When I finished walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostella in late May 2013 I soon resumed the regular busy routine and rhythm of a Jesuit priest – my work at the Jesuit Novitiate, attending an important meeting of the social apostolate of the Jesuits in English and French Canada, getting reconnected with people who come for spiritual direction, working with a committee that plans courses for novices from various religious orders based in Montreal, spending a month in Denver, Colorado on a program for Jesuit novices, celebrating the first vows of a newly vowed Jesuit and at the moment  getting to know new group of six novices that joined us in the late summer.

So what is different in my life, if anything? 

Memory and perspective are two words that come to mind as I ponder this question.  Together they reflect a theme that touches upon how things just might be a little bit different in my life post pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella.

What do I mean?  A starting point might be the word 'compostella' itself.  Compostella or 'campo stella' means literally "field of stars".  I don't know the origin of the phrase but when I think of it in terms of  memory and perspective it becomes synonymous with  the memory of walking long distances in big open spaces and the shift in  perspective that happens when one breaks out of the  limitations of domicile and life patterns that can tend to become closed and restricting.  The 'field of stars' image is expansive, freeing and calming; open-ended and anything but self-centered. 

My recollections of the landscape, the path and of the people I met on the Camino remind me of an innate desire to be more open minded and less caught up protecting personal territory or ingrained habitudes.  The 'field of stars' image helps to set the context for an inner and outer spaciousness that now I find myself seeking and experiencing on a regular basis, whether I am in my community preparing a meal, at a meeting, participating in a liturgy or on a public bus. 

I have never thought of these two terms together.  Yet I see now that they can be complimentary in that memory helps to give perspective to the ever changing contexts in which we find ourselves… if we choose to venture outside our comfort zone.