Book Review: From Sore Soles to a Soaring Soul
From Sore Soles to a Soaring Soul: Changing My Life One Step at a Time on the Camino de Santiago
by Blaine A. Rada
BookBaby, 2019
140 page
on Goodreads
Reviewed by Allison Venuto | Dallas, TX
Blaine A. Rada’s From Sore Soles to a Soaring Soul: Changing My Life One Step at a Time on the Camino de Santiago shares stories of walking the Camino Francés pre-COVID. More experienced and interested in running versus long-distance walking, Rada sets off to complete the journey from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago in a tight four weeks. His writing style, short chapters outlining each stage, matches the quick pace at which he characteristically moves.
While moving at a fast pace, Rada still concentrates on the intentionality of the walk and finds himself embracing the unknown and engaging in unforeseen challenges. A planner by nature, Rada purposefully challenges himself to see the beauty and peace of walking one day at a time as each day comes. The exploration of his inner walk is revealed through thoughts, quotes, and life advice offered to readers.
New pilgrims will appreciate the daily records of hours and times walked, details not often seen in many Camino memoirs and which provide a sense of the daily rhythm of Rada’s Camino. Additionally, the book offers some advice for walking, with a frankness about the physical demands of walking hundreds of miles with many high-mileage days. Experienced pilgrims will recognize the stages of the Camino and the shifts in focus—from physical preparation, to overcoming mental challenges, to spiritual realizations—as one inches closer toward Santiago.
Thanks to his stamina, Rada pushes past Santiago and reaches Finisterre. As Rada describes turning his attention to home and revising his intentions, readers will recognize the Camino adage that a pilgrim’s Camino begins once he returns home.
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