Camino de Ronda

After a week of camping in my Poustinia/Retreat House by the lake in the company of a rotating group of family and friends (who visited, texted, phoned, Facebook messaged, listened, objected, advised, supported, and ultimately helped me to change my plans);  I have sorted out my weighty dilemma at last:

To walk the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James, Apostle of Christ) again next week or not, that WAS the BIG QUESTION.

And today the answer is immanently clear:  it is my part to walk my own way toward God in the very circumstances of my life, all the days of my life, even right here, right now, and MOST ESPECIALLY with each one of you ❤️

Yes, I’ll be walking the Camino de Ronda, and neither God nor I would have it any other way.

Note to a dear friend

Tom King Wavering is good and smart you did it once that's enough

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  Ronda Troy Watts Mr. King (Tom!), you have reached into my heart and indeed found the crux of the matter. When I decided in Feb. that I COULD try again, I felt that my Camino last year was incomplete. But after attending the national conference and hearing so many stories of other Americans on the Camino, I came to accept and embrace the experience I had last year. Indeed I DID accomplish my goal which was to say "Yes!" to my dream of walking the Camino, to leave the comforts of home to walk along the ancient pilgrimage trail to become closer to Jesus and to bring all of my loved ones and friends with me to the tomb of St. James. The conditions on the trail were just so impossible that our marching cry actually became, "to infinity, no, to INSANITY and beyond!" Danger of bodily harm was lurking everywhere and I became disengage because I didn't feel we had a sporting chance. So when we reached the Church of the Crucifix (no less!!!!!) I left my intentions at the statue of St. James and told my friend Laura that I felt my pilgrimage was complete and that if anything should happen to me in the next few days to not feel bad for me. And the very next day was my last on the trail. Truly I do not feel that I left my Camino undone. And so I no longer think that I "have" to go back and finish.  <3

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    http://www.arquivoltas.com/6-Navarra/Puentelareina02-Crucifijo.htm

To Go or Not to Go, THAT is the question!

Hi Friends!

In just two weeks,  I have a plane ticket to return to the Camino de Santiago de Compostella (on the French Way) to begin where I left off last time: about two days' walk past Pamplona in a little town called Maneru, Navarra.

I became full of enthusiasm for this idea back in February when I attended a small Camino Cafe and talked to some folks about my trip last summer and the viability of continuing on.

Next there was a national American Pilgrims on the Camino gathering right here in North Carolina which I attended with 300 other Americans who were interested in taking their first or their second, third, fourth, etc. Camino!  Several members from our Raleigh chapter came along and we had the most amazing weekend.  We heard presentations from people who studied various parts of the pilgrimage trail,  those who walked a thousand or more miles through France to reach Santiago, and some who had injuries and had to stop their Camino fairly soon like I did.

There were also presentations on First Aid and blister care, strategies for packing, the joy of bringing college students along, and many books, crafts, travel services, and stories from fellow pilgrims sharing their interests and experiences too.

By the end of the weekend, I had come to feel like a true, card-carrying Pilgrim, and that the tale of my particular trek was just as valid as that of others who had walked much farther along The Way.  In fact the minimum mileage required to receive a Certificate of Completion is 100 k/62 miles (but it must be the LAST miles, ending at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.)   In short, real passion for the Camino and the people who have walked it took ahold of me and I thought that I should return to the trail and walk a little more before diving in to start helping others.

Not even a week later, a priest friend who had also walked the Camino and given retreats about it came to town.  When I told him that I went last summer (and found myself lying on a dirt road somewhere out there and thinking, "This is pretty comfortable!"),  and wanted to return again, he nodded knowingly at my experience and then prayed, "Father, IF IT IS YOUR WILL, then OPEN THE DOORS!!!"

Now I guess it is up to me to prepare for my trip and also try to determine whether GOD's WILL is in it too.

Hoo boy.

:)

Camino Reflections: God Speaks into My Camino Experience Today

Dear Friends,

God spoke into my weariness this morning, as I opened up this His book today to join with the Church in Morning Prayer.  It has been many many months since I have done this, and yet His Word spoke so eloquently to me in my particular situation today.

The Opening Hymn, the Old Testament Reading from Isaiah 4:6 Scripture, Psalm 5, the Old Testament Reading from Sirach 34:16, Psalm 18:3, Isaiah 25:4, the Intercessory Prayers, and the Closing Prayer all SHOUT OUT to me this day that it is the Lord who sees our stumbling and it is the  Lord who shelters us and when we fall, picks us up again.

