From the Pilgrim's Road: Letter 7
February 2025
My blessed friends,
What is winter for? Slowing down, I think. The nights are long, the air is cold, you get snowed in, and all these other things that are intended, by God, to turn you inwards, as Old Hollow Tree says, towards the hearth and home. It’s a season of slower, less substantial work, and time together with family and friends. At least, it ought to be.
Mine has been something like that. It’s definitely been slower, both in work and in my interior life, and I think that’s appropriate. Life is probably better when it’s just boiled down to mission, friends, and prayer. What more do we need? (Nothing. The answer is “nothing.”) I cannot thank you all enough for supporting not only Creatio’s work of pilgrimage and evangelization but through that, facilitating the most fulfilling and formational time of my life. It’s an honor to be sent out as a missionary guide by you and have so much to give to others along the way. I hope to be able to return, someday, with as many gifts as you’ve given me.
The Creatio team is hard at work prepping for the 2025 season and has been around a few times in the past couple months. We went to the SEEK Conference in Salt Lake City on New Year’s and then ran down to Phoenix a few weeks later for our annual “Creatio Experience Week” in the Superstition Mountains (you may remember last year’s trip from my newsletter Desert Wayfinding).
I’d never been to SEEK. It wasn’t something I was aware of in college, and I don’t know if I would’ve liked it back then anyway. If you’re not familiar either, it’s a yearly conference for Catholic college students put on by FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) and hosts some of the most famous speakers and clergy in the Church — at least in America. It’s a several-day event with talks, keynote speeches, daily mass, confession, and tabling time for every apostolate you can think of. We were there for the tabling, and set up a booth to spread the word about Creatio trips, our missionary guide program (those college kids are always lookin for something to do post-college), and make some friends. I’d say we were successful in all three, and it was generally a great time, even with tired feet on the concrete floor all day (I’d rather walk 20 miles). Mairéad and I were even interviewed by EWTN, which was pretty cool.
Later in the month, for our return to Arizona, we made a quick 15-hour drive down to Phoenix, with a stop in Moriarty, NM for the night (a priest friend let us sleep in his parish hall), and were hosted by some very hospitable Phoenix young adults before heading out into the backcountry. This year was quite a bit warmer than last, but there was much less water, so while the mild weather was welcome, we did have a few days of packing extra liters. It’s training though, so it ought to be hard.
I don’t know if you’ve ever walked through a wildfire burn scar, but if you haven’t, I’d recommend it even just for its spiritual weight. Given the fires that have swept through more populated areas in recent years, I think it’s worth seeing for yourself. A fire burned through the Superstitions last fall, and you can smell the ash in the air before you can see the area. Walking through the charred graveyard is very much like what I imagine Mordor to have been like for Frodo and Sam on their way to Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. These few photos weren’t even taken in that area (those ones didn’t come out), but as you can see, the landscape is rugged and desolate even without ash and char.
It was a great trip though, even in such a hellish landscape. The team worked well together and we were able to work out some communication kinks that’ll of course come up when guiding. It’s interesting, I feel like I don’t have much to report because it all went pretty much exactly as planned, and there are fewer enormous formational leaps these days for me personally. This is life now; community, leading, guiding, backcountry, walking, adventure. By now it’s just the rhythm of things — and I love it. My prayer for the next seven months will be that it doesn’t go by too quick. I love these people and the work that we do.
What’s Next
Well friends, trip season starts in about three weeks. My first trip is in about four. I’ll be starting the season with a few Chimayó trips before coming back east for a May 1st to 4th pilgrimage to the North American Martyr’s shrine in New York. For those of you around the area, shoot me a text and hopefully we can find some time to catch up. I’ll be around for about a week and free for all the weekdays. After that, our Camino and backpacking seasons begin, and I’ll be either out of the country or out in the backcountry for much of the summer. Pray for me and the whole Creatio team. We’ll be working hard this year.
Also, as I get closer and closer to the end of missionary life, I’ll be in need of future work. If any of you know anyone looking for a photographer, an extra hand on a job, or really anything you think I may be a good fit for, let me know. The foreseeable future (post-Creatio) will be a time of finding/choosing/committing to a path and vocation — I want to devote myself to something — so if you have any thoughts or can offer any help as I approach the hour of decision, let me know. I have no intention of sitting around being a transient young adult forever unless it is God’s will that I remain so, and I do believe my wandering is coming to an end. More and more, every day, I find myself increasingly ready, willing, and longing to commit myself to something — some work, some place, some people — for more than just a year or two with a fixed end date. I want to be in for life. I want to live and die for something. Something that isn’t myself and my own dreams and goals. I trust that God will point the way to do that. AMDG
Pray for me, my friends. I’m praying for you.
in statu viae,
Ryan
“Something that isn’t myself and my own dreams and goals.” Yupp. Also, as someone who’s done different summer missions during my college summers, I find it exhausting on the heart for communities to just keep ending - don’t know much about creatio, but I assume you bond with groups of people for short periods of time over and over and then never really see them again - does this affect you much / is it a reason you long for a more permanent life / how do you deal with the repetition?!