In the AM before our walk and am trying my best to saturate myself in this concept of unity.  I have been working on the speech but mostly I find myself working on unity.  It is a tricky sell.  But I have some keys that have been presented to me by fellow Caminoheads that will carry the day.

We have a walk this morning in an hour.  I am counting on a little bird to help me put the finishing touches on my talk.  She will fill in the blanks and the whole thing will fly.

I am inspired by thinking about romance languages where words, thoughts and ideas have a life of their own.  This is a place where I can rest my mind and they can all sort themselves out on their own.  The speech can write itself.

Actually the speech is not going to be written at all.   I have structure provided by the comments of ten people that I asked to help.  And I will elaborate on each of those.  That is the format, well and then an introduction and closing.

I think that I will watch Papa Francisco’s TED talk one more time.  Trying not to be nervous, well just nervous enough.  Here’s to the National Day of Prayer.

Alperfect all the time, love , Felipe.

Well,  all things in my head are headed toward unity.   Planning and voodooing this speech together.  This is a tricky topic, this unity.  The more I get into it the more I have the back up to something more basic and do that homework first.  Ah, but I can’t let too much out here and now.

We plan on recording this event on Thursday.  Nothing is written out but quotes from others on the topic.  I am not going to read much.   Most of it is going to have to come from Felipe’s head and heart.   Well, and there is the Holy Spirit.

It was 55 degrees out this morning when I woke up.  That is pretty darn warm.  We still have an overcast blanketing the area however so it doesn’t look glorious but it is workable.  I have to be outside for a couple days building a small front door stair and railing for a neighbor.

Also my Hunter Education class starts tonight that I help teach.  We give it every year out here on the Island for newcomers to the sport.  It used to be the high point of my year but now I seem to have many high points.  Alperfect as we say.

Thanks for being here with us in our Caminoheads community.  Make the most of today!  Love, Felipe.

Thursday is the National Day of Prayer and and noontime is our local service.  Sometime in the hour I have my twenty minute speech.  I am leaning into this one and my thoughts are concentrating on this event.  I have a plan, just need to shine it up a little.   So, yea, come on down if you are local.  Oh, at the Vashon Theater is where we will be.

Part of my strategy was to pick ten Caminoheads and get their thoughts on the concept of unity.  I did that and that is forming the basis to my talk with me amplifying each.  I think about it being ten two minute talks which my brain can handle.  Anyway, Padre Tomas was the very first to answer my request and he said something short and sweet and appeared at first sight to be off topic.  But the more I thought about his words the more I come to realize that it may be the key to the whole situation.  Gracias Padre Tomas.

His words were really about hope and gratitude.  If we can clear our mental landscape of everything but these two things we can begin to formulate a beginning point to think about unity.  That is where I am at this moment.

We have a walk this afternoon on Phil’s Camino.  We will try and step with hope and gratitude to get with this unity thing.  Thanks for checking in, with you always, love, Felipe.

Two of my best buddies were named after this saint and her feast day is today:

These two buddies are Catalina from Berkeley, our staff art historian and our neighborhood Catherine who is my beloved Mass partner and fellow tailgate theologian.  Too bad we don’t all live in the same neighborhood, that would be critical mass.

So, I survived the weekend.  It was very full and I was weak from my chemo.  But it all happened and good connections were made.  Marvin was here from Dads and Art was here from Teleios Bible Guys.  They are a handful those two.  Sunday revolved around my visit to The Vashon Zen Center.  That got me in with a whole crew of folks that I haven’t interacted with much.  They loved the film and we had a great QandA afterward.  Then two of the folks came later in the day for the walk and tapas.  So all that basically filled up my whole weekend.

Now I have to start thinking about Thursday and this speech that I have volunteered for.  It’s the unity speech right in the middle of apparent total disunity.  Well, not total disunity but seems like something pretty dang close.  I had better spend at least an hour a day with my notes and prayer.  I’m glad I am so brave because I don’t know what else I have going for me.  The Holy Spirit is really going to have to step up here.

Well, this is where things are at on a Monday morning.  Have a walk in 45 minutes.  We are getting out to the coast of Spain with our laps.  Come and join us when you get a chance.   Til then, love, Felipe.