Underlined advice

John Brierley writes in a note to the 7th edition (2011) of his "A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago":
"The one piece of advice I would pick out from the first edition and underline is simply this, 'There are no guarantees in the life of a pilgrim and we are well served by developing an attitude of gratitude for all learning experiences found along the path.'"

My heart has asked it of me

This week I also finished reading Paulo Coehlo’s The Pilgrimage, which is his novel about walking the Camino de Santiago. Here’s an excerpt:

‘The Road you are travelling is the Road of power... the journey, which prior to this was torture because all you anted to do is get there, is now beginning to become a pleasure. It is the pleasure of an adventure. You are nourishing something that’s very important – your dreams.

‘We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our life we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don’t our soul dies, and agape cannot reach it. A lot of blood has been shed in those fields out there; some of the cruellest battles of Spain’s war to expel the Moors were fought on them. Who was in the right or who knew the truth does not matter; what’s important is knowing that both sides were fighting the good fight.

‘The good fight is the one we fight because our heart asks it of us. In the heroic ages – at the time of the knights in armour – this was easy. There were lands to conquer and much to do. Today, though, the world has changed a lot, and the good fight has shifted from the battlefields to the fields within ourselves.’

The reason I have decided to walk the Road is because my heart has asked it of me.