in my end is my beginning

I wasn't expecting anything much from the arrival, since it was all about the walk for me. I was arriving with my camino brothers to share in their experience, because it was important to them. And then we were walking down the hill before light, with the city lights below us. And then we saw the back of the cathedral, walked through a portal and saw the almost empty square in the early morning. We just stood there for a long time.

It was a day of meeting camino friends again, and we ate together in a big crowd in the afternoon, and because no one wants it to end, went for coffee in view of the cathedral afterward. Many tears were shed before we finally parted ways.

For me the most emotional moment happened in the first reading during the mass, from Deuteronomy. The text talked about choosing your camino, and reminded me of our wedding text, Deuteronomy 30:11-16, and that's when I turned into a water fountain. I thought about this choice between life and death which God asked them to make on that day, and thought that probably there are some choices I need to make every day rather than rely on that one choice ages ago. Choosing life in my thoughts, attitudes, interactions is part of what I'm taking with me from my camino, echoing what we took along into our marriage, renewing it somehow.

Today Fernando gave us each a puzzle, because life is full of puzzle pieces that we put together as best we can. This puzzle has a pilgrim on it, and it says "Por una vida llena de flechas", wishing us signposts to show us our way, echoing the blessing of the Augustinian nuns in Carrion de los Condes, who encouraged us to look for the arrows in our life as we look for them on the camino.