Day 7: We are family!

I've got all my pilgrims with me :D

Our pilgrim family is growing bigger and closer everyday, and I love it!  Today, we bonded over a short trip to the hospital, in which my role was moral support, a tea party, Mass, and dinner.  Here are a few members of the fam:

From left to right, we have Brendan (Pilgrim Grandfather), Chris (my pilgrim brother), Father Pascal (Shepherd), me, and Gille (aka French Boss). All three of them are hilarious, wise, and wonderful. Brendan hurt his foot over the past few days.  He isn't sure if he'll walk very far tomorrow, so he took us all out to dinner tonight in case he loses us tomorrow.  I hope he doesn't!

Today we started walking from Los Arcos around 6:45am, and we arrived in Viana around 11am--before the albergue (hostel) even opened.  The entire morning was cloudy, which means that the whole time we were walking it was cool.  What a blessing!

Tiki pilgrim!

So this is the backyard of our little albergue:

And the local church:

Is this real life?!? Thank You, Jesus!!

Today has been a good, restful, pilgrim family bonding time stop.  Chris took his first nap, which was great.  We met some new pilgrims, and said goodbye to some old pilgrim friends that decided to go farther today.  It's been amazing to see how God has really hand picked our fellow pilgrims for us, and this gift of Hos had been one of the biggest blessings of the journey so far.

A common characteristic I've started to notice among pilgrims is openness.  Regardless of where they are in life, how they are living, or what they are struggling with, they seem to have a unique and rare openness, an openness accompanied by bravery, and they own it.  "I am against that, I don't agree with this, but I'm here, I'm listening , and I'm open."  This openness is one of the reasons that the Lord can work on the Camino, and He is working.  It's an openness and a bravery that is inspiring (and challenging!) to me.  Brendan told me a joke today that I'd heard before, but that I needed to hear again: How can you make God laugh?  Tell Him your plans for the future.

I decided to go on this pilgrimage less only about a month ago, which is relatively last minute.  Some pilgrims we've met have been dreaming of this their whole lives.  When I decided to go, I knew it was what Jesus wanted, but I didn't think I wanted it yet.  Surely there were better things I could be doing, and I missed my family!  Now, after just these first seven days, I am in awe at what the Lord has done with me and the other pilgrims.  This is reassuring to me that, yes, this is what God wanted, and that if I live with brave pilgrim openness, He will not disappoint, only pleasantly surprise.  Pope Francis said a few angelus's ago that a Church that cannot be surprised is a Church that is weak, sick, and dying.  As I mentioned a few days ago, life on earth is a pilgrimage of the Church, and just as a Church that cannot be surprised is weak, sick, and dying, so is the pilgrim.  Pilgrims who are alive are pilgrims who are bravely open to surprises of a trustworthy God.  "Let the Lord surprise you," Papa Francesco encourages so earnestly.  Well, the pilgrims have decided to bravely give Him that chance, and they've given Him about 38 days to start with. Ready, go!

+JMJ+