Wade's "My Camino" Page

14/03/2026

Milestone day. All gear for the journey is in place. Training hikes are underway in earnest. I even have tentative dinner plans on May 11 in Pamplona with an Irish pilgrim who arrives the same day. We will take a bus from Pamplona the following day to our starting point in St. Jean Pied de Port on the French side of the Pyrenees Mountains before walking the following day. It’s getting really real. I have so much support from family, friends, my co-workers and managers and from my church who are accommodating my 6 away from the pulpit. I can’t even begin to express gratitude enough for all the ways this past year or so has formed me for this journey, nor the happenstance of just the right people either entering my life or stepping to the fore to help me get ready physically, mentally and spiritually. I set this goal a little less than seven years ago. Only now am I finally ready!

17/02/2026

It seems impossible that this is less than three months from now. I have gathered nearly every piece of gear than I will need for this pilgrimage walk through Spain beginning May 13. I’ve been much more deliberate about training since December. The sort of unintended benefit has been 10 lost pounds. My wind is as strong as I can remember since I went to college. In 2019 my marriage ended and the next 4+ years I wandered, although I thought I was shifting gears and stepping into a new career and new life as a single person. In so many ways that time was jarring and sometimes felt disastrous. Over that time I somehow found my person and found a life that looks different than I could have envisioned or orchestrated. I have been describing this current period in the year since I committed to the May-June dates as being “pregnant with possibility.” All of this has come through some deep personal work. I made walking the 500-mile French Route of the Camino de Santiago a goal in 2019. At the time I was in the very worst physical condition ever, weighing over 300 pounds, depressed and overwhelmed. This upcoming adventure has been nearly seven years in the making. I am grateful to so many people who walked with me from the beginning. I would name them all here, but I am afraid I might forget many. My family and friends have been present and patient. I imagine that in some form or fashion I’ve tightened my inner circle, mostly, and perhaps unintentionally to work on some old wounds that haven’t healed. Some of those have been buried and forgotten until recently. On the Camino there is a saying: “Our possessions are our burden.” Most often it feels like that refers to our backpacks and the unnecessary things we tend to pack. Often you will see clothing and other things left along the way, which is a tangible sign of shedding unneeded or unwanted burdens. I can’t say that I have laid down all of the burdens that I need to. I can say that I am more willing to see those things and to work toward shedding them. This Camino, for me, will be an opportunity to make some progress in that regard, an perhaps to uncover more. Today marks 30 years and 9 days since I began my sober journey. Sobriety these days is much different than those early days. I am grateful to those of you who have tolerated me and supported me along this way. I’ve included some of this people in my post and I am certain I have omitted others because of my aging brain. And while it is true that I will likely be carrying nessesary items in my pack, I will have each of you who I’ve named or known accompanying me in 85 days! Peace! Buen Camino!

30/01/2026

29/12/2025

This picture was taken in Fonfria (Spain) the night before I began my first walk on the Camino de Santiago in 2022. In 2019 I wrote down a goal to do this pilgrimage walk “someday.” At the time, that “someday” meant losing 100 pounds and finding the right time. In my mind’s eye at that time I intended to walk the French Route, a nearly 500 mile trek. In 2022, 2023 and 2024 I walked the final 60+ miles of the French Route with a group organized and led by Jeana Martin. I took 2025 off from walking to prepare for 2026 and the culmination of that original goal. It feels like I h travelled a million miles emotionally and physically in the last 4+ years.

As 2025 ends in just 3 days, I am turning my full attention to May 10, when I will board a plane to Madrid and begin walking May 13.

The photo above reminds me how relaxed I was that first night in Spain. When I think about all the people and all the ways I have been supported through prayer, encouragement, and love by so many people I am so grateful.

15/11/2025

Inspired by Spain, made in Texas!

21/10/2025

I opened this page with the intention to share about preparation for this upcoming pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. At the same time I have been engaged in some deep personal work and spiritual work with my spiritual director. (If you don’t have one, I highly recommend it!) And so it has been a minute since I posted here.

One of the current themes for me is about home and safety. As a child the two iterations of my family were each transient. As young child it was just me and my mother who was a single mom from before I was a year old. It was the early 60’s and while I don’t remember a lot about it (including how many places we actually lived) I was always fearful and didn't know safety until I was about 3 or 4, when we moved into the basement of a dear family, The Manns. That was the very first place I can remember feeling completely safe. We lived there for three safe years until I was six.

Not long after that, Mom remarried my stepdad, Frank Lindstrom, an Army officer. All the sudden I had two sisters and a Dad who was harsh and abusive at times.

I wouldn’t feel safety again until I moved into my first apartment without roommates when I was nearly 30 years old. I can specifically remember from birth to now, living in 45 different places. That number includes at least 3 places that I returned to after living there before. That number probably doesn’t include several places I was too young to remember, but 45 is the minimum.

I turned 64 last week, so the math says that on average I spent just under 18 months at each location, but I lived in a few of those places for up to 4 years. Out of those places, I actually felt completely safe in five of them. I am grateful to be in a safe place today.

That kind of disorientation still lives in me. I am often unsettled for no reason that I can identify - out of pure habit.

One of the reasons I love the Camino is that in the three short experiences I have had (Waking the last 114km of the French Route), I always felt safe in deeply emotional and spiritual ways while walking pilgrimage.

As I prepare to walk 5-6 weeks and nearly 500 miles next year in Spain, I am relishing being safely able to be alone with myself, but also immersed in community with strangers for nearly two months.

There is a sense in which, during this moment in my life, the Camino represents safety and home. This time of preparation and anticipation feels pregnant with possibility and with deep peace.

There is more that I can and should say about that, and I will. For now I am as emotionally and spiritually “safe” as I have ever been, and I am deeply grateful for that.

05/10/2025

Camino wisdom: You can’t get lost if you don’t know where you are.

10/09/2025

What we are most afraid of in life is dying, and that for sure is going to happen.