Praise God!  He is alive and active in our lives!  

Then in the Mass of today, we hear in the Old Testament Reading that God says, "I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart."

And in the Psalm my words of response in concert with the whole, world wide Church are: 

Then in the Gospel Reading, which is always about the life of Christ, I see the words, "My daughter has just died.  But come, lay your hand on her and she will live."  This is the same imagery I used yesterday when I told my friend, "I died early!" 

Yes, I did die on the Camino Road that day, but it was Jesus who lifted me up and brought me home the next day, through the loving actions of my traveling companions, the albergue owner, the taxi driver, the woman seated beside me on the train to Madrid who dropped her plans to help me navigate the train station, exchanged my used train ticket for a free pass to the airport subway , then saw me onto the subway and told me where to get off....and then to the airport hotel shuttles, then to an airport hotel, then to a comfy bed and to a wonderful regional breakfast, then to an airline reservation agent, then onto a shuttle and plane for home, then into the arms of my husband, and finally back home, where so many have greeting me and welcomed me with understanding hearts.

May the news of His love spread throughout the land!

And in the Evening Prayer, God will speak to us again.   If you haven't really started your own pilgrimage to God, it's time to begin!

In Loving Amazement and Joyful Praise,

Ronda

  

Camino Reflections: Since I've Been Home

Dear Friends,

I've been back home for as long as I was in France & Spain: ten days.  And in that time I have basically been flattened by the trip and a new problem: a troublesome cough and cold.  So I have only spoken to my family and seen a few friends when I have gone out (to Mass twice and to the veterinarian) and I have still to unpack my backpack/suitcase, though our puppy Perceval has been climbing into it and dragging out various items each day.

The first time I went out was to Mass at St. Mary Magdalene on the Friday morning after my Thursday night return from Spain.   I dressed in my washed set of walking clothes, my pilgrim's shell necklace still around my neck, and went to offer my weary thanksgiving to God.

When I entered our chapel, I kneeled down and closed my eyes to pray.  Suddenly I felt a warm hand on my shoulder, then a hug, and then I raised my head to see the sparkling eyes of a dear friend who silently welcoming me home.

After Mass that day, we stayed for our Friday Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  As the hour was coming to a close, I told the few others who were praying that I had just come home from my trip and was weary and wanted to leave a few minutes early.

They looked at me with inquisitive eyes, and so I decided to tell them about my fresh distress, when one of them asked, "In three words, what would you say your Camino was?"  and my spontaneous reply was, "It was hell."

It felt a bit like what "boots on the ground" might mean and a bit like the confusion and strife of hell.

Writing these words now, ten days after being back home, it is hard to understand why I said them.  I think it was partly because there was such suffering and disunity among us at the end.   As I parted from my traveling companions, I remember crying out, "We needed a coach!  We needed someone looking out for us to tell us to rise earlier, to let us rest in the heat of the day, to remind us to keep the fluids coming in, to tend to our injuries, to encourage us, to map out a plan of how to spend our hours and days to help us reach our goal." Instead our community of three was being run democratically with more sideways movement than directed and sustained effort ahead.

When I was asked why I was home so soon by a long-time family friend at Church today, I said, "To put it succinctly, I DIED EARLY."  And she immediately shot back, "Only the Good Die Young!" with a joyous smile.

Love You All for your care and concern, your compassionate and understanding hearts, your proclamations of praise and being proud of me for (1) Going (2) Giving it my all (3) Listening to myself and/or to God and (4) Getting home safely.

You know, you're right!   I DID go and do what I deeply wanted to do.   I DID go with gusto and give it my all.  And I did feel myself failing over a number of long, hard, slanted, river-rock, hot, dusty, waterless-trail days.   "To Insanity and Beyond!"  became our battle cry after several days, and my dreams of walking 500 miles, the "whole way" to Santiago and the Tomb of St. James, became quickly diverted and satisfied with one very special St. James Statue I saw along the way.

The three of us had agreed to "just show up and walk" without much planning, to see what each day contained, to walk with open hearts and a submission to the will of God.

