A place that heals you
A place that heals you, and a place that inspires you. These are the two places we need to go often. And I’m grateful for your notes and encouragement, as I’m preparing to revisit healing and inspiring places from my Portuguese Camino journey one year ago.
So many wrote to me after my first Camino, to tell me of your own Caminos—sacred journeys—in different parts of the world. And others to tell me “It’s definitely on the bucket list”.
Our script on this journey targeted us to be in Santiago tomorrow. But here’s what I’m learning (and too easily disremembering): Life seems to ignore the script we have in our mind. Ahh yes. Pack simply and lightly. Manage your expectations: Something will probably go wrong.
So, yes. It makes me smile big. Let’s just say, we’ll be in Santiago on Tuesday.
I know I write about this—but realize I need to repeat it, for my own absorption; on life’s pilgrimage, God is not waiting until we have it all figured out. The gift of life is in this present moment.
We forget that life is not “a script”. Life is a choice. We choose. This is an invitation to participate in this life. To bring all that I am to the table of this moment. To invest my heart. To spill light where I can. What Barbara Kingsolver calls a “conspiracy with life.” Stories that are reminders of sufficiency and the sacrament of the present, to help us not give way to any restrictive narrative of fear.
Today, I am remembering the Camino story of my friend Phil Volker: You never know where you will find miracles. It could be in your own back yard.
In 2014, Phil Volker completed 909 laps on a trail, walking the distance—a 500-mile trek—of El Camino de Santiago, a well-known Christian pilgrimage in Northern Spain. Except that Phil Volker lives on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound, where he walks most every day around a well-worn half-mile path through his 10-acre property.
One other note: Phil Volker has stage-four cancer.
And this: his story makes my heart very glad.
If his doctors give final approval, Volker will go from backyard pilgrim to actual pilgrim when he flies to Spain to walk the real deal.
“I wanted to experience it,” Volker said “but if I don’t get to go, I’m going to be happy with what I’ve got here. It’s more than I thought I could do.”
Volker’s journey began three years ago when he was diagnosed with colon cancer, something he now calls the first “C” in his life.
The diagnosis led him to the second “C,” the Catholic church (more specifically St. John Vianney here on Vashon) where he’s found meaning, support and friendship.
“Having a life-threatening obstacle, it straightens your priorities out,” he says.
Volker first learned of the walk after he was given The Way (a 2012 film featuring Martin Sheen and the El Camino de Santiago). I remember the first time I watched the film. It hooks you where you least expect it. “The Way” is a poignant and inspirational story about family, friends, and the challenges we face while navigating loss, including the loss of our expectations and dreams. Martin Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son Daniel (played by Emilio Estevez), killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking the Camino de Santiago known as The Way of Saint James. Rather than return home, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage to honor his son’s desire to savor the journey. What Tom doesn’t plan on is the profound impact the journey will have on him and his “California Bubble Life.” In flashbacks, we learn that his son died estranged, embarking on a life Tom called wasteful and frivolous. In one scene Daniel tells his father, “That’s just it Dad. You don’t choose a life, you live one.”
That’s why Volker’s story resonates. He’s living life. Even as life turns left.
Life seems to ignore the script we have in our mind. And when that happens, we walk. We walk toward, or we walk away. Either way, we begin a journey—a pilgrimage to find or restore or forgive or heal, or to forget or bury; or perhaps, just to have the deck of our world shuffled.
Phil Volker is walking toward. And El Camino has become his third “C.”
“It’s become an international phenomenon,” Volker says. “You’re walking in the footsteps of millions of people who have come before you.”
Believing he was too ill to travel and walk such a long distance, Volker (who is also a hiker) set about recreating the walk closer to home. Last December the trail was blessed by Father Marc Powell of St. John Vianney, and Volker began to walk.
Walking the trail Volker frequently passes posts with scallop shells—the symbol of the Camino. He walks by hanging bird feeders, well-worn hunting targets in the woods and a small steam with a line of rocks to cross it. When a dog in a neighboring yard approaches the fence, he promptly produces a treat from his pocket.
“It seems to be different every time,” he says of the walk.
There’s a reason. Volker is seldom alone as he walks on any of his 909 laps. Over 100 friends, family members, acquaintances and even doctors from Swedish Hospital have accompanied Volker on various legs of the walk.
(Note: That number swelled to over 1000 through 2021.)
Volker keeps careful records in a logbook, daily recording how far he walks (as many as 6 miles a day), whom he walks with and where he would be on the actual Camino.
The walking is not only good for the soul, it seems, but also good for his health. Because recent scans have come back clean, Volker says, it bodes well for his trip to Spain. If two more scans come back clean, doctors will give him the okay to skip one chemo treatment and spend four weeks in July and August walking the El Camino; where he will walk the final 100 kilometers to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, a stretch required to receive a certificate of completion.
Yes, Phil Volker is looking forward to what the Camino will hold, but at the same time says he’s already been changed on his own backyard journey.
“It’s really enriched my life. My life has never been richer than it is right now,” Volker says.
Coming to the end of last week’s walk, Volker bends down to pick up a stone and tosses it onto a large pile of rocks in front of his home. He explains that each rock represents a prayer said either by him or a guest after finishing a walk, similar to a tradition on the real Camino.
“All of these things got prayed for,” he says. “Maybe there are miracles in there that happened.”
As long as I focus on any destination, and not the journey (the pilgrimage), I’ll keep asking “what’s next?” And give myself a healthy dose of grief for being a slacker.
Which is a good way of saying that I’m missing what the ordinary, and my own back yard, is trying to teach me: there’s a wonderful bright shadow to embrace.
Thank you, Phil Volker, for walking toward.
(And here’s the rest of the story: Phil was able to walk the kilometers needed into Santiago to receive his certificate. His journey is recorded on film, Phil’s Camino. Phil died in 2021.)
Onward together my friends…
Quote for our week…
“Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.” Lynne Twist
BULLETIN BOARD
Today’s Photo Credit: “Terry, Took our first trip to the Grand Tetons. Just what you said this morning is spot on. ‘Two places we need to go often (a place that heals us and a place that inspires us)’ and this trip did just that. We already planned another trip out west to experience more of God’s creation and soak it into our souls. Thank you for helping so many of us every day with your words. You are a true gift! There are so many pics to choose from. I’ll let you pick. Enjoy your pilgrimage! Blessings,” Sue Stockard… Thank you Sue… Thank you to all, I love your photos… please, keep sending them… send to terryhersheyster@gmail.com
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Sabbath Moment Audio — Let us be the light of hope
POEM AND PRAYER
I Need Some Laughter, Lord
I have had enough
of sad saints
and sour religion.
I have had enough
of sin spotting
and grace doubting.
I need some laughter, Lord,
the kind you planted in Sarah.
But, please may I not have to wait
until I am ninety
and pregnant.
Church of Scotland Prayer
Celtic Daily Prayer: Book Two (2015)
A Blessing for Presence
May you awaken to the mystery of being here
And enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift
And find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift,
Woven around the heart of wonder.
John O’Donohue
