Miracles News

January-March, 2009

My Camino

Rev. Vicki Rostant

This is one story about how the Holy Spirit walked in my life during the past three years. I first felt the strong urge to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela about three years ago. I had always known about this road, the longest part of which goes through Northern Spain, hundreds of miles long, walked by many thousands of pilgrims since the beginning of the ninth century. Early Pilgrims walked the path as a means of doing penance for their sins. From all accounts, it is a journey filled with spiritual connectedness and communal blessings. You can start anywhere along the road that ends at Santiago de Compostela, where the body of the apostle, James, was buried. I felt that the time had come for me to take that journey.

I kept meeting people and situations that brought me new information about the walk and my partner and I decided that we would get on with physical training and do the walk in the summer of 2007. I was very excited. However, over the Christmas holidays of 2006, looking at the new year, it became very clear that our planned date was too close — I could feel the tension in my body when I thought, “We’re doing this in 6-7 months!”

We had tentative plans for a house exchange with friends in Scotland for the summer of 2008, so the walk would have to be in 2009, a milestone year for us as we would be celebrating our 20th anniversary and I would be celebrating my 60th birthday. What better way to give thanks for such happy dreams!

So, it then felt right to move it to the summer of 2009 — we would have more time to condition our bodies and minds, as well as, making some life-style changes, we would have better finances in place. That felt better. Each time we came to a junction in the road, I checked with Holy Spirit and felt clear about each step.

We were very excited to proceed with our Camino plans, and my partner, while not looking forward to some of the rigours involved, was supportive. We then met a woman who happened to be sitting next to me at a friend’s birthday dinner, and who had just returned from a pilgrimage on the Camino. We learned from her that there was a less arduous way of doing the walk. Rather than carry everything in your backpack, and run the risk of not finding a place to sleep at the end of the day, you can make arrangements with a travel company to have your stuff taken by van daily from one place to another with a bed guaranteed at the end of the day. All you would carry on the walk is the required food and water.

This meeting felt fortuitous, as by then I had been having doubts about the hardships involved, heat being one of them, and the one aspect I felt I could least tolerate.
My partner was also much happier about the whole thing. (By the way, the house swap fell through, and we had a lovely summer at home.)

So, with Holy Spirit’s Blessings, plans proceeded apace. And then something started to happen. Over the next several weeks, there was a slow unfolding of light in my mind that revealed the following: My motivation to walk the Camino came from a place that felt that I had to experience suffering and hardship in order to feel worthy and to prove my worthiness. I had to “do” this hard thing to feel better about myself.

As soon as that mad thought was illuminated with light and love, the desire to walk the actual Camino vanished. It felt like, with Holy Spirit, I had been walking a life road over the past three years; a road chosen by Holy Spirit to lead me to deep healing. I have committed no sins that I need to suffer for in order to feel worthy. Holy Spirit, gently, step by step, over time, the only purpose of time, carried me on the road to my own forgiveness. I look back on the unfolding of this journey and I am filled with Joy and Gratitude. So, next year, rather than suffering with blisters, aches, heat and nowhere to sleep, we are joyfully going to Paris to enjoy the happy dream instead. That’s the plan — so far. Stay tuned.

Rev. Vicki Rostant is a Pathways of Light minister living in Toronto Canada.

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