Before I Go

As I wrote in my earlier post today, beginning next week I will walk a medieval pilgrimage route through northern Spain. I fly out of Texas April 29, then walk the approximate 500 miles from May 2 through June 6 (?), depending on how long it takes me to get to Santiago. Regardless, I fly home from Madrid June 10. My overall purpose is twofold: 1) to give thanks to God for all the things in my life; and 2) to s-l-o-w myself d-o-w-n (mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually) to hear Him and see Him more clearly.

I will write in a journal as I go. When I return, I will transfer my journal into blog entries here. I am on Facebook too, under Kaye Robinson Johnson.

If you are interested in the history, legend and/or culture of El Camino de Santiago (aka The Way of St James), a few good websites are: http://www.caminosantiagodecompostela.com/camino-de-santiago-frances, http://www.caminoadventures.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_St._James.

My favorite books on the subject are Hiking the Camino (500 Miles with Jesus) by Father Dave Pivonka, and To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim's Journey to Santiago de Compostela by Kevin A. Codd. A 2010 movie by Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen called "The Way" shows many of the places I'll walk, and makes me cry. Ha. It's available on Netflix.

I will read from Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ each morning as a devotional and thought-provoker, beginning May 1 with Book One, Chapter One. I will read a chapter a day (they are short) and continue straight through into Book Two, etc. One of my dear friends offered to read long with me and thus feel a sense of kinship knowing we would be dwelling on the same spiritual ideas each day. If you would like to join us, please feel free - I think it's a great idea!

Buen Camino!

Life is a Journey

Not new, but true.

From the womb to sunlight and air, even the newborn travels an arduous path. A year-old learning to walk may please proud parents, but to the child it is as much a necessity as eating and drinking. An internal drive pushes him to pull up, step forward, and rally from falls whether or not he has an engaged audience. He must mobilize.

Childhood brings speed and confidence, as he literally runs circles around adults, kicks up dust and tugs on parents' hands and patience like a puppy on a leash. He savors the world we've forgotten: pill bugs and four-leaf clovers, cracks in sidewalks and underneath tables, turtles in clouds and joy in mud. He has no fear and wants no restraint.

Wait - that's a teenager - a larger version of the carefree child, with a longer stride and a newfound purpose (freedom, girls, music, money?) for his journeying. He has more skill and bravado (both false and true) and therefore greater ability to venture further away to see more of the world he has only heard of vicariously.

Before long, the young adult makes commitments (college, career, marriage, children?) which quickly determine new routes and new horizons, while simultaneously limiting choices tremendously. While each decision inherently narrows future options, and we know we cannot choose both roads at the fork, we begin all too often to live in a state of physical motion, but of emotional "what if's" and spiritual drought. We imprison ourselves and don't even try the key in our hand. We want to stop and smell the roses, but we are so intent on getting to our goal we don't even glance down at our feet. We push to go farther faster, but our goal is a mirage we never reach.

In middle age, our previous somewhat private road becomes a super highway on which we lose our personal rhythm, increase our speed to match others' and often don't see our next turn until we have passed it. Once we finally do reach our destination (success), we are frazzled, tired and don't know why we ever left home. We stripped joy from our journey. We turn it into work, a chore, computing how many miles remain, how much we will pay for gas, and letting GPS direct us rather than our own intellect or even intuition. "Are we there YET?"

.....I've always loved traveling, especially road trips, from as a kid (one month east; one month west), to taking my girls to California (I-10 out, I-40 back), to Banff alone (6,100 miles in three weeks). Now, I'm being led to take a different kind of road trip: a pilgrimage.

Side trips on life's journey make the strongest impressions and memories, as they are less expected, less planned, and more spontaneous. My ultimate final destination has always remained the same: in God's embrace. In the last several years, I've seen, smelled, tasted, touched and felt more of this big beautiful world, learning to love it with more passion and less judgment, smelling wild random weeds more often than cultivated roses and counting their aroma as sweet. Paradoxically, as I enjoy my journeys more than ever before, each step draws me nearer my final destination. Although I occasionally want to ask "Am I there yet?" I am definitely not ready for the answer to be Yes.

My pilgrimage will teach me how to enhance the entire remainder of my journey, like a gorgeous spring day teaches the heart to sing. I will decompress myself, slowing down to a snail's pace to appreciate nature's detailed beauty and my own humanity as a part of that beauty. As a child has insatiable curiosity, I desire inexhaustible gratitude. Not "Thanks" but "Oh. My. God. Wow!"

