Love is the Camino de Santiago

By Gabriel Schirm

In the popular 2003 film, Love Actually, Hugh Grant opens the movie with these wise words, “Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.”

I met my wife, Amy, in a coffee shop 10 years ago. It was a moment that turned me from a love skeptic, into a believer. Instantly I went from thinking romantic comedies were a cruel Hollywood form of torture, to finding I had something in common with those sappy love stories. Up until that point, love at first sight was a lie, a ridiculous dream, that is, until it happened to me. I had been struck by lightning, and it felt so good. After we were married on a beautiful June summer day in the mountains of Colorado, we moved to Spain, and spent 2 wonderful years falling madly in love with a country. When it came time to go home, we decided to walk the Camino de Santiago together, as one final farewell to our temporary home. Continue reading →