For the record, the day I was lovingly extracted from the Camino was the Feast Day of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.  And for those who have asked, my friends and I calculated how far we had walked on the day that I was leaving, and it was just short of 100k or 60 miles, which is the requirement to earn a certificate of completion (provided you end up in Santiago.)

Yet oddly enough and as God would have it, two days before I had layed down my burden at the statue of St. James (pictured above), and turned to Laura and said, "I feel such a sense of completion today.  If something should happen to me in the coming days, know that I feel that I have done what I came to do."

I had offered all of my Camino Intentions, all of the people I was carrying to the tomb of St. James, all of their intentions and loved ones and friends, the teens from our church who were on a mission trip that same time, all of the Jameses in my family, my husband, our marriage, our children, and their friends, our parents (both deceased and living) and grandparents, our ancestors, the friends and future spouses and offspring of our kids (although my son has just informed that we probably have no grandchildren in our future), my broken heart, and most of all my gratitude in getting the answer to my Camino Question that as I walked I asked of God:

 "Who am I before you, Lord?"  and He answered me, "You are Mine."

Thank You All for your love and support.  My heart is full and I love you more than I can say.  And my prayer is this: that we will be gathered together in heaven with God one day, to rejoice forever in the wonder of it all.

Ronda

Camino Reflections: Why I Came Home

Of the first things I did

When I came home 

Two weeks early

From my Camino

Was greet my husband 

Who was surprised as I

And rub the tummy 

Of little Bambino

I was hurting from days

Of hiking in Spain

And suffering from 

Dehydration

I had sweated so much

And drunk so little

That I was 

Feeling Faint

By the End of it all

I laid down in the road

Not really able 

to continue

I gathered my strength 

And conquered the hill

On a slow upward climb

Toward salvation.

With the help of my friends

To the closest albergue,

And a meal and a bed from a wonderful soul,

I rose with a pounding headache, a disengaged will, and the urge to throw up all of the water I had Tried for a remedy. 

Once I determined that I would leave Spain, I consulted with the wonderful woman who owned the albergue. (Her own father had walked the Camino, see photo above, and her general thought was that he was CRAZY!) 

She suggested a bus (and my friends: a taxi) to return two day's walk to Pamplona.  I wanted to pay her for all of her time and kindly advice in getting me home, but she refused with waving hands.  And so I leaned over my pack and gave her the Tiny Saint James that had accompanied me thus far.  She was truly moved and really understood what her hospitality and generous love had meant to me.

With hugs and well wishes all around, I said goodbye to her and my companions, stepped into the wrong car ("That's my neighbor!" she laughed)  Two more pilgrims arrived as I was working out the details, one was seriously dazed and not speaking and the next sweating profusely as he hyperventilated, slammed back a cold ice tea, and dropped into a nearby chair.   He was a 20 something man with an Atlanta T-shirt on, so I sat down next to him and asked, "Did you run???!)   When he told me no, I told him I had laid down on that road the night before and was now heading home. He smiled and told me he had laid down on the road up to Orrison.  After refusing my offer to take him too, I sloshed what water + electrolyte solution I had left in my bottle into his empty glass, got into the taxi that had just arrived, and began my two day journey home.

The Alburgue owner had researched the train times and when I arrived at the station, I was four hours early.  This gave me time to shuffle with my pack in the scorching heat toward a hospital-like sign.  When I stepped inside, I  mimed my symptoms to the attentive pharmacist.  She gave me a medicinal powder to sip slowly from a 1 liter bottle of water.   I thanked her and crossed to a cafe where through gestures I asked for the 1.5 liter bottle and sat outside to mix it and slowly, so slowly sip it all in and get myself feeling better.

Then I boarded the train for a four hour ride to Madrid.

And then my narrow focus on my pain and surviving began to recede...

And suddenly I could lift up my head, look all around, and feel

SO GRATEFUL to be making it home

under my own steam while it was still possible.

With Love, Ronda

 

Camino Reflections: Pamplona, San Fermin, and Bulls

Hello, Dear Friends!

Today is Saturday, July 7...the anniversary of my Baptism into the Catholic Church at the age of 8 weeks, and (now known to me) the  Feast of San Fermin of Pamplona, Spain!

 I am trying to find "Pamplona's Running of the Bulls" on my DirectTV today (under Sports Coverage?) because having "trod" those same streets just two weeks ago I am interested to see what it is all about.

(Do you see what I saw on these posts?!)