A Camino Lesson

It’s been almost exactly a year since I returned from Spain. There have been some changes in that time. I bought a house, retired from teaching, gained 10 lbs I neither wanted or needed…you know, life stuff. And in all those experiences I never really had a moment when I consciously knew or applied a lesson I learned from walking across Spain.

But then I never felt the Camino taught me some of the things it taught others. That I was strong and determined? I knew that from riding in the MS 150 the year before. To be tolerant and accepting? Kind of already was, although I learned to be more so. So in many ways the Camino was confirmation rather than revelation. Until yesterday.

Yesterday Sarah moved in to her first apartment. My birthday gift to her (saved from her actual birthday in April) was to help with the move. So I rented a Penske truck and hauled the washer and dryer my cousin Melissa gave her from Brenham to Houston.

Now to understand this story you have to know that I was born with amblyopia, or lazy eye. My left eye does 80% of my seeing, so I have very little stereo vision and I struggle with depth perception. For years, when my life felt out of control, my brain would deal with the stress by dreaming I was driving a large vehicle (18-wheeler, school bus, once an incredibly tall bicycle) that was high off the ground. I would struggle to control what was out of control, because I was so separated from the road.

The guy at the rental place said, “You’re going to love this,” and showed me the shiny new truck, only 20,000 miles on it, with a cab floor at hip-level.

I did not love it.

It took a lot to stay calm, swing myself up into the seat, and start driving. I circled the parking lot a little, trying to get a feel for the truck, but I was worried about the mileage so I headed to Mom’s where the washer and dryer were, heart in my mouth and prayers on my lips. The hour-long trip to Houston was going to be the literal stuff of nightmares for me.

When I got to Mom’s I was nearly in tears, but I didn’t take out her fence when I drove in nor did I roll the thing in the ditch, like I worried. Charles and Randall loaded the stuff while I washed my face and printed out directions to Sarah’s apartment (I left my phone at home, like a goofball.) And then I headed out.

65 miles of the 67 mile one-way journey were on the highway. I wasn’t worried about them. I was worried about tight corners and small passages in her complex, and the roads to her complex. What was I going to find at the end? How was I going to navigate this behemoth through the streets of Houston?

Then a still small voice said, “What if this were the Camino?” Instantly my whole body relaxed. “Oh, well, if this were the Camino, no problem. Everything would work out. The roads would be fine, or there would be somebody to help me navigate them, or something. If this were the Camino there’d be nothing to worry about.”

“Then go on Camino,” said the voice. And I did.

When I walked in to Santiago the summer of 2018 there were boy scouts (or some Spanish equivalent) asking the pilgrims why they walked. I told them I walked to find an answer to the question, “What next?” I didn’t get an answer to that question. Instead I found that the answer to that question didn’t matter. God provided for me throughout that journey, and He would continue to do so.

And you know what? I was right.