In July my husband Michael and I hiked the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. The trail starts in France and winds westward across Spain, ending at the Cathedral in Santiago which is believed to house the mortal remains of St. James the Apostle. Pilgrims have been walking this trail since the 10th century.
We did not have time to walk the Camino’s entire 500 kilometers, but instead began our journey in a mountain-top village called O Cebreiro, about 150 km away from Santiago. Off we went, with our noses planted in our highly-detailed trail book. Within the first ten minutes we were lost. We had managed to lose the trail before we had even begun, and we stood alone on a hillside scratching our heads like two complete dorks.
We retraced our steps and started again, this time with the trail book put away and our eyes open, searching for a prominent yellow arrow – the first of hundreds we would see painted on a rock or building or fence post – to point pilgrims along the way.
And so we learned the first of many lessons: the Camino takes care of you.
People had told us this before we left, but we didn’t know what it meant until we were there. The Camino provides everything you need to walk it: places to sleep, food to eat, water to drink, shade for rest, scenic hamlets for reflection, village churches for prayer. And it also points the way. 
At every juncture or split in the road one need only stand for a moment and look around, searching for the yellow arrow that never fails to appear.
And yet, the Camino can only take care of you if you let it. It can only work its grace if you are able to let go of what you know, or think you know, let go of what’s been read or anticipated or planned. The Camino requires eyes looking up, not down. It begs an open heart, able to be swept up in the moment, wide open and noticing, listening. And the Camino asks to be trusted -- that the need for certainty and knowledge be left behind, if only for a time, to allow the Camino space to do its work.
Flying home after this greatest of adventures I began the Herculean task of making some sense of it all. I would return to many and various church projects, the greatest of which is the next phase of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Pilot Project in the Diocese of Minnesota. The MDG Leadership Team has worked faithfully this summer to change and strengthen the model based on our many learnings from the first phase in Lent. While energized by the success and steep learning curve of phase one, the process has been challenging and not without bends in the road around which we cannot yet see.
It occurs to me that the process of mobilizing people around global poverty might be like walking the Camino – something that, if it is of God, will take care of us if we let it. If we trust God and take big risks in the name of mission, if we keep our eyes open and our hearts aware and listening, if we can sustain, if only for a time, an ability to keep our need for certainty in check – if we can do all these things -- we will be a few steps closer to the kingdom of God. We can plan, strategize and study all we want – and we are. But part of the process of organizing action around MDGs requires the spiritual discipline of openness, observance, listening and the willingness to be guided by the whims of the Spirit. Namely, keeping our hearts and minds looking up, not down and learning to trust. And this part will inform the rest, God willing, infusing our busy-ness with community and God and spiritual transformation.
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The next phase of the MDG Pilot Project in the Diocese of Minnesota!
Deadline for Participating Congregations: September 15, 2008
MDG Pilot Project Training: October 17-19, 2008 (Buffalo, Minnesota)
Campaign Kick-Off: First Sunday in Epiphany, 2009
For more information, please contact any member of the MDG Leadership Team:
Kate Hennessy
Michele Morgan
The Rev. Devon Anderson is a priest, the chair of Diocese of Minnesota MDG task force, and the recipient of an Episcopal Church Foundation grant to develop models for equipping congregations for engaging global mission and the MDGs.
