I want to warn you that my inner romantic has escaped and is, well I don’t know where he is now really. He may have first left in early August around Estrella in Northeastern Spain. The last thing that he said was something about running with the bulls.

Be careful with him if he appears. Not that he is dangerous really but he has a tendency to be beyond normal, to talk poetically, to promise you anything. He is often outside of time and will trap you in endless dilly dally. He thinks that God made heaven just so the three of you could be together, imagine?

I just found a few paragraphs recently that he wrote and they may be helpful:

“I went to Spain to do the Camino with openness, with room for it to join with me. That’s all, really. And what I got in return was a hundred fold.

” The Spanish people: I remember an old woman begging outside of the Cathedral at Burgos, dressed all in black, she was so beautiful. I gave her some money and kissed her, I couldn’t resist. I remember a woman who brought us cold Cokes as we stumbled past her house in the heat. We didn’t have anything to give her but I made a motion with my rosary that we would pray for her and she understood and was happy. I remember a farmer herding his dairy cows down the road and I wanted to shake his hand. He made a motion like his hands were dirty so I kissed him on the whiskery cheek, nothing more, nothing less. I remember walking with a Spanish pilgrim who pulled out a candy bar and broke it in half and was in the process of handing half to me and it fell down into the dust of the Camino. I picked it up and he said that it was OK that he had another but I felt a need to eat that one as a communion with the trail and it’s millions of pilgrims. His smile signaled to me that he understood.

“Then there was the scenery that was knockout beautiful. And the agriculture which was ever present, robust, varied, feed the world awesome. There were the ancient stone bridges, stone buildings, roads and fountains to remind us that plenty of people had worked very hard to make us comfortable.

“The Camino attracts a certain set of people that come from all over the world and each has a story. Some are pilgrims to start with, others become pilgrims. You can communicate with them more or less according to your combined language abilities and this is major fun. I don’t know about major fun but a lot of communication takes place through the universal language of hunger, thirst and pain. In the end all sorts and flavors of people meet, talk, share, eat and drink with you. They listen and encourage and inspire you. They are your angels getting you from shade to shade or water to water or from town to town. Just as you are their angel.

“There are huge cathedrals at one end of the scale and little simple churches in all the small towns. OK, I was ready for that. But what else was every size, color, shape and variety of material reminder that God is present in the form of crucifixes, statues, shrines, collections and you name it all along the way.

“And I went into every church that was open, went into monasteries, convents and other meeting places. Prayed with nuns and brothers. Took Mass in a cave, outside, inside in small churches and Cathedrals. Passed out from heat exhaustion at the high point of one Mass and was caught in the arms of a woman named Grace. Falling into the arms of Grace, no joke. Shook hands and talked with the Bishop at Burgos. Was blessed along with my fellow pilgrims by priests in numerous places along the route.

“OK, so this is the evidence of how I flirted with, danced with, cavorted with and got drunk on Spain and the Camino. And in the end we made love.”

Yea, see what I mean? Look, if you run into my inner romantic would you please tell him to check in. We need to talk, you know what I mean. Thanks, Phil.