So I will walk. Alone mostly. 500 miles. In a foreign country. On a path Christians have walked over a 1,000 years. I will streamline my life, carrying very few necessities on my back. I will listen more than talk, eat and drink whatever, whenever and wherever it is available, sleep wherever I stop, and follow God's lead each step, rather than my own pre-planned, controlled, created route. If it rains, I will thank God for feeding his world, and if it's cold I will thank God that our own heart and core gives us warmth. I will worship in Catholic churches and be honored to steep my soul in their ancient traditions. I will hear God's voice in many tongues and see his love in smiles and good deeds and hospitality.

As a stroke victim relearns how to speak, eat and dress herself, I desire to relearn how to listen, be fed by and honor God. Although I have made a few plans (like plane tickets), I will allow God to stretch me into flexibility and spontaneity, trusting that he knows better than I. "The best laid plans of mice and men..." I give up control, which is my greatest sacrifice. I give myself and this pilgrimage to God. May you hold me in your arms so tightly that I cannot breathe without thinking of your grasp on my heart!

Buen Camino.

Sharing Pain

A friend recently made the comment that "No one can truly share your pain. They cannot take any of it from you." 


If we're talking physical pain, that's obviously true. Medications may mask pain, by inhibiting the nerve receptors, but they themselves do not treat the cause of pain or heal the injury. So, while another person may prescribe or administer pain relieving medicine that reduces my physical discomfort (I hated it when they described labor pains as "discomfort" rather than pain -- call a spade a spade!), they are not taking the pain upon themselves in any way. That is relief, but not healing, and certainly not sharing. When a child falls off a bicycle and hurts himself, his mother would take her child's pain away in a heartbeat if it were possible, but it's just not. She comforts him, and reduces his fear and embarrassment as much as possible, but she cannot remove the source of his pain.


With emotional pain, it's not as clear. Wikipedia's definition of empathy is "the capacity to recognize, and to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another person". Dictionary.com says empathy is "the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another". Quite a difference. 


One reason I love reading is to learn how other people think, feel, and live. The Bell Jar helps me understand suicidal tendencies; All Quiet on the Western Front helps me understand the horrors of a WWI soldier; To Kill a Mockingbird helps me understand the repercussions of prejudice; autobiographies and biographies help me understand a person's journey, decisions, actions and reactions.


I can identify with the feelings of rejection, domination, or violence of a rape victim, but I am not sharing her feelings. I can have sympathy with the feelings of loss of a family member who has lost a loved one, but I am not lessening that person's pain. I can have compassion for the unfairness of prejudice, but I am not able to change the ignorant person's viewpoint.


However, even if I can't literally share in someone else's pain, I can let her know that I care and I would if I could. When I am sick or hurt, I just want to be left alone -- I don't like attention that intensifies my isolation. BUT, it is comforting to some degree to know that there are people who are willing to help, who care how I feel, and who give a rip about me. No, they can't share in my pain, any more than they can share in my happiness. We live a very individual and personal life within ourselves, an existence that only we and God truly know. Therein lies the only true answer. No one else on earth can share our sorrows and our joys. But God is beyond our relationship with other people. He knows our innermost souls. He lives in our hearts. He, too, feels emotions, and He recognizes our feelings without us having to put them into words. He understands our personal intimacy, and therefore He shares our pain.


He gets me, and He cares. And for that, I am truly grateful and truly comforted.

Wanderlust

I am afflicted and/or blessed with chronic wanderlust. Some people have a mild case, and others have never experienced it at all. And yes, I enable myself. The more I go, the more I want to go.

For me, it's genetic. I blame my parents, specifically my mother, and her mother before her. My grandmother graduated from college as a very young woman, and rather than take a traditional teaching job in Oklahoma, she went to New Mexico to teach the Indians. Alone. And loved it.

My mother graduated from college as a young woman, and rather than take a traditional teaching job in Fort Worth, she and my father went to the Territory of Hawaii where she occasionally taught barefoot and learned to hula dance. And loved it.

I graduated from college as a young woman, and I went into business, being a landMAN in Lafayette, Louisiana, which was another world to me. Alone. And loved it.

Once I married and had children, in our poor years, we went camping. And loved it.

My parents began a yearly family trip, taking my and my brother's families on vacation. We started small, renting a rollover church van and driving to Oklahoma. Then branched out farther and farther, until we were cruising around the world. And loved it.

