Trust

I am purging this summer.  I do this about twice a year.  I don't like having clutter around me and am almost sure it's because of the nature of my job.

My busy days of teaching are filled with "clutter" - meetings, lesson planning, teaching, schedules, managing behaviors, maintaining discipline, and building relationships.  Each day is busy; never slowing down until it comes to an abrupt stop each May.  Cluttered.  So when I am home I relish the simplicity of uncluttered surroundings.

After one week on the Camino I lost my credential; the one I needed to get stamped at each albergue, the one that would document each stop along my Camino, the one that would get me my Compostela when I reached Santiago.  I accidently mailed it to my future-self; the one that would be reaching Santiago four weeks later.

What I find ironic about this is that before I left for the Camino I had requested not ONE but TWO credentials.  I'd ordered the second "just in case" I lost the first.  But on the day I accidently mailed the first one off I also purposefully threw away the second because after only one week on the Camino I had learned to purge.

In a world where carrying just fourteen pounds feels like you're carrying the weight of the world I knew that hanging on to that extra little accordian-fold booklet would weigh me down.  It wasn't the physical weight, you know, it was the weight of not letting go, not trusting. So I deliberately threw one away and accidently posted the other, leaving me with none.

Hours later, after realizing what I had done, I panicked.  I wondered how I would ever be allowed to sleep in the albergures without this document but found myself left with just one choice - trust.  Trust that I had everything I needed.  So I did, which wasn't as easy as I make it sound.

It was several days later before I could get a new credential but that did not stop me from sleeping each night in the albergues.  Instead of my credential, the hospitaleros simply stamped my journal.  I had what I needed.

As I continue to purge my home this summer I find myself faced with the same dilemma.  "Trust," I have to remind myself, "Get rid of what is weighing you down and just trust that you will still have everything you need."  Sometimes the most difficult things are really very simple.  Trust.