4/7: Zubiri to Pamplona.

8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. hiking time.

Steps taken: 33,821.

Miles hiked: 14.29.

Elevation gain: 1,218 feet.

Average walking speed: 3.1 miles per hour.

Morning Prayer

I had a great night of sleep at the Suseia alburgue in Zubiri. Such a great place. I woke at 530 and had an hour of quiet time before the lights went on. I wrote my prayer for this journey (below). It is a great encouragement to me to get to write again and to express I words what is resident in my heart.

Walking With Evan

Today, I made a new Camino friend. Evan, a mid-20s IT professional from Taiwan, joined my walk just outside of Zubiri. We walked and talked all morning. We share a common faith. We were able to connect deeply spiritually and to truly encourage each other. Evan is a brother.

The afternoon started heating up, coinciding with even more hills and less shade cover. Our feet got hot and tired and then we approached the outer edges of Pamplona and a long slog on asphalt.

Grandmother

As the afternoon wore on, I was unfed and very hungry. I traveled into the Pamplona suburbs with a group of pilgrims. We did not stop to eat.

I broke away from the group to find food and to point me in the direction of my alburgue. I eventually found a shaded bench to rest and ate a few scant bits of my last trail mix. After I sat down, a tiny Korean grandmother and her teenage grandson, who are also pilgrims, sat with me. She offered me a chilled and indescribably refreshing yogurt, which revived my spirits and gave me strength to keep moving. It was such a simple and profoundly perfect act of generosity. It greatly affected me and reminded me to be aware of when I might also have the opportunity to share and help others on the Way.

Pilgrim Prayer

Dear Lord, thank You for the gift of this new day and all the promise it holds.

I give You, O Maker of Days, thanks for the weather, the trail, the other pilgrims, the people who live and work aside this pilgrim path, the food and drink which You provide, the skies, the land, the trailside flowers, and for the discomforts which remind me so very clearly that I have been given the gift of life and the need for You to sustain it.

You have graced me with the health necessary to take my next step. Help me, O Lord of the Pilgrim, who made pilgrimage Yourself as the Son of Man, to take even more next steps, reliant and grateful for the strength of body and spirit needed to move forward in the Way.

Help me this day, O Giver of Every Good and Perfect Gift, to accept and embrace whatever and however and whenever Your Way for me this day shall unfold. Turn whatever fear or worry that I hold onto, or choose to revisit, into the joy and wonder and thankful surprise of a child receiving a cherished gift from a loving Father. Help me always and appreciatively live in the full awareness that You and Your ways are fully good.

Lord, You have called us strangers and aliens in this, the temporary home of our unique pilgrimage. Remind me to see You in the stranger, and to show me how I may help their path and bear their load.

Lord of Life, help me to remember to smile, sing, and savor throughout the whole of this gifted and good day.

Amen.