After days of great sunshine, today in Spain it rained. As we left the refugio in Pamplona we dined on fruit juice and croisants, took along some cheese for the rest of the croisants for lunch, and began what we thought would be a nice walk, albiet a bit wet. I forgot to check the map. I´m glad I didn´t check the map or I might have turned back. The steepest yet ! And in mud. Not so bad going up, but the way down is so slippery, and therefore slow. We didn´t get to our planned destination tonight, and thank God that we got somewhere! After a hot shower and nice meal we´re off to bed. It´s not even 9 pm. Halleluja! I have a new traveling companion—–Camino Carol!  This is one sturdy woman! Blessings to all of you. I´ll try to send pictures some day but haven´t figured that out yet. Jason gave me a lesson, but not in Spanish…

Arrived safely to Pamplona, taxi to Roncesvalles, high in the Pyrinees, and found our first nights lodging in a renovated hostel. Very nice, and full of internationals all as wide-eyed as we.

Day 1 of the Camino was amazing, however our training did not prepare us well enough. Very steep in parts, and taking longer than we planned. We push on.

Day 2 of the Camino was today, and it took longer !  I´m semi-concious right now and going to bed right away. However, we did enjoy dinner tonight at a restaurant famous in Spain for hosting Hemingway at times, and it was a grand place with much better food that the typical for the Camino.

Bodies are tired. Shot, really. But we are holding up…..after 2 days of 13.5 miles each. Doesn´t sound like much does it. The mountains are beautiful, but steep, and it seems to last all day….

Thinking of all of you during the day, thanking you for praying for us, so don´t stop now. Day 3 looks to be much flatter, so we should be ok.

Parishioner – Pastor – Pilgrim

Here we have three interesting words with an even more interesting connection, as we are discovering.

The parishioner is a member of an ecclesiastical body, or church, which has a pastor to help lead in the way of faith. The pastor is that one who tries to hear from God on behalf of the many and lead them in the way of faith, often by teaching, but always by modeling.  A pilgrim is one “…who journeys, especially a long distance, to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion.” (Webster)

And so it is that these three are intertwined. They are connected in many ways; with each on a profound journey, both individual and corporate. Life itself is a profound journey, a spiritual journey, even in the midst of all the normal activity of daily life. So we are all pilgrims in that sense, as we all seek to find answers to so many questions.

Most of us are parishioners of one sort or another, whether committed with purpose and intentionality on a regular basis, or simply by historical or familial connection to something we recognize deep within us. The latter find that living life gets in the way of regular, spiritually connected activity, but the seed of faith is there, within, still. The former keep learning that the more they seek the more they discover, and yet the more questions seem to surface, almost pushing them vertically toward God. It’s a most interesting thing indeed, that whether we purpose to be a pilgrim or not, we cannot escape the reality that we are.

One wonderful piece of living life they have in common is what I’ll call the “Ah ha” moments. These seem to happen randomly throughout our lives, especially when we are not necessarily asking or looking for them. Then again, when we ARE looking, as in reading Scripture, praying, or some other pursuit of the faith in earnest, God regularly show up and sheds some light. And, though we don’t especially like the thought of it, the tough times, the tragedies, and all the other disappointment times, seem to open a window to spiritual growth.

In a little over two weeks Carol and I begin a pilgrimage, and we are at times in awe of the prospect, not to mention full of questions about how, where, what, and why? And you are going with us, to one degree or another, and this is a really wonder-inspiring bit of thought process. If you can, we invite you to join us with purpose, by praying for us and following our blog. Even that I will be able TO blog!

I don’t know what the results will be, but I’m excited about the prospects, and can’t wait to share with you all  “What sayeth the Lord.”

Parishioner – Pastor – Pilgrim    Skip

Unction. (What a great word.) Most of what we get involved in, that is really wonderful, is the product of unction, because the word describes a particular action of God in our lives. While it has a mysterious quality to it, we know when it hits us because it sort of takes us over. We find that we might be doing something that is beyond normal, perhaps beyond reason, but that which we have to do none-the-less. Instead of fighting the “urge” to do the thing, we find we are fighting everyone else who thinks differently; who thinks we’re crazy or irrational. Unction is, therefore, both thrilling and awe-inspiring at the same time. Unction does present certain problems…

What if? At this point the realist will point out that mistakes can be made in life; that there are those who claim an unction was responsible for something that turned out poorly. I suppose we can always judge a thing after-the-fact, but do we really know what God is up to? To eliminate acting upon unction from one’s life is to remove the wonder of it all, I think, and reduce us to robotic lives based upon what others think. We will have to be responsible one way or the other, so I think it’s better to allow the wonder, the awe, the thrill, as much as possible. If our actions turn out to be foolish, they will reveal themselves as such and we will have to address it. But to never follow the path of God giving us a real unction would be to greatly limit His work in our lives, and that would be far worse.

On January 11, 2013, Skip and Carol watched the movie The Way, starring Martin Sheen, about the Camino de Santiago. While we’d never heard of it before, we were definitely struck by something, which I’m calling unction, especially since we both felt the same about it at the same time. We learned about an ancient pilgrimage through Spain and immediately planned to go. At first we planned on going in 2014, but after about two weeks confessed to one another that we’d like to go this year, and again we agreed immediately. This is not normal. But this is surely awesome. When married folks are in such unity it is indeed wonderful, and thus the plan was hatched.

We leave Portland, OR on April 22 and arrive back on June 4, if the Lord wills!! I’ll try to post updates as we go along, depending on my computer skills and the availability of such, so visit this site again if you’re interested. To answer many questions, go to http://www.americanpilgrims.com/ and learn as much as you wish about the Camino de Santiago.