The Castle at the Top of the Hill (JULY 11, 2015)

Estella to Villamayor de Monjardín July 10, 2015,  13.4 km 19,925 steps

Well, the Camino never fails to provide opportunities for spiritual growth. Somehow in making the decision to do this Camino with my daughter, I just assumed I would be the guide. That's what happens when I forget I'm not in charge, that I have a power in my life that provides the needed guidance. I just need to stay tuned.  

A Crooked Stairway

 I felt that walking with someone else would be a different experience from the three I have walked alone. I just didn't have any idea how different it would be, not because of anything my daughter has done or not done, but because my own failure to let go and let God. 

I'm hopeful that now that I have a clue as to the nature of the problem, I will be able to learn whatever lessons I am here to learn. It always boils down to something I learned some thirty years ago: the situation is not the problem, the problem is my reaction to the situation. This is a good thing because I usually have no control over the situation, but I do have things I can do to change my reaction. 

A case in point is this Camino. It has not gone as I had planned from the start. The weather has been hotter than expected and extremely humid. I got heat stroke on Day 1. Day 2 Leea's foot started hurting. This meant slowing down, doing smaller stages. But there are all these things I wanted to show her, wanted her to get to experience. 

It took her talking the other night, at the communal dinner at La Casa Magica, about not wanting to let what she does for a living get in the way of her life. I always had to remind myself that I work to live, I don't live to work. Anyway, I realized I was letting the Camino, or my expectations of what this Camino should be, get in the way of the fun experience we were having. 

We really enjoy each other's company and laugh a lot, no matter what. One time we came to Spain for three months to live in an apartment in Andulucia. Our plan was disrupted by cockroaches. I mean real cockroaches crawling on me while I slept. I could not get rid of them, so our plan was changed. We traveled all over Spain, spending a week here and a week there. We had a great time. 

So the lesson I am learning for about the zillionth time is that God's plan is always better than mine. It matters not whether we walk every step of the Camino, see every inch of the Camino, complete it or don't complete it. It matters whether we enjoy our time together. And, we have been doing that despite my interference. 

Yesterday Leea grabbed my phone out of my hand and proceeded to plan out our next ten days. I started to object and tell her she was missing stuff, but I quieted down and saw that it was a perfect plan, because it was her discovering her own Camino. So, thanks God, I think I'll turn the wheel over to you now. You drive the bus.