step off my porch each day and ask God to give me eyes to see things I have not seen before. And to help me see this world as God sees it.
In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo tells his nephew, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” Who knows if I will make it? Who knows what I will see? Who knows what I will learn? I know this- if I don’t step outside the door and start walking, I will never find out.
See you out on the Camino.
Michael Henderson 