Camino Company--Never alone

When I talk about my walk across Spain and people find out that I left from here and was not going with a group or anyone I knew––I am almost always met with amazement. I have had several people tell me I was brave to do the Camino, alone. I have had several people say that they wish they could do something like that but they would never set out on a journey alone.

I have said this before but it bears repeating. When I left last year on my journey I didn't walk alone. I walked with so many people. Sure I left the US and traveled to Spain without a traveling companion. But I never felt alone. So many of you walked with me by sending me notes, praying for me, responding to my posts. I felt a great company walking with me, not in an oppressive way but in a supportive way. Almost every day I saw reminders of love which told me that so many people were walking with me.

But I also met so many pilgrims on the way. And many became friends that I have contact with a year later. Others I walked with for a time and enjoyed their company too. Here I stopped for a picnic lunch with Camilla and Marie.

The great cloud of witnesses that the writer of Hebrews talked about was present--I saw them in the people I was walking with, in the people back home and around the world who were staying in touch, and in the remembrances of loved ones who have gone before and are in heaven. I never walked alone!

At supper time there was always a meal and you rarely ate alone--peregrinos from all over the world would feel comfortable joining with other peregrinos to share a meal in community.

Perhaps the greatest sense of not being alone came in the spiritual for me--sensing the divine presence through nature, others, and a hope for the journey (my Camino journey and the journey called life)--Even today I sense the companionship that was the Camino.