No Turning Back

(Another re-posting)

Do you know the old joke about a ham and egg breakfast?  The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.

I've been involved in El Camino for 4 1/2 years.  I've read books about it.  I've joined internet forums.  I've bought a backpack and a lightweight sleeping bag and new hiking shoes.  I've wondered and dreamed about it.  All very lovely, but mainly speculative.  Even the equipment purchases felt like, at the most, a toe in the water.


But today I plunked down more $2500 on non-refundable airplane tickets to Europe.  I think I have just stepped over the line from involved to committed.  It feels a little unnerving, and all too uncomfortably real.  Since I'm far too cheap to flush all that money down the drain, this is it.  I'm committed.  


It makes me wonder how often I'm just involved in my faith.  I love to think about God and write about God.  I am energized by reading and study.  I have the equipment (books, commentaries, robes, stoles, certificate of ordination).  It's all very lovely, but it can be very speculative.


Sometimes I feel fully deeply committed and connected, and other times it's as if I have, at best, put just a toe in the water of faith.

Part of what I hope is that this pilgrimage will help me plunge all the way in, to take seriously the words of that old gospel hymn:


I have decided to follow Jesus,
No turning back.
No turning back.