The Walk Of A Lifetime, 500 Miles on the Camino De Santiago - A Review

John Keats, began his poem, Endymion: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

For Russ Eanes, his 500-mile walk along the Camino De Santiago perfectly fits into that category.

Eanes is a walker. And his book, The Walk of a Lifetime, 500 Miles on the Camino De Santiago, records his journey.

He had dreamed of taking this historic pilgrimage for twenty years. Then, at 61 years of age, his life aligned with his dream. In the Spring of 2018, he joined millions of other pilgrims who, over the course of centuries, had walked the trail that spans from the border of France, through northern Spain.

Eanes writes, “My opportunity [to walk the Camino De Santiago] came this past year [2018], not long after I decided to leave my job and take my own year-long, unpaid sabbatical. I had reached 60 and knew it was the time. My last child had graduated from high school and the nest was officially empty. I was too young to retire, but old enough to know that I needed to slow down and reorient my life.”

Throughout The Walk Of A Lifetime, Eanes records his thoughts and heart as he traverses the Camino De Santiago. He blends insight and inspiration as he lets us in on the slice-of-life experiences he encounters along the way.

We learn what it’s like to routinely get up at 6:30 in the morning, with 15 or more miles of walking ahead. Sometimes uphill, sometimes through mountain passes, sometimes through fog, rain, and heat. We find Eanes at the end of the day, more than ready to sleep, most of the time sharing rooms with fellow travelers.

It took Eanes five weeks to complete the journey. All but one of them, he walked by himself – but he was seldom alone.

For Eanes, the trip was never about the actual walking – although this is a man who clearly loves the outdoors. Gradually, his mind slows down, matching the rhythm of his walking and the Camino itself.

With one week left, anticipating his wife Jane joining him, Eanes writes:

“It was a gorgeous day for picture taking. I stopped to take a particular shot of sheep pastures and hills to the south. Every few feet the angle got better, or the light got better, so I stopped, re-framed and focused it, and took another shot. Then I just stopped – it hit me that there was no way that I was going to get the ultimate shot. The calculating, the thinking, were distracting me from the moment. I already had over 2,000 photos from the Camino. I decided that I would commit this time, this place, to memory and recall forever that it was beautiful. No need to record it, except in my memory; no need for another picture. I put the camera away for the time being, along with the guidebook. Thoreau said, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” I was rich in scenery, I would be rich in memory; I could “let it alone;” I could do without another picture. I just wanted to drink it all in, let the moment saturate me. And it did.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out my sheet of prayers – I had them memorized, so I really didn’t need it – and as I prayed my morning office, I stopped when I got to this verse in Psalm 37

‘Let the dawn bring news of your faithful love,

For I place my trust in you.

Show me the road I must travel

for you to relieve my heart.’

I repeated the sentence, ‘show me your heart,’ several times. This had been in my prayers for a long time: five years? Ten years? I had prayed it through difficult times of work, through the many pressures of family life, through my many moves, through my inner dis-comfort and mis-fit in society. Who was I? Why was I so different? Where did I fit? What road, what path through life was the way I was supposed to follow? Up until then, I wasn’t certain.

Yet at that moment, in prayer, it hit me: this was the road. This was the road, the Way, but more than the physical road, this was Life itself. Not just the walking, the outdoors, not just the culture: it was all of it wrapped together, having all the time I needed, not being in a hurry, not having any agenda. It was a day to be fully alive, a day I return to over and over in my memory. I knew right then that I should never forget this moment, this answer to prayer.

It was a gift of grace.”

This, perhaps, is the core of Eanes’ book and his message to us. It’s what the Camino is all about. It’s what life is about.

The power of TheWalk of a Lifetime lies in the fact that it isn’t just Russ Eanes’ journey, but that it could also be ours.