Today is the anniversary of me beginning the Camino del Norte. I want to spend some time ruminating on the adventure last year. It's completely self-indulgent so feel free to ignore!
There is something about passing through a few mishaps that makes such times so memorable.
I had a good conservation with a twelve tribes dad and mum on the beach of Michigan last year. I felt spiritual connection - openness - even as conversation had such divergence in positions and understandings. When I looked up their power structure - how they would settle disputes (which could never work for 'anarchists') and also heard from a friend from Christchurch about how his friend's brother is captured (even as the rest of the family fled) we didn't take up their invite to visit them as they live not far away from me and are fairly aligned and interested in their somewhat agrarian life.
Still there is something immensely powerful about giving up material for the spiritual. Which is, I guess, the el camino experience.
yeah, it was inspiring to think it was possible to live like that, but my suspicion of humans is just so conditioned by my experience. It just seems like fair-weather thinking. There's something in it, but not that expression, and I guess that's one of the reasons I do what I do. :)
There's lots of fair weather thinking - maybe that is all I have experienced?
They felt closer to the experience I had with CLCA in my early twenties but in another dimension. Packaged Pentecostal churches can open you to an experience of the spirit not found in my cerebal upbringing.
To be clear, four years in a Hillsong church took about four years to get over and the experience was essentially suffering.... the kind that has the potential to induce growth. Like the El camino!
![The Camino starts here [ish]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CUpS!,w_80,h_80,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a460be7-7dbf-4860-b3d0-a6b8b6d539c7_720x720.png)
You sound like me when I go away....
There is something about passing through a few mishaps that makes such times so memorable.
I had a good conservation with a twelve tribes dad and mum on the beach of Michigan last year. I felt spiritual connection - openness - even as conversation had such divergence in positions and understandings. When I looked up their power structure - how they would settle disputes (which could never work for 'anarchists') and also heard from a friend from Christchurch about how his friend's brother is captured (even as the rest of the family fled) we didn't take up their invite to visit them as they live not far away from me and are fairly aligned and interested in their somewhat agrarian life.
Still there is something immensely powerful about giving up material for the spiritual. Which is, I guess, the el camino experience.
yeah, it was inspiring to think it was possible to live like that, but my suspicion of humans is just so conditioned by my experience. It just seems like fair-weather thinking. There's something in it, but not that expression, and I guess that's one of the reasons I do what I do. :)
There's lots of fair weather thinking - maybe that is all I have experienced?
They felt closer to the experience I had with CLCA in my early twenties but in another dimension. Packaged Pentecostal churches can open you to an experience of the spirit not found in my cerebal upbringing.
Give us our daily bread!
To be clear, four years in a Hillsong church took about four years to get over and the experience was essentially suffering.... the kind that has the potential to induce growth. Like the El camino!