“Walk In A Relaxed Manner”: book reflection

Joyce Rupp is a retreat leader, conference speaker and author of many bestselling books on Christian spirituality. This book is her reflections about the 36 days of walking 805 km across northern Spain, from Ronscevales to Santiago. It is called the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, one of the three famous Christian pilgrimages. She walked the camino at the age of sixty and wrote about the life lessons she learned from it.

I asked myself: How do you write about a 36 days walk? Do I write in a diary format? Take journal notes every day of distance, weather, places, people, scenery, food and refugios and convert these into a kind of travel diary. How repetitive and boring! How about writing a “how to” book, a book that gives practical information and helps pilgrims to prepare themselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually so as to maximise from the camino experience. Nobody would buy such a book.

The author chose to write in a “relaxed manner”: 25 short, interesting chapters captioned with the life lessons she gleaned.  I thought this was the best way to do it. The lessons were digestible and clear. At the same time, she covered the other information, details and stories in a topical and accessible format. Each chapter she unfolded the lesson she learned, and substantiated it with many instances and examples of experiences that illustrated her point. For example, one of the life lessons she learned was living in the now, not in the past, or in the future. She extracted from her journal an example of this: “It has been a hard day of walking. I did not expect to be so tired each day. I can’t have expectations of it. I just need to live NOW. Even this refugio at Estella. At first, when I saw the situation, I said to myself, ‘Just grit your teeth and think of tomorrow.’ But then, I said, ‘No, I must enter into THIS experience, NOW.’ After I did this, the situation didn’t look quite so deplorable and I found I could tolerate it better.”

The main takeaway for me was the lesson of walking in a relaxed manner, which is the title of the book. Rupp wrote: “Gradually I accepted my diminishing energy. I learned to be at peace with it. I also grew more grateful because the deliberately measured pace helped me slow down inside, causing me to become more contemplative as I walked along. This did not happen the first week, however. During the first week our sense of urgency continued to grow. Each morning we made as early a start as possible. We packed our backpacks faster. If we stopped for mid-morning coffee, we didn’t tarry long. When we met other pilgrims, we cut our conversations short. When we paused to rest our feet, we kept the stop brief. Our unspoken motto became: Push onward. Push forward. Push, push, push. Rush, rush, rush. We soon discovered that the rushing and pushing cause us to lose our enjoyment of the walk itself. We left home in order to experience the freedom of getting away from it all but we simply took the tensions with us in new forms. The place of our stress changed but we had not changed. We continued to strain and groan under the desires and expectations of achievement and accomplishment – goals which our culture thrives on and implants in us almost from birth.”

She continued: “When I came back home from the Camino, I observed how rushing and hurrying and pushing are evident everywhere. Overachievement, competition, comparison, addiction to work and duty, unreal expectations of needing to do more, the obsessive pursuit of having more – all these fell on us as heavy cultural and self-imposed burdens. When these attitudes and messages press in on us, they cause us to lose our harmony and self-satisfaction. There is far too much hurry and worry in most lives. There never seems to be enough time to complete the daily chores of laundry, lawn care, meal preparations, phone calls, and paying bills, let alone the pressure of other accomplishments that people feel compelled to do. Parents with children involved in an overabundance of activities, health care workers working double shifts, educators saddled with extracurricular tasks, managers with countless meetings, retired people with too much scheduled – these are some of the many people who need to walk in a relaxed manner, but who find their responsibilities and overextensions make it difficult to do. Undoubtedly, it will take a lifetime for me to fully learn the lesson of walking in a relaxed manner.”

I enjoyed reading this book that was given to me by pastor Thomas, and was amazed that the author was able to glean so many life lessons that will help us in our life’s pilgrimage. This book is a must read if you wish to do the camino or a part of it, or any other kind of camino, or long hikes over many days. It is a catalyst for fruitful reflection about your life’s pilgrimage, which is the most important of all pilgrimages.

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Walking 19km with “broken bones”

The camino led us through shop streets and apartments.  People have yet awakened. We began our walk at 7.30am in silence after a meditation on scriptures that evokes awareness of sins, but from God’s eyes of love.

Cool fresh air and sunny skies

With Kae and Corina

Through many former train tunnels

We walked past factories, past offices, markets, onto a railway track converted to new uses. Some locals cycled past, some jogged and most were brisk walking. We were immersed in forests and meadows, the tunnels and factories and farms, the bridges and streams, the darkness and sunshine, the birdsong and hum of machines. These comprised the sanctuary in which we pondered over our life’s journey, over scriptures and what we have been moved by thus far as we walked. And all this in silence and peace.

