“I’ll Take a Wheelchair, Please”

“I’ll take a wheelchair, please,” I said, as though I were ordering my favorite meal at my favorite restaurant.

In 2023, after returning from a journey through Bali, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, I wrote here about outer travel as a form of inner travel. I wrote about curiosity, discovery, and intentionally cultivating wonder. I ended with these words:

The world is beautiful. Both the inner and the outer, when we see it with a clear heart.

I still “know” this, deep inside.

But this journey to Portugal and Spain asked something more of me.

I had imagined myself walking one or two miles a day through medieval villages and along ancient Roman cobblestone streets, entering monasteries and cathedrals, witnessing the rows and rows of vineyards, sipping the wines of Portugal, green, and white and red, delighting in the port, (after which the city, Porto, is named) noticing the yellow arrows and scallop shells that mark the Portuguese road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Much of that came to pass.

The walking did not.

For more than a week, after about thirty minutes on my feet, a severe pain would strike at the place where my left leg meets my hip—sudden, searing, like a hot branding iron. Again and again, I had to stop. I missed things I wanted to see. The guides and other passengers were compassionate and generous, and supportive. I leaned on Don, who was, as always, unfailingly there for me, supportive to the nth. And on the final day of our journey, in Santiago de Compostela—the destination of pilgrims who have walked hundreds of miles along the Way of St. James, from Italy, from Germany, from France, from Portugal—I asked for a wheelchair.

In a wheelchair, we visited the beautiful church, along with the throngs of pilgrims who had walked.

Perhaps because of the energy in the Cathedral, perhaps because my guide of the wheelchair was moving me around so much to see the beautiful light shining through the stained glass, or perhaps because of the bumping cobblestones, I became dizzy. And seasick. We had paid for an excursion named “Tastes of Galicia” -- different restaurants, different tastes. My stomach rebelled. Instead, I slept deeply in our cool hotel room.

New questions now arise: What is the pilgrimage when you cannot travel the path as you intended? What is being called for now? What is life saying to me now?

Perhaps this pilgrimage was never asking me to prove my strength by walking. Perhaps it was asking me to receive support with grace.

I listen, and am listening deeply, for what wants to happen, when upon return home, I discover I have no cartilage in my left hip joint.….

I look forward to sharing with you, in my next Blog, visuals of the rest of the trip to Portugal, which, despite the pain, or, rather, including the pain, was wondrous and welcoming (both the people and place), spacious, celebratory, and satisfying,

I invite you to join me, with some videos and photos of our journey to Santiago and our journey in Santiago, with our guide, Juan.

Here we are in Braga, along the way, where we stopped for lunch, a stop on the St. James Way. Juan shows us the walking paths from all over Europe.

And here is our guides’ stamped passport; walkers get to have their passports stamped along the way:

On the motocoach to Santiago, we came to a place where we stopped for coffee, and saw mussel harvesting platforms. Each platform has 500 ropes strung to it, and the mussels cling to the ropes, and get harvested by hand when they are “ripe.”

The streets:

The Cathedral itself:

The statue of St. James on the outside of the cathedral.

And, finally, our guide in the courtyard, sharing about the different paths from all the countries to, finally, arrive: Meet Juan.

This experience has returned me to many of the questions at the heart of my book, The Heart of Sacred Listening: Transform Your Relationships, Your Work, and Your Life—pathways for listening when life does not go according to plan, for meeting what is actually here rather than what we expected, and ways in which an interruption can become a doorway for greater information, or for a new future. If you are interested in exploring futher:

The Heart of Sacred Listening: Transform Your Relationships, Your Work, and Your Life

This fall, I am delighted to let you know I will also be opening The Art and Practice of Sacred Listening, a new online course for those who wish to bring these practices more fully into their relationships, leadership, work, and everyday lives. I’ll be sharing more about it in the weeks ahead.

If you are looking for a deeper, live experience, we currently have two places remaining in this fall’s public Heart of Leadership program (September 29–October 1 and October 22–23). You can learn more here:

The Heart of Leadership

And finally, if this reflection speaks to you, I warmly invite you to join me in my twice-monthly paid Substack. It is a quieter, more contemplative space where, through essays, poetry, and reflective practices, we explore what it means to create the conditions in which Presence can enter. Wisdom can enter. Joy can enter.