I've infected my own daughters with wanderlust. I also now experience solitary episodes, which are incredibly enjoyable.

What is it that drives me to leave the home I love? To venture out into unknown worlds, lands, foods, people, cultures? Partly it's curiosity, which supposedly killed the cat, but most likely won't kill me. Even so, it's an adrenaline rush to make sure I do survive. One of my mottos is "as long as I don't die, it'll be a great story later." Partly it's humility, to see how others not only live, but live happily and contentedly. To see how other countries (and even states) make choices different than what I am accustomed to living with, and do well. To see that our way is not the only way. Partly it's energizing, to be "on" 24/7, knowing each second cannot be completely expected nor will ever be repeated. To appreciate life so intensely, when I am used to taking time and life for granted. Partly it's inspiring, to see places where history actually happened; to learn to believe in the past. Partly it's encouraging, to meet people so vastly different from me, that I immediately connect with and know I could forge friendships with, given more time. Partly it's the unpredictability, to taste new things and either love exotic flavors, or attempt to swallow fast (so as to not spit it out at my host) with some semblance of a smile.

Wanderlust is immediately understood by others similarly infected. They get it, this strong, innate desire to travel about, with or without a destination. Others think it's a waste of time and money. A foolhardy slap in the face of Texas, or America. Like many things, it depends on the beholder. It is almost a necessity to me; it would be rash and stupid for them. Thank God for individuality!

Sunday we sang the hymn Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing and reached the words "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it!"  I immediately felt my heart soar, as those words express exactly my heart. And then, I felt convicted, as it continued "Prone to leave the God I love." Oh, how sad that those words also express my heart too often. But finally, "Here's my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above." Amen.

Leaving home is only worth it because I get to return to the place I love most. The people I love most. Home. I pray that my wanderlust does not permeate my spiritual life as it does my physical life. There is truly no place like Home.

Senior Moments

Someone recently requested I post my Baccalaureate speech of 1998, so here 'tis.


What I want to speak to you about tonight is simple, really. I have had all year long to discuss philosophy, ethics and morals with you. I love doing that, and that is the main reason I love literature. But tonight, I want to talk about your own personal future. You have used up the last page in your spirals, turned in your public education textbooks, and cleaned out your lockers for the last time. No more laws require you to learn. You have used up all of your wide-ruled notebook paper. You are free!


So, now what? Some of you have your lives planned out for the next four years, already having been accepted to a college; some of you have committed to join the armed forces; some of you plan on attending a vocational school for two years, then working at a trade; some of you are planning on working immediately, while others of you are still struggling with these decisions.


What I want you to think about tonight has absolutely no bearing on which of these options you have chosen. Your future plans are totally irrelevant. Your future goals, regardless of great intentions, do not matter. What matters, is now: this very moment, tomorrow, and the next day. Who you are today determines who you will be tomorrow. When I see you 5, 10, or 20 years from now, what I look forward to seeing in you is not what you have become, but who you have become.


I am certainly not saying that education is unimportant, or that the decisions you are making right now are frivolous. They are most obviously consequential. However, your future has already begun: today. Think of the people you know who are truly happy. Is it their social position in life, their money, their wife or husband, or their possessions that make them happy? No. The people I know who are truly happy find their happiness within themselves. It is their ability to be content in this world, regardless of their circumstances. Henry Van Dyke said "What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever."


God judges man by who he is, not by what he has accomplished, what he has achieved, or by what material success he has accumulated. I challenge you to do no less. John Luther said "Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece - by thought, choice, courage and determination."


Right now you are each facing a crossroads. Which road you take will indeed make all the difference. Again, I am not speaking of educational success, material success or even the American dream. I am speaking of your success as a person - how you treat others, the value of your word, the honor and respect you give God. Proverbs 23:7 says "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Be the person God created you to be, and you will be a success, whether you are a prominent attorney or a construction worker. This is success. This is what you should focus on today. Then tomorrow will follow accordingly. An old Japanese proverb says "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." God will give each of you a vision of the character He created you to be. Act on it now, and you will succeed.


I decided to complete one of the many assignments I have given you, so here it is:

The Seniors of '98

This poem is for you, the Seniors of '98

For letting me see the potential in your eyes

And the world in your smiles

For reading aloud voluntarily, sometimes

For reading between the lines all the time

For honestly taking in knowledge - don't ever stop.

