Ordinarily, I am not in the business of setting world records. Last year was different, however. I was one of approximately half a million people to walk the Camino de Santiago, a network of European pilgrimage routes leading to the great cathedral in the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. By all accounts, this was a record number of arrivals. We pilgrims came from countries around the world and walked different directions through the surrounding countryside, all with this singular destination in mind.
Early in the fall of 2023, my friend and I took the central Portuguese Route from Rio Minho, the river dividing Portugal from Spain; we spent a week walking from town to town, 15 miles or more each day, doing what people have done for over 1200 years now, carrying the same symbolic scallop shells on our backpacks that they wore on cords around their necks, saying the translated words of the same prayers. Like hundreds of thousands of others, we were determined to join their ranks. We wanted to be counted in their company.
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The Reverend Dr. 