The route of Camino Ignaciano is identified by orange markings

I was pondering over a scripture from Psalms 51, “let the bones you have crushed dance”. My bones have been crushed on the altar of ministry and his promise to me  is a redemptive dance and rejoicing, something I have experienced, and still do today, and will in future. He never fails.

It ended up being a 5 hours walk covering 19km, before the bus picked us up and brought us to a charming, rustic, beautiful,  family farm home converted into a hotel catering to pilgrims. Gorgeous rooms, dining areas, great food and family hospitality.

Lovely charming rustic hotel that was once a family farmhouse

Beautiful modern but elegant church

Magnificent Diocesan shrine of Aranzazu

Eucharist in side chapel

The evening ended with eucharist, a siesta, dinner and a session titled, “Loved Sinner” to prepare us for the next day’s walk.

We retired totally spent.

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Encounters with an awesome and living God: holy land

Caesarea by the sea: stormy and wild
Caesarea by the sea: stormy and wild

Enjoying our Israeli meals (Photo: Tiffany)
Enjoying our Israeli meals (Photo: Tiffany)

By the end of the holy land experience we were like those who came back after a successful mission trip -thrilled from seeing the living God at work. We saw how God intervened and opened doors as large parts of Israel were affected by an unusual cold snap.

The day we stepped foot on Israel we had wet and stormy weather. The sky frightened us with strong cold winds and drizzle. One moment I was,  Oh no, is it going to be like that during the whole trip? Next moment I was praying and believing.

The second night we gathered at a function room. After a fun icebreaker, a few shared how the Lord led them and opened the way for them to visit the holy land. Earlier that afternoon, we ate St Peter’s fish in a restaurant by the lake of Galilee. The fierce winds agitated the waves till all boats were recalled to shore. Our scheduled boat ride was cancelled. So that night I read a pertinent passage about Jesus, the Lord of wind and waves, calming the winds and challenged everyone to pray and trust the Lord to grant us open doors and good weather in the days to come. We had also received news that Jerusalem received a metre of snow and was struggling to cope. Thousands of homes were without power, roads were closed, many motorists were trapped in vehicles, the army had to be called in to help. The Jerusalem mayor called it a snow tsunami. We were told the last time there was so much snow was a hundred years ago. We were in a historic moment but it worried us. That night we prayed with earnest.

Feeding the seagulls at lake of Galilee
Feeding the seagulls at lake of Galilee

Wonderful joy and praise at sea of Galilee
Second trip together to Holy Land

The next morning, the lake of Galilee was safe for the boats and that was a testimony to God’s faithfulness and grace. When they played a song of praise on the boat, great joy broke out, and like little children we laughed, fed the seagulls, played and took photos. Later while on the boat, I conducted the “eucharist” which means “thanksgiving”. How appropriate.

Enjoying the Dead Sea (photo: Tiffany)
Enjoying the Dead Sea (photo: Tiffany)

Power returned: cable car to Masada
Power returned: cable car to Masada

The path to Masada
The path to Masada

The rest of the trip we had similar encounters of God’s faithfulness and power. Several places were initially closed to us because of the cold weather or power failure. The Dead Sea was closed due to the weather. Masada had a power failure so the cable cars were paralyzed. However the next day, the weather turned sunny and power was restored so we went to both the Dead Sea and the Masada with great joy.

From the Mount of Olives: a snowed over view of old city
From the Mount of Olives: a snowed over view of old city

Remant snow at Al Aqsa mosque
Remant snow at Al Aqsa mosque

The view from the Church of St Peter in Gallicantu
The view from the Church of St Peter in Gallicantu

2013 In the footsteps of Jesus pilgrimage
2013 In the footsteps of Jesus pilgrimage

It was the same for Jerusalem. With all the TV coverage of closure of roads, very cold temperatures and trapped tourists, we wondered if we could enter Jerusalem for the last leg of our pilgrimage – the via dolorosa. God opened the way. We saw cars and buses from Jerusalem with thick snow on their roofs. This meant the roads have been cleared. We were excited and so thankful when we entered the holy city and stood at the Mount of Olives. The panorama of the old Jerusalem under snow was a special, unique and rare sight. We were privileged and blessed to be there at that moment.

We came to see the holy land but we also saw the living God in action. This was one blessed and awesome pilgrimage.

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