The Heel Lifts

   Last week I saw the podiatrist.  I was having trouble with my left heel - ongoing pain, so I decided I better check it out.  He told me it was Achilles tendinitis and I needed to rest it.  I explained about my pilgrimage and we worked out an alternative.  I hadn't been able to walk much last week, so I would continue to rest it over the weekend.  He gave me some exercises to do to help stretch the tendon.  And then he suggested that I get 1/4 inch heel lifts as the high arches in my feet put more pressure on my heels when I walk.
    So I headed to the medical supply store, found a couple of heel lifts and placed them in my hiking boots.  I thought 1/4 inch?  What will that do?  Well, it changed things.   My heel pain from the tendinitis disappeared.  But I ended up with a blister on my left heel and also on my right little toe.  New blisters!  -- I thought I had moved beyond that a year ago.  But one tiny change in my boots changed things.
    The organization where I work, Preachers' Aid Society, sponsors a program called Tending the Fire that helps clergy to understand how Family Systems Theory works within their families, the church families, and the church as a family.   My heel reminded me of systems.  One of the lessons of systems theory is that one change (no matter how little) will affect everything.  We use a mobile as a visual -- add one tiny piece and the mobile changes.  My heel and toe did not continue to blister each day (I helped a little with this) and both will build callouses in the affected areas.  Our bodies adapt to the change.
   But becoming calloused is hardly how we should deal with the changes that come to people.  Often someone in pain will act out in another area of their life - annoying us at a meeting or irritating us with an email.  I once heard a lecture on systems theory that encouraged us to be curious rather than judging others.  The annoying person may have had a change in their life: a diagnosis, a job loss, a marriage breaking up.  Like my heel, we too need to enter into the pain, not building callouses, but caring for one another.  Rather than avoiding others, we might need to ask, "How are you?" - "What's going on?"
   I will meet some interesting people along the Camino - some helpful, some polite, some nice, and maybe some irritating, some annoying.  And who knows, a change in the condition of one foot and I could become a very irritated (and irritating) person.  Hopefully my little heel lifts will remind me to listen and also to share with others who I meet along the way.   May you walk with curiosity and caring - and, if needed, with callouses on your feet!