Sometime in late July, Finisterre Memorial Group chair Jun Selma casually asked me if I can squeeze a few days off in October to join him in Europe for a visit to a mystical place called Finisterre, a rock bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain.

In Roman times, the place was believed to be the end of the “known world”. Jun explained to me that he was completely awed during his first visit that it had inspired him to mount and develop an exciting project in Cebu called Finisterre Memorial Gardenz in honor of his late and beloved mother, Narding Selma.

After a couple of weeks, Jun excitedly followed it up with a formal invitation for me to join their annual pilgrimage walk.  He told me that I will be joining distinguished fellow caminoans headed by Cebu Country Club president Bob Gothong, Joe Soberano, Nonoy Tirol, Vic Yuvallos, Ramon Villordon Jr., Kim Kwang Seok, Shean Bedi and Fr. Joe Quilongquilong (JQ). Naturally I was honored, but it would be a miracle for me to clear my schedule– my calendar for 2019 and half of 2020 have already been booked for engagements in Asia. Despite the constraints, everything fell into place. What looked like an unseen hand working to clear my schedule, I was given the green light to join the group.

In the weeks leading to the El Camino walk, I was impressed by the commitment and devotion of the “camino pilgrims” as they went about their assigned tasks. The send-off and get-together event hosted by Jun on the eve of their departure to France and how the two-week event was thoroughly organized had been a pleasant surprise. And if not for the constant bugging of top John Hay Golf executive Shean Bedi, a colleague during my property days a decade ago, I would not have made it. He was the quintessential project manager, making sure all logistical issues were covered.

There were moments when I asked myself, how can this band of successful individuals uncharacteristically subject themselves to the grueling walk for two consecutive weeks? Clearly the group’s enthusiasm and their willingness to go through such pain and suffering moved me.

The most authentic moments in life are not found in the comforts of our daily lives, but they come after we have been tested and after having endured a crisis. In essence, life is the real pilgrimage and it actually began even before we started the walk.

To my mind, there is no such pilgrimage without experiencing setbacks and difficulties and there is no pilgrim who will embark on a journey without a purpose. I believe the Camino de Santiago walk was meant to inspire and remind me that sacrifices are nothing compared to what the pilgrims went through more than a thousand years ago.

Real wealth in simplicity  

Would you agree with me that those who possess more are often frustrated and unhappy? This was a virtue I learned during the course of my preparation for the pilgrimage. I was bothered at the thought of not bringing sufficient clothes on the walk, but it made me realized how attached one could get to the unnecessary things in life.  The pilgrimage made me realize I can also live well with few things. Material things take up so many spaces in one’s heart and sometimes, too much of unnecessary things provide a leeway for distraction and inevitably slow down the journey. (To be continued)/WDJ