My life is my message. It might be raw. But it is also real.

Friday morning, February 16 I got the news that my mother had died. Quite honestly I felt it more as a gift than a tragedy.

So here is the deal. I am not sure exactly what I am going to write over the next six weeks.

Today I write. Tonight I will play guitar. That is, unless a flash flood crosses my path before then!

The point being this: By that eighth day I had learned to trust.

“Unmet goals are often considered failures. There is no failure with intention; only discovery.”

Pedal Pilgrim and the Cherokee Nation’s Remember the Removal Bike Ride organization are now partnering on a Trail of Tears pilgrimage project.

“It feels sort of funny to write this—to say that I spent five weeks walking across Spain for two really good pictures…

Before there was tourism, there was pilgrimage.

In the fall of 2014 I flew to Rome for a pilgrimage that I titled “From Rome to Rumi: A Pilgrimage from the Head of the Church to the Heart of Mysticism.”

I dug deep to match the steeper grade. Then a funny thing happened: my breathing deepened and my body relaxed. I felt a sense of relief—I was coming home.

How could I authentically say I’d gone down into the belly of the whale on this mythic journey if I bypassed the desert?

The line between observer and observed dissolves. I was no longer looking at a mountain: I was part of the mountain.

At the time, my thoughts unnerved me a little. Did I have a death wish? Was my longing about wanting to die?

About halfway between the summit and the town of Wisdom, I arrived at the Big Hole National Battlefield. I was inclined to ride on by…

Afterwards, I felt clean again. But more than that, I felt alive. Really alive. More alive than I had in a long time.

I was almost laughing by this point. “Warmshowers, Chris. You just described Warmshowers. I’ve already stayed five nights with their hosts on this trip.”

It got so ridiculous at some points that I was thinking about my experiences in blog titles rather than the purer language of feelings, descriptions and honest reactions.

On Wednesday, August 30 at 7:00 p.m. (Pacific time), Brandon will host a “sendoff” for me as I embark on the Camino de Santiago for a pilgrimage that is both personal and missional.

Something is definitely stirring.

It is clear that this Pedal Pilgrim work will be need to be intimately involved with Native American populations.