Buenos dias peregrinos,

My darling wife told me this morning that it is five weeks to the day that we catch a train from Madrid to Leon in Spain to begin our Camino de Santiago.  Tomorrow, it will be five weeks to the day that we walk our first stage from Leon to Villar de Mazarife.  We have to get to Spain first.

5 weeks!

It's been longer than that since I posted my last blog.

The reality is that we have been pretty much busy with the day to day ordinariness of life and busyness of work over the past month or so.  Since our epic and wet week camping in the Sunshine Coast hinterland we have continued to do walks of varying lengths, Monica has been much more faithful with that discipline than myself though, I must confess.

However I can happily report two things that have happened this week that have assisted me in re-focusing my attention to the impending pilgrimage.

First of all, unexpectedly, we received in the mail this week our credencial or Pilgrim's Passports.  The company that are assisting us, Camino Ways, have forwarded us the documents that we will have stamped at each day as a record of where we stayed along the Camino.  These will be presented at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, so that we can be issued with our Compostela, or certificate of pilgrimage.  You will see in the image below that they are shiney and new, ready to receive our names, details and the various stamps from the many places we are staying.  I wonder how they will look in two months time when we have completed this epic trip.

The second exciting thing that has happened this week is that I have also received a huge map that I ordered to be displayed at our college.  I ordered the map from the website, Camino Down Under.  They have some really good resources for Australians considering this epic adventure.  Along with the map I also ordered an all weather map book and handy guide book that will assist us in our final weeks of preparation for the walk.  There is lots of good stuff in it about what to take and how to prepare for the journey.  It is particularly helpful because it is written by an Australian, the context therefore works quite well, much of what comes out of Europe assumes better access perhaps to things European.

To conclude today's blog I thought I would include the text from my fortnightly principal's blurb that I wrote for our college newsletter this week.  It refers to the above mentioned map.  Enjoy.

Short Steps For Old Man Altmann

There is an old saying that I am sure we are all very aware of.  The longest journey begins with the first step.  My favourite version of the same is the, the longest journey begins with the shortest step.  There is a nice poetic balance in that line between longest and shortest.

As you probably know by now my wife, kids and I are off on a holiday of a lifetime next term, walking in Spain and then travelling around Europe.  It is so exciting and so close at the moment, I can almost taste the tapas and sip the sangria!  And of course even though we fly out in just a few short weeks our journey has already begun, it began well over a year ago when I first approached the College Council with my idea for a sabbatical exploration of The Way of St James.  Upon approval of that leave, and connected long service leave, our family started to go on short walks, look up maps of Europe, dig out our old backpacking gear, talk to travel agents and so on.  Short steps, but we were on our way.

I procured a large wall map of the north of Spain last week that I intend to hang in the front office of our Admin building.  It is enormous, it is specially designed to show the Camino Santiago, the Way of St James.  I’m hoping it serves as a short step towards an imminent trip to Spain for our future senior students, a tantalizing image of what lays ahead, a seed planter getting our families connected to the idea that this might be a pretty remarkable thing to do.  There is a beautiful quote on the bottom of the poster that reads, Para llegor a Santiago como un juven - empieza el Camino como un viejo.  In english that translates to To arrive in Santiago like a young person, begin the Camino like an old man.

I enjoyed that quote because in Europe I am an old man.  My name ‘Altmann’ is german for old man, alt mann.  For me it works on a number of other levels though.  The first is the physical, if you want to walk a long way and finish well, don’t go too hard too early.  First steps should be short steps. 

Secondly, and more profoundly, I think there is a spiritual element in there as well.  In Matthew 18: 3 Jesus said, ‘Unless you change and become like little children you will never inherit the kingdom of Heaven.’  As intelligent, modern, scientific, western, 3^rd world adults we want proof, we demand to know how it works and what powers it.  But there are some things in life that we just need to accept simply, graciously and faithfully.  

Often a life changing experience helps us get that perspective, a chronic illness, changes in our financial situation, injury of a loved one, a 300 kilometre walk across a foreign country.  We need to cast off our old man ways, our hubris and our self reliance and simply finish the walk like a child, faithfully accepting things as they come along and relying on a God of love to provide that which we need to get through.

It really is the shortest step.

Buen Camino

Shane