The picturesque nature walk provided ample time to walk in solitude with reflection. Granite distance markers with bright yellow arrows served to keep me going in the right direction, but also collected small stones and indications of those who had passed before. Trails often have rock piles to aid hikers in finding their way, but on the Camino, cairns signify far more. This was what Rev. Mary meant about bringing rocks. Pilgrims bring prayers, troubles, hopes and gratitude with them in the form of a stone, shell, photo, ribbon and other mementos. When I walked alone, I thought about the whys behind the rocks, and acutely on why God called me to walk the Camino. The physical challenge is one aspect, yet for me the call to go deep and seek connection evoked far more energy and emotion. My heart stirred most when I saw the baby socks, small and dusted with soot. What did they signify? The possibilities swayed from joy for a newborn to a still born child. A hope lost in never conceiving, perhaps never finding the mate to marry, or worse, making a regretted life decision to abort. In any case, the small speck of white fluff among thousands of stones showed surrender to God, the only power to heal and give life a fresh beginning. Near those same socks I found a beautiful photo of a woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties, smiling with oar in hand from an orange kayak, long black hair shimmering in the sun. A prayer, personal and typed, protected the photo. Was this a parent longing for a daughter to return home, a girlfriend who slipped away to another love, or a fiancé soon to walk down the aisle in joy? And then a tube of lipstick. What an odd surrender, or was it? Perhaps it meant a return to true self with vanity forestalled, cancer killing hope of beauty, or the best kiss of love forever treasured. I took two rocks and left them at two different points along the trail. These stones blend in with all the thousands of other ones, unlike the distinctive socks, photo and lipstick I encountered. Yet the magnitude of the number of prayers and petitions crying from each of these stones and mementos speaks to the vast call for God’s protection. Surrender materialized in each artifact, and for me I learned to visualize each of life’s challenges in the form of a stone placed with prayer along the Camino. A verse from Proverbs 3, verses 5-6 explains this: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths.” My walk on the Camino will stay with me forever and I will always see an infant pair of socks in a new and blessed way.
THE ARCHANGEL | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2019
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