Me as Pilgrim

Within a matter of a few days, I will be retired once again and be boarding a plane bound for Spain. Upon my arrival I will be following in the footsteps of St. Ignatius as I pray my way from Loyola to Manresa.  I have no doubt that God has led me to this place in this precise time.  I am embracing the label pilgrim but it has been something I have had to define for myself.  Today I am sharing an unedited/unrevised entry from my journal.   

As I continue to prepare mentally for the Camino, I am coming to terms with my understanding of a pilgrim and a pilgrimage.  This journey is becoming a symbol of my life here on earth.  I am a traveler learning and growing as I go through the weeks, months, and years of my life moving ever closer to God and the person I was created to be.  There have already been beautiful vistas to enjoy as well as the desolate deserts.  But in all of the times of my life, God has been beside me calling me nearer to the path that was created for me.  To be a pilgrim is to enter into the unknown, trusting that all will be well.  It means being present to your surroundings and learning to see the environment as part of the call forth - "Come and see."  This, all of this is for you to experience.  It is all laid out for you to either enjoy and be awestruck by or to learn from.  Part of the journey is to be present to the place, the people, knowing it is all part of the pilgrimage.  I want to take it all in and appreciate this liminal space and time that has been set aside to move through the transition into the next phase of my life.  To be a pilgrim is to be open to the unknown of what lies ahead.  It is to be courageous as you enter into this new frontier of what God has waiting for you.  It is to trust.  

A Year Later

 A year ago, the most amazing thing happened in the most ordinary of places. I was just going through emails at the end of the day and a message appeared from Ancestry.com. Fast forward 365 days and all I can do is give thanks. I give thanks to Sarah who entered into the most tenuous of situations and asked the hard question to Mike and I, "Could my mom be your sister?" I give thanks to Amy who is the sister and friend that I didn't know I was waiting for and who in some strange and unexplainable way has completed me, completed my definition of family, and what it means to be a sibling. In the year that has passed I have been in her physical company in 2 different time periods and the only way to describe it is to say that I just can't get enough of her. We meet for breakfast and then gather again for a family dinner or meet for breakfast and then again the next day to hang out in the Gardens.   Our conversations no longer entail the childhood that we each experienced but have moved through time and space into the spiritual realms that we each have embraced and look toward our next phase of life.  We grow and learn from each other; we enter into each other's holy places and ask questions because we want to know more.  We want to know each other more deeply and we want to know the paths that have brought each of us to these places of God's love.  She is truly a gift that I never knew I was craving.  And now that she is here in my life, I keep finding ways to be in her presence.  I said it before, I can't get enough of her.