For showing yourselves and me the depth of your understanding

From Beowulf, to Shakespeare, to Frankenstein.

For allowing yourselves to truly learn about others through words

For allowing yourselves to truly learn about yourselves through thoughts

For your never-ending sense of humor,

From orang-och-tang to sWord.

For the fears you now have of leaving home

For the fears you now have of never leaving home.

For expressing kindnesses to those who are similar to yourself

For expressing compassion to those who are not similar to yourself

For detesting cruelty, lies, and injustice enough to refuse to participate

For desiring truth and honor enough to refuse to settle for anything less.

This poem is for you, the Seniors of 1998

For sharing yourselves with me,

For being you,

I love you.

Happy Un-Valentine's Day

See http://www.despair.com/bittersweets.html for a smile.


No, I don't hate love, but I do hate Valentine's Day. It pressures everyone to prove to the world that they have a current love, find a new one quickly, or fake it. From elementary school Valentine's parties, we start pushing our children to fall in love, choose one person over everyone else, and feel dejected when that person invariably chooses someone else. Ugh. Yeah, we sugarcoat it with giving a Scooby Doo Valentine's card to everyone in the room, but deep inside there's always that hope that He or She will know and respond.


If you love someone, let her know every day. Flowers are special only when they are given spontaneously, not when they are mandated gifts according to florists. Candy is special only when chosen with care, not in a token heart-shaped box from Walgreen's. A card is special only when either hand-made (not coerced) or timed appropriately to meet a personal special occasion, not because Hallmark has a specially-themed card available for purchase this week only.


Yeah, encourage kids to show their love to their mothers, but wouldn't it be better to have a sincere peck on the cheek or squeeze of the hand than a dozen red carnations? And when does it become right for fathers to give romantic gifts to their daughters? That's a bit creepy in my book.


Plus, what about the inevitable gift from someone you don't like? Everyone feels awkward, and it could have easily been avoided if the susceptible nerd had just kept his place. Don't encourage stupidity.

Amigos

Yesterday, I found a new friend. How does that happen? It's like dating without the drama. But what is it exactly that determines an instant connection with someone else?

If it's someone of the opposite sex, then society usually calls it chemistry, and assumes it's flirty, sexual in nature. Can a man and a woman be just friends? Yes and no. The men in my life that have been my best friends have been just that. They get me, I can trust them, we laugh a lot together, but in the next breath can talk about matters of substance. But inevitably, problems arise. Either they, their wives/significant others, or society deems that there must be something more in the relationship than just friendship. It is so stinking frustrating! Probably, a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm single, and that creates an assumption in many people's minds that I'm on the prowl. Yeah, right.

If it's someone of the same sex, then it's acceptable. For me, a friendship with a woman is easier in the long run, but harder up front. Maybe it's because I don't want to compete, but feel we're always sizing each other up. Maybe it's because women in general don't have the same sense of humor I do (that of either a 12-year-old boy or a sarcastic, crass old man). Maybe it's because I am self-sufficient (both because I have to be and I want to be), and I see many women flaunting their dependence on men. Maybe it's because I've heard mean, gossipy things from women, and am wary of being targeted. Maybe it's because I'm not AS interested in talking about the same things: shopping, children, animals, domesticated life.

However, once friendship with a woman is established, then it is there for the rest of my life. Miraculously. My best friend from the 4th grade attends the same church I do, and although we don't hang around together, I know that if I needed her, she'd come running. And vice versa. In July, I saw a friend of mine I hadn't seen in about 15 years, and we fell right back into being friends, although I may not see her again for as many years. In August, I got together with friends from college, some of whom hadn't seen each other for 30 years. Yet, it was incredibly easy, nice, and truly affirming to renew our friendships, regardless of the differing paths our lives have taken in the interim.

But what draws us together initially? Sometimes, it's purely experiences we go through together that create friendship. Due to difficult or even wonderful (but usually intense) exposure to the same event, a shared understanding and trust develops, sometimes immediately. But that is understandable due to the rarity of the event, and the obvious commonality between the two people.

What about meeting new people for the first time, when you just know you enjoy that person's presence? It often happens when someone is similar to us, whether it be in outward appearance, age, passion, interests, or vocation. It's easy to have much in common with someone like yourself. But that's not completely it. I often find people like me boring. I don't want to hang around with clones.

I don't have the answer, but I sure am grateful for whatever it is. That spark of potential intimacy known as friendship is an unexpected windfall, a hope for more.