Santi Taboada<\/p>\n\n\n\n
American Thom Ryng has completed the Camino de Santiago six times, both alone and with others. He's taken the classic route, and also explored variations. But none were as emotional as the journey he made this summer, in honor of his late wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thom was born in Chicago into a family with no religious affiliation. His first spiritual experience came at the school he attended, which was run by Augustinian friars. Inspired by their spiritual depth, Thom asked the chaplain if he could join the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
THOM RYNG<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Camino de Santiago Pilgrim<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had a meeting. And he said, \u201cI really only want to ask you one question. <\/em>Do you believe?\u201d And I said, \u201cnope.\u201d And he said, \u201cwell, there's the problem, right?\u201d We had a really good talk. And he said to me, I want you to go out and look for the truth. And when you find truth, maybe we can have another conversation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thom spent 20 years searching. He explored Taoism, Confucianism and paganism. For 10 years, he practiced Kemeticism: a belief system based on the religion of ancient Egypt. Then everything changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THOM RYNG<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And then fast forward many years, my fianc\u00e9e, Francine, and I were taking a walk through our neighborhood, <\/em>and we passed in front of our local Catholic church, St. Patrick Church.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When they heard the choir singing, they decided to go inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THOM RYNG<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You know, that feeling you get when you come home from a long trip and you put your suitcases down in your front door and you're like, whew! That just overwhelmed me, like this idea that okay, now you're home.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n After that experience, Thom and his fianc\u00e9e, Francine, converted to Catholicism. A few years later, Thom heard about a route in the Old World that ends at the tomb of the Apostle St. James.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They decided to walk the Camino de Santiago for Francine's 50th<\/sup> birthday. She wanted an adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THOM RYNG<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There's a saying that I heard on Camino that I just love, which is, come to Spain, meet the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Camino is a complete flip of your normal life, right? So, in the modern world, our lives are very complicated, right? But usually they're physically easy, right? You sit at a desk or you sit behind a counter or whatever. But the Camino flips that. Your life is simple. You get up, you eat, you walk. You eat, you walk, you find a place to sleep. You shower, you eat, you sleep, next day, same thing, right? It's simple, but it's difficult, right?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thom and Francine fell in love with the Camino. They walked it four more times, until Francine was eventually admitted to hospital after being diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. 62 days later, she died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thom was devastated. Before she died, Francine made him promise to go on all the adventures they had planned, including the Camino from Vezelay, a 1000 mile route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THOM RYNG<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, that was, you know, 73 days or whatever walking. That's probably too long. But, it was important, it was so important. I was a mess before I went, you know. I couldn't sleep, I was constantly just... just crying constantly just.. I was... I was a broken human being, and the Camino... the Camino healed me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thom made the pilgrimage carrying a heavier burden than his backpack: the cross. He reached Santiago as planned, on the first anniversay of Francine's death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Santi Taboada American Thom Ryng has completed the Camino de Santiago six times, both alone and with others. He's taken the classic route, and also explored variations. But none were as emotional as the journey he made this summer, in honor of his late wife. Thom was born in Chicago into a family with no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":93548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ZNKvVxKZQ6g","video_descarga":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bcaminosantiagoeng.mp4","international_url":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bcaminosantiagoint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93554,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93546\/revisions\/93554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}