We are in Burgos, a large city in the region of Castilla and Leon. Wick and I walked from Navarette to Najera yesterday, 17K. Hunter walked twice that far (see his entry from last night). Wick and I decided to take a bus to Burgos and spend the day recovering, but Hunter is trooping on past Santo Domingo to a little village with an alburgue. The weather has been beautiful today, and for the first time we are wearing our fleece jackets. Ironic, since we thought we would be wearing our warm clothes in the altitude of the mountains at the beginning of the walk. We much prefer the small towns and countryside to the cities, but Burgos has a lot of green space, so it´s one of the prettier big cities we have entered. Wick and I are realizing that there´s no way we can keep up with Hunter, and the first days we were together we held him back, not that he complained. So we are planning to do our camino walking, riding on buses, whatever, and see him when we can. We need more recovery time than he does, and that can be when we do our reflection about our walking, scripture reading, and so on.
God is showing us a lot about ourselves. We are weaker than we thought in areas we thought strong, and stronger than we thought in areas we thought weak...all by God´s grace.
* Yesterday we walked through miles and miles of vineyards, full of ripe grapes. Well-tended plants were loaded with fruit. And we noticed that the fruit was all located on the branches, but very close to the big, strong vine. God brought to mind John 15, and gave us this beautiful picture of the fruit developing best that is closest to The Source of nourishment.
Unfruitful vines are indeed pruned, thrown into a pile and burned, like these.*
This stunning object lesson of the vineyard is punctuated by the fact that Wick and I are reading through the book of John right now. God is amazing when He puts things like that together!
God´s Peace,
Helen
*These photos were added Oct.19 at home.
