The Way

I feel that the entire movie was extremely inspiring. When I read the beginning of the blog post, I thought about my journey in life, at the Mount and even my own journey in VHS. It is extremely funny how some things that just happened a couple months ago can seem like forever ago and some things that happen in life a long time ago can have such an impact on our lives that they seem like they were just yesterday. The concept of the pilgrimage is such a beautiful and amazing concept. We all go through journeys in life and we meet people that all impact us in ways that we usually cannot see from the outside and sometimes in ways that we will not realize until we can look back and see what actually happened. This blog has made me think about my journey in my own life. The quote that really inspired me in the movie was when Daniel said, "you don't choose a life, you live one." I feel like this is so true. If people get caught up in trying to plan exactly what happens in life, they will miss the beauty of living in the moment and having experiences and making decision in the heat of the moment. The movie has inspired me to look at some things in life and not to take all the people around me for granted. I know that some of my great friends from high school will be my friends for the rest of my life and some of my other friends will not be. The concept that some people are maybe not meant to be a long term part of my life makes me sad. The pilgrimage is about thinking about life and taking all the troubles and all the ups and downs and realizing that hey maybe things did not work out how we expect sometimes, but we have to pick things up and move on. The idea that people who are now so important to me may not always be in my life is scary, but we have to trust that God will work things out. I feel like this is what the camino is about. When the woman who recently walk the camino walked it, she asked God "Can I really do this?" I feel like we all ask God if we can really do things at one point or another in out own lives. Maybe we will not walk to camino, but we can all relate to have doubts or struggles in life. I feel like Tom's goal of the pilgrimage changed by the end of the movie. At the beginning, he took the pilgrimage because he felt like it was the right thing to do to remember his son and finish his mission. By the end of the pilgrimage, the journey became a more personal experience for Tom. The journey became a cleansing for Tom. The idea of the journey to almost find yourself can seem very peaceful. I feel like the concept of the Camino is very cleansing and beautiful. As I leave this class, I hope that I can take all that I have learned to walk my own journey of cleansing in my life. I am really going to miss this class and all that it has taught me about myself, my relationships with others and life in general.