6:28 a.m.—Madrid. Our train leaves in an hour and we have to hustle. We cram clothing into backpacks, leave the hostel, and haul our ashes across Madrid to the train station. 

7:12 a.m.—We are late arriving to the station. Late by two minutes. We miss our train. 

We know it’s a lost cause, but we still try to get a refund on the tickets because tickets are roughly the same price as a four bedroom beach condo. The guy at the information desk is very matter-of-fact and says, “No refundos, señor, this is Spain, not Walmart.”

7:34 a.m.—We purchase new, more expensive tickets for a later train. It’s pricey. But it’s all right, we can always just get a second mortgage. 

To kill time before our departure, we hang out in the station café, drinking coffee. The eatery is full. People are staring at us. This could be because we are the only ones carrying hiking backpacks and a fiddle. Or it might be that I am wearing a cowboy hat, and you

don’t see many Roy Rogers wannabes in Spain. 

One little boy asks me in broken English whether I am a real “vaquero.” I tell him that, yes, Kemosabe, I am most definitely a real vaquero, and I have a Lone Ranger lunchbox at home to prove it. 

9:36–Our train is on time. We rush through security, placing our bags in the scanners. Train security is high today. Locals have told me there is civil unrest in Spain, and terrorist organizations usually target transportation hubs. Especially around holidays. It is nearing Easter, which is a MAJOR holiday in Spain. 

Still, even with heightened security, Spanish transportation security agents are polite, quick, and efficient. This is a stark contrast to American TSA agents, many of whom seem to be suffering clinical…

11:26 a.m.—We have a few travel mishaps when we first arrive in Spain. After our plane touches down in Adolfo-Suarez Madrid-Barajas airport we are lost for several hours. Namely, because our cellular service provider has screwed up our account somehow and our GPSs now have the same level of cell service as residential refrigerators. 

12:38 p.m—Relying solely on our skills to communicate via fluent hand gestures, we have taken three wrong buses to our destination. The people here seem aloof, until you actually talk to them. Then you realize they each one is more friendly than any American I’ve ever met, except Mister Rogers, who I met when I was 6, along with Mister McFeely the postman. 

The good news is, the Spanish I learned on construction job sites as a young man is coming in handy. The people of Madrid are very genial. Although, evidently, nobody in this country seems to think Mexican swear words are funny. 

2:01 p.m—My Spanish sucks. But I am actually able to have long conversations with locals provided

they talk in a slow, deliberate manner as though they have just suffered a severe stroke. When locals hear that we are religious pilgrims, walking the Camino, everyone’s faces light up, they become reverent, and they treat us as though we are special. 

Amazingly, spirituality is not a “weird” and awkward subject for the people of Madrid, it’s normalized. Here, people seem to treat the topic of religion as cordially as you’d discuss college football. No weirdness. Whereas when you mention religion in America people edge away from you as though you are a Jehovah’s Witness selling Amway. 

3:12 p.m.—I found the rooftop at our hostel, which overlooks the city. Houston, we have beer. 

4:09 p.m.—Apparently the only Europeans who book stays at hostels are young persons. Everyone here…

Tomorrow morning, my wife will become pilgrims.

We will walk the breadth of Spain, upwards of 500 miles, over Pyrenees Mountains, on foot, to visit the remains of the apostle James.

I’ve never been a pilgrim before. I’ve never thought of myself as a pilgrim. What even IS a pilgrim?

Contrary to American thought, a pilgrim is not someone who wears a hat shaped like a traffic cone. A pilgrim is someone who journeys for spiritual reasons. Someone who wanders through a foreign land, looking to be changed.

That’s me, I guess. I’m seeking. Although I’m not sure what for.

Maybe I’m seeking to be something different. A stronger version of myself. A healed version.

I’ve been trying to heal ever since I was 11. I grew up under the weight of suicide, domestic abuse, and gun violence. My dad’s last night was spent in a homicidal rage wherein he tried to kill his family.

On his final night, my father was holding my

sister and I hostage. My mother escaped and ran for help. The sheriff deputies bursted into our home with riot guns. Dad was arrested. That was the last time I ever saw him. He was dead the next day, shortly after being released on bail.

But my reason for a pilgrimage is more than that. I was raised in fundamentalist household. We were a cult, really. The cult of Puritanical American Evangelicalism, which is a shallow religion.

We were not taught to look for healing. We were taught bullet points. I come from people who told you, upfront, that God loved you no matter who you were and then gave you a long list of exceptions.

Mainly, I was taught that beer was evil, to shun rock ‘n’ roll, and heedeth not the wicked ways of “I Dream of Jeannie.”

But the older I get, the more…

There were ghosts everywhere. That’s what I kept thinking, while standing on Shiloh battlefield. Ghosts.

You could feel them. You could almost hear their fraternal laughter. You could smell their gunpowder.

A ghost is merely a soul who doesn’t want to be forgotten. Beneath our feet, at Shiloh National Military Park; beneath 163 years of gravel and grit, were tens of thousands of forgotten souls.

They were long forgotten boys in uniforms. Men who had families. Who never saw their wives again. Who nevermore kissed their mothers again, or shook hands with their old men, or bounced babies on their laps.

They were just children, really. Boys who once engaged in a great civil war, testing whether their nation, or any nation conceived and so dedicated, could long endure. Fighting for something they believed in.

My friend Bobby and I were playing music for a funeral directly on the battlefield. The funeral was held for the former National Park superintendent, Woody Harrell.

Woody was

the man who made the Shiloh park great. A man who dedicated his life to preserving the sacred ground of the oft forgotten. A man who was recognized on the floor of the U.S. senate for his work here.

There were park rangers galore, attending the service. It looked like a ranger convention. Stetsons everywhere.

I met one ranger who looked like Teddy Roosevelt. He wore a table-flat brimmed hat and green suit, pressed sharply enough to slice tomatoes.

“McDougall’s brigade would have been fighting on this spot where we stand,” he said. “Would’ve been one heck of a fight on this ground.”

We weren’t all that far from Bloody Pond. A country pond where dying and wounded soldiers sought water during the battle. Wounded men would’ve crawled on their bellies toward the water.

The pond became the hub of death. The remains of young men…