I recently returned from walking for 18 days and 275 miles through the mountains of northeastern Portugal and northwestern Spain—my third time walking the Camino de Santiago (a network of ancient Christian pilgrimage routes in Europe and Spain).
For me, walking the Camino was a precious opportunity to leave the busy-ness of my day-to-day life behind for a little while and enjoy a brief respite from presidential tweets and the almost-daily news about mass shootings, escalating trade wars, burning forests in the Amazon, neo-Confederate and KKK rallies in Hillsborough, or the political stalemate over the state budget and Medicaid expansion.
During my time away, I rarely saw a television screen or heard any news about what was happening here in the United States. And I went days without any WiFi or internet access and days without connecting via social media.
That gave me lots of time for reflection, introspection, contemplation, meditation, and musing as well as just enjoying the silence and being present in the moment (especially during the first 8 days when I walked and ate and slept all by myself) as I walked mile after mile and day after day—through mountains and valleys, through small villages and forests, across ancient bridges, along the remnants of Roman roads, and past vineyards and farms.
But, like Jonah (you know, the guy who got swallowed by a whale), I discovered that you can run (or walk), but you can’t hide.
As I walked, I found myself thinking time and time again about the tens of thousands of women, children, and men who have walked and continue to walk from Central America to the United States fleeing poverty and violence without any money and only the clothes they’re wearing in the hope of a better life. They walked with me, in spirit, step by step along my journey.
It took the news about the mass shooting in El Paso two days to reach me. After I heard the news, I stopped in a church I was passing to light a candle in memory of the victims and then added the weight of America’s epidemic of gun violence to the weight of the backpack I carried.
Coming home (via Paris), I visited the Shoah (Holocaust) Memorial where the Wall of the Righteous of All Nations commemorates the hundreds of French citizens who risked or gave their lives to protect their Jewish neighbors from the Nazis during the Second World War. As I looked at the rows and rows of names inscribed there, I wondered, as I frequently do, what I might or might not have done had I stood in their shoes.
And when I got home, I was greeted by news about the forest fires in the Amazon, the ICE raids in Mississippi, the neo-Confederate and KKK rallies in Hillsborough, Missouri’s attempt to ban abortion, forecasts of a looming economic recession, plans to indefinitely detain parents and children who are seeking asylum at the southern border, and …. I’m sorry. I can’t go on. It’s too much.
Like Jonah, I’ve come to understand that you can run (or walk), but you can’t hide.
Walking the Camino taught me that you can travel thousands of miles and walk through the remote mountains of Portugal and Spain, but you can’t hide from the injustice that exists in this beautiful and broken world.
Walking the Camino reminded me that you can turn off your TV, throw away your newspaper, unplug from social media, and take a vacation on an isolated tropical island (or your own backyard), but you can’t hide from the Spirit of Life that moves within our hearts and heads and hands calling us to “give life the shape of justice.”
I’m back home now (for a while) and I’m not going to run or hide. I’m going to walk and stand and sing and pray and witness and work to build the beloved community of justice, equality, opportunity, inclusion, compassion, care, peace, and love for all. And I invite you to walk with me on that journey.
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