Extending an invitation

I invite you to join me in reflections and prayers. This Holy Week, on Maundy Thursday / Holy Thursday, I'll again be participating in the all night vigil at All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, California. Though it's quite a lot to post on this blog, I'll be posting the prayers and readings and activities throughout the night, as we pray, reflect on the sacraments, sing, walk the labyrinth, and kneel with Christ throughout the night.

If you'd like to stay on top of those reflections and prayers, they'll be posted on my Facebook group called "Camino of Healing". It's at https://www.facebook.com/groups/CaminoOfHealing/ and you're welcome to join our prayer community as we journey towards a healed personhood, life, and world.

Prayer Tree in front of City of Hope Hospital, Feb 2018

Overpacking, Stones, and Strangers - The Camino to Easter

I walk out of the monastery in Sahagun, Spain in Sep 2014
and am awed by the sunset

As we enter Holy Week, after a season of loss, I realize that there are lessons from the Camino which are helping me walk the journey to the cross, with others, with Christ.

Travel lightly

So many of us are encumbered with things that hold us back, hold us down. We want to move easily, with comfort, and in peace. We know that we can save our backs and feet - and especially stay focused - when we don't have luggage that weighs us down.

And yet, we are our own worst enemies. We overpack in our lives. On the Camino de Santiago, this is most often because we want to bring everything in our backpacks. This instinct is almost always grounded in one thing: fear.

Fear of want.

Fear of not having something we feel is necessary.

Fear of hunger, of danger, of darkness.

And yet, a most important saying along the Camino is "The Camino Provides". Most travelers don't realize that there are food options everywhere you go. That we find pharmacies in every village. That we can find people who will share their water with us.

The Camino DOES provide... so long as we accept its generosity and the love. We have to forget about the uncertainty of fear in order to gain the certainty of love.

Release the Stones

Our packs like our lives are overloaded and, within a few days, you start seeing people leave things behind in the albergues. We have to release the materials items, these stones, that weigh us down and say goodbye to them. We let go so that we can flourish on our walks.

But it's not just about releasing a physical stone. It's also about letting go of the emotional stones that hold us down. Unlike the fear that drives us to overpack, the emotion that we can't unpack and leave behind is anger.

People on the camino, myself included, get frustrated by crowded cafes, by bicyclists who don't warn you of their approach, of cars that don't see you. In our exhaustion, we get angry that we have to change plans because there's no room at the albergue, or because blisters appear, or people smoke or talk too loudly, or take selfies, or drink too much. The litany of gripes can seem endless.

We may not have packed that anger in with us, but it's coming along for the walk. And we can't seem to let it go.

So we have to treat our frustration and anger like stones. We have to recognize the weight that they bring to our journey and trust that it's possible to release it. We must set the stone down. We can't walk with Christ, in love, with open eyes, when our hearts are filled with granite.

Embrace the Stranger

We may travel the Camino alone, or we may travel with friends. But around us at all times are strangers. People from other lands, speaking other languages, with different diets and customs. They're like you and me. And they're not.

They are like the Samaritans. Yes, go back far enough, and we're related, but today we're different. And they might be overpacked, with stones, with the same troubles as ourselves.

It's easy to walk past them and not realize what's going on in their lives. But my greatest memories along the Camino are when I didn't walk past the "other", but instead invited them into my space, my life, my journey. By sharing the pilgrimage of life together, we create a larger life, a larger sense of self, and a discovery of shared values.

Often times, it's that moment when we realize that we're overpacked that we also realize that we need the stranger to help us out. Together, you can pool information, resources, food, laughs, memories. The things we yearn to find on the Camino are unknown to us. They await to be learned and discovered, but for now those insights are strangers. And, we can't embrace the insights of the Camino if we can't embrace the stranger.

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I hope that your journey through Lent brought you ever closer to Christ, to Easter, and the hope you seek to find and celebrate. And now, as we near the end of this 40 day walk, may your Holy Week remind you of the need to travel lightly, to set down your stones, and to embrace the stranger. May your Holy Week be anointed with grace.

Wiping the Ashes Away

Photo from a visit to Coventry Cathedral, UK. 2013.

There are moments when I realize that the family and people around me mean more than relationships, more than knowledge, more than a good story and a laugh. They represent more than genetic connections and more than shared values.

They represent life. Life flowing from them to me, from me to them, from God to us, and through us, and with us. Life not in isolation but in deep connectedness.

I've been grappling with a lot of loss lately. Some of the loss I've described in prior blog posts, with friends passing on, with family members facing hospice. Local friends have confided their plans to move away this year. On top of all that are issues about "things" that in the end don't mean much, but in our world of flesh often times define us to others.

The accretion of "stuff' in our lives spans from material goods to homes, from jobs to vacations, from entertainment options to vague things like standing in the community. People who retire, become unemployed, downsize in homes - they all confront a destabilizing change in the stuff with which they are familiar. All things pass and yet we hold on to this "stuff" because they delight us, define us, and bring constancy to a changing world.

In facing loss in the "stuff" column, it's easy to describe that loss as a grieving process. But for me, it's hard to grieve over stuff. At least, it's difficult for me to grieve like I grieve over the loss of a person I love.

With a person, I weep. I cry. I sometimes sob. And it takes a while for me to say goodbye. And I continue to talk to that person as though they were still with us.

"Stuff" doesn't mean that much to me. Or so I think. So I often tell people that they should treat the loss of stuff as a loss similar to grieving, but in practice I find it different, difficult even.

I don't weep.
I don't cry.
I don't sob.

In chatting with my mom the other day, I was reminded that wisdom takes years to brew and our elders have much to teach us. Filled with life and love, she pointed out that as I face loss of "stuff", I wasn't grieving right. I was anxious, yes. I was confused, yes. I was upset, yes.

But did I feel the pain, she asked.

Did I let the loss speak from my heart rather than my brain?

No. Because I hadn't wept. I hadn't cried. I hadn't sobbed.

Her words resonated with me. And they complemented a conversation I had had just a week before. My spiritual director pointed out that I'm going through a season of loss right now and that my Lenten disciplines need refining. If I'm to prepare for Easter with all this loss, rather than adding more ashes to my face, rather than bringing yet another reminder of our mortality to my life, I should prepare for new life.

I should wipe the ashes away so that my face can be seen once again.

So after speaking with my mother, I gathered my thoughts together. I gathered my feelings together. I gathered the pain. And I let the pain into my heart.

I wept.
I cried.
I sobbed.

And somehow, I'm starting to feel differently. I'm wiping the ashes from my face, not with oils or soap or water. I'm wiping them with the sacred tears from my eyes, my heart, my soul.

And as I let the pain in, as I let the tears flow, as the ashes slowly get wiped away, I feel the light coming into my wounds. I feel the life of others flow to me. I feel the love of God flow in, around, and through me. The pain is real and I'm letting it in. And somehow, it gives me hope, for it reminds me the promise of Easter.