I trained for my first Camino during Iowa’s snowiest winter on record (2019). This meant that although I opted often for glittering snow-covered bike trails for long hikes, many of my weekly winter walks were done in circles at the Young Arena in Waterloo, IA; a concrete loop, 8 laps = a mile, overlooking the hockey arena for our local team, the Black Hawks.
One particular day, as I walked for hours in circles, I also began to notice that my thought life was stuck in a circle. I began to examine my loop thinking and to map the circle that almost always spiraled into shame and despair from a failed 30 year marriage.
What could help me break this incessant loop that was digging a deeper and deeper groove into my mind? What could help me move forward out of this circular thinking?
As I’ve experienced often in my life, God intervenes through people and circumstances in mysterious ways. As I finished my walk and grabbed my coat from the coatrack, I reached for my gloves in my pocket and found a small laminated note: Try praying before you overthink! #teamjesus A fellow walker must have deposited it there. A divine answer to my pleading questions. A divine gift deposited into my very pocket at just the right time.
What could help me break this incessant loop that was digging a deeper and deeper groove into my mind? What could help me move forward out of this circular thinking? Maybe I could try praying before overthinking.
Noticings along the Camino:
*As we walk for hours and miles, we can examine what story we’re telling ourselves, noticing where our thinking is stuck in a loop that keeps us from moving forward in growth and freedom.
*We can try prayer.
*We can look for the gifts and surprises that the Divine so freely and gleefully deposits on our journey.
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