Prologue: The Camino Not Taken

It was the winter of 2021, and I was supposed to be walking in the fall.

I had planned for it—the long road stretching from Lisbon to Santiago, the rhythm of footfall against stone, the slow shedding of unnecessary things. I imagined the morning light catching the rooftops of old towns, the breath of salt air drifting in from the Atlantic, the quiet hush of a cathedral at dusk.

The Camino had been calling me for years.

And so, in those winter months, I prepared. I traced the path in my mind, read stories of those who had walked before me. I imagined my feet settling into the rhythm of the journey, the quiet ache that would come with miles traveled, the stillness that I hoped would settle deep into my bones.

But in that same season, something else was pressing in.

Gregory’s body was speaking in ways we didn’t yet understand. At first, it was subtle—the kind of exhaustion that could be explained away, the kind of fatigue that made sense after a long day. But then came the brain fog, the sluggishness that wouldn’t lift, the quiet way his body began to fold inward. His hands shook when they shouldn’t have. His eyes held a shadow of something unspoken. He was thinner than before, and there was a weariness in him that made my stomach knot.

We didn’t know, not yet, that this was advanced ulcerative colitis.

We didn’t have a diagnosis.

I could have gone anyway. There was no doctor’s name scribbled onto paper, no official reason to stay. I could have walked the road I had planned, let the wind and the sun press against my skin, let my feet carry me far away from the unease I did not yet have words for.

But I did not go.

Something in me—some deep, wordless knowing—told me to stay. It wasn’t fear, exactly. It wasn’t obligation. It was more like a small hand pressed gently against my chest, whispering Not this road. Not yet.

And it was good that I stayed. Because that was the winter when the unraveling began.

The Roads We Do Not Take

At first, I told myself I would reschedule.

The Camino had been waiting for centuries; surely, it could wait a little longer.

But as the months passed, I realized I was holding onto a vision of something that no longer belonged to me. This pilgrimage had already done its work, even if my feet never touched the road. It had called me to something, drawn me toward a longing, only to place me back where I started—not as a failure, but as a redirection.

Some journeys we release, not because we do not want them, but because we are being asked to walk something else.

I had once imagined myself walking for days in silence, step after step unfolding like a prayer. I thought pilgrimage would be something I could feel in my body, something tangible—the ache in my legs, the weight of my pack, the wind pressing against me as I walked toward something I could not yet see.

Instead, my feet never left home.

But that did not mean I was not walking.

Because pilgrimage does not always take the shape we expect.

Sometimes, the roads we travel are the ones we did not choose.

The Pilgrimage of Lent

I have thought about it often—the way winter turned to spring, and then to the long stretch of summer, each season pressing closer, carrying questions I could not answer.

And then came Lent.

Lent, with its hushed invitation. Lent, with its quiet reckoning. Lent, calling me to walk a different kind of road.

I have always known Lent to be a kind of pilgrimage—a slow, deliberate turning, a walking toward something we cannot yet see. But this year, it felt different.

This year, I felt it in my body.

The hunger, the waiting, the long ache of unanswered prayers.

The prayers that had become quiet, not from a lack of faith, but because I had already said them a hundred times and had no new words to give.

This year, I did not need a journal of reflections. I did not need a list of Lenten disciplines.

I needed a journey.

And so, I began to write.

At first, I thought I was writing The Way of Lent as a course, a guide for others to walk through the season. But as the weeks unfolded, I realized I was writing something else entirely.

I was writing the road beneath my feet.

I was walking Lent as a pilgrimage—not across the cobbled streets of Portugal, not beneath the golden light of Compostela, but in the quiet spaces of my own life. In the waiting rooms. In the late-night prayers. In the silence between sentences.

The Invitation

I did not know, when I began this journey, what it would require of me.

Perhaps you do not know either.

But here you are, standing at the threshold.

Whatever road has led you here, whatever ache or hunger has pulled you toward this season—this is your invitation.

Because Lent is not just something we observe. It is something we walk.

And some roads, we do not walk alone.

Part One: The Threshold

A Doorway into Lent

The wind shifts, and I know the season is turning. The air carries the scent of something just beyond reach—something waiting to be named. It is February, and Lent is coming, though I have not yet decided whether I am ready for it.

It has always arrived this way, whether I have prepared or not—like a long-forgotten visitor standing at the door, patient, expectant. I could ignore it, pretend not to hear the knocking, but I know better. Lent does not need my permission to begin. It comes in its own time, carrying its own weight.

This year, though, something feels different.

It is not just the season pressing in but the memory of another road—the one I had planned to walk, the one I let go of.

Standing at the Threshold

There is a moment, just before a journey begins, when time seems to stretch. A breath held between what has been and what is to come. The door is open, the threshold before you, and yet—

You hesitate.

I hesitate.

I have never gone to church on Ash Wednesday, never stood in line to feel the smudge of dust pressed against my forehead. But I have lingered among the ashes of things that once were. I have traced the remnants of what has burned away—things that are no longer within me, things that have crumbled through the years of walking through ministry and life.

The whisper comes: Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

I swallow hard.

The words are not a threat. They are a reckoning. A calling back. A reminder that to be human is to carry both frailty and wonder, to walk with both sorrow and grace.

And so, I step forward.