All posts in Camino de Santiago

  • Returning To The Way of St. James

    Returning To the Way of St. James
    Brian Zahnd

    But I would walk five hundred miles
    And I would walk five hundred more
    Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
    To fall down at your door

    –The Proclaimers

    In the fall of 2016 Peri and I walked 500 miles from St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain along the 1,200 year-old Camino Francés pilgrim route. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. It may have blistered my feet, but it healed my soul. The truth is, when I set out from St.-Jean on September 14, 2016 (Holy Cross Day) I didn’t know how much healing my soul needed. But as we walked into Santiago forty days later I was aware that I had walked into a deep peace that is still with me today. Though it may sound like a cliché, I can honestly say the Camino changed my life. Peri tells the story from her perspective in her Camino memoir, Every Scene By Heart.

    Last year for our vacation we walked the Camino Portuguése from Porto, Portugal to Santiago — a pilgrimage of 160 miles that took two weeks. It was a Camino tune up, but not the same as the long 500-mile walk. Unfortunately, Peri developed a stress fracture of her tibia on this Camino and ended up on crutches for eight weeks! The Camino does present physical challenges.

    This fall we are returning to the 500-mile Camino Francés. We begin walking on September 12 and will return to St. Joseph in time to celebrate the 38th anniversary of Word of Life Church on November 3. After pastoring Word of Life for nearly four decades we now have an excellent pastoral staff and the congregation will be just fine while Peri and I go for a long walk. But why do I want to go on another big Camino? I have a fairly definite reason.
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  • Every Scene By Heart

    Perigrino
    Peri in front of our albergue in Belorado, Spain

    Peri Zahnd has written a book about her experience on the Camino de Santiago that she and I walked last fall. The book is entitled Every Scene By Heart. It’s a beautifully written and deeply spiritual memoir that takes the reader on the five hundred mile journey with Peri. I’m thrilled to say that Every Scene By Heart is now available! And to help celebrate I would like to share some thoughts from the afterword Peri asked me to write for her enchanting book.

    Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
    I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast

    -Bob Dylan

    ESBH

    Afterword
    Brian Zahnd
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  • Kyrie Eleison

    Camino
    Kyrie Eleison
    Brian Zahnd

    Six months ago I walked across Spain. Five hundred miles.
    Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
    Forty days and forty nights.
    A full life with two full moons. Harvest and Hunter’s.
    Heat and cold. Dust and rain. Wind and calm.
    It was all there.
    Beauty and blisters.
    Ecstasy and exhaustion.
    Pleasures and pains.
    Mountains, forests, and plains.
    Spaniards and Germans.
    Americans and Russians.
    Brazilians and Peruvians.
    Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese.
    They were all there.
    I was all there.
    Every step of the way.
    A million, three hundred thousand — give or take a few.

    I saw my life. The Camino was my life. My life compressed to forty days and forty nights.
    A five hundred mile walk of life. A precise (or at least an approximate) reflection.
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