On the Way to the Way 6: A Long Time Coming, A Long Time To Go

It has been almost 8 months since my last blog post about my Pre-Camino Journey. That is just about too long, so we begin again with a quote from the foreword to The Sacred Journey by Charles Foster, written by Phyllis Tickle.

Regardless, however, of the frequency of its occurrence, pilgrimage is the one of the ancient seven that most threatens what is familiar and what has been...threatens them both with the almost absolute certainty that nothing will ever be the same again. The old verities will either die on pilgrimage or else they will rejuvenate and morph into sinewy understandings and holy affections that change every part of the life being lived. Either way, with pilgrimage,nothing is ever as it once was. Beware.

It dawns on me that this blog may have best been served if I, like the book, had started here. I say this because at base what I want from my someday journey is a reboot. It's why I would take the journey tomorrow if I could. It's why I hope to one day take a 500 mile walk, to redefine my life in light of His. I have been in the process of doing that for sometime now, with fits and starts, missteps and mistakes. But part of me feels that in order to cross over from the side I am on to the side I want to one day be on I need something drastic to take me away from all that I know in order to find all that I need.

This is not a critique on my life today, I love my wife and son. I enjoy my ministry and the people to whom that ministry touches, whether they be sitting in a pew or sitting at a desk or holding up a phone, because I view my ministry as behind the pulpit, but also right here and now as I type these words. My blog readership more than doubles the size of my church and my reach, and I am most grateful for it.

Where the problem does lie is within my heart/mind/soul, a place of great light and great darkness. And it is that which needs realigned, re-calibrated, so that the good that I do would grow stronger and that the evil I do would grow weaker. And let us be honest, we are all capable of evil and all culpable for the evil we do. There is no devil that makes you do it, you do it of your own volition, if it were not that way you would never fear judgment, because it wouldn't be your fault.

I am to blame for every action and inaction. For every word spoken and unspoken. For every look and look away. For every offering and withholding. For every praise and curse. For EVERY THING. I take the credit and I need to take the blame, but I foresee somewhere in the distance a place for a change, a time for a world rocking, and a long walk that will cause me to let go of things I hold onto and hold onto things I haven't even realized I go without.

Buen Camino,

Pastor K