{"id":1519,"date":"2016-05-09T11:13:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T19:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/?p=1519"},"modified":"2016-05-09T11:13:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T19:13:51","slug":"el-camino-de-santiago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/?p=1519","title":{"rendered":"El Camino de Santiago"},"content":{"rendered":"

James the son of Zebedee is one of the only apostles whose death is recorded in the New Testament. In Acts 12 Herod kills him with a sword. 700 years later a legend arose that James had been a missionary in a country now known as Spain. His disciples returned his body to the land of his missionary labors. A town was built around the shrine which over the centuries grew into a full cathedral. In an effort to increase Christian interest in the area during the centuries-long battle with the Moors Pope Callixtus II established a series of holy years where anyone who completed the pilgrimage to the tomb of St James would be granted forgiveness of sins or crimes. He also published the first guide-book for the way of St James around AD 1140. As pilgrims flocked to the city of Santiago de Compostela they brought with them knights, money, and a strong desire to reclaim Spain for the Christians. From this arose the legend of St James the Moor-Slayer (Santiago matamoros) who would appear in battles to aid the Christian forces in their hundreds of years struggle over Spain. <\/p>\n

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Compostela, or “field of stars” was named because following the milky way from France led one to the town nestled in the center of Galicia. The route has been followed by millions over a thousand years. Now some 200,000 pilgrims follow the stars each year starting from all over the world with the various ways converging at Santiago like the ridges of a scallop shell. My route begins in the french city of St Jean Pied de Port and weaves some 500 miles through the Basque country of Northern Spain. I leave in two hours. <\/p>\n

I leave behind my obligations, connections, distractions, cell phone, job, car, pineapple plants. If you need me, send me an email ’cause I’m not answering the phone for six weeks. I might check email, now and then. Maybe. <\/p>\n

I’ll bring with me…well…about 24 lbs worth of stuff which I shall pack through the country side of Spain on foot. <\/p>\n

\"2016-05-09<\/a><\/p>\n

While I don’t have any major crimes that require an indulgence, I do intend to lose a few things along the Way. My regrets, my grudges, my stumbling blocks, my doubts, and my fears. I also intend to pick up a better focus, increased world view, dreams half-forgotten, a couple blisters, and one of those cute little Don Quixote statues. <\/p>\n

As the peregrinos say, Buen Camino!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James the son of Zebedee is one of the only apostles whose death is recorded in the New Testament. In Acts 12 Herod kills him with a sword. 700 years later a legend arose that James had been a missionary in a country now known as Spain. His disciples returned his body to the land […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xIrS-ov","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}