Kathy, Felipe and Annie in Dubuque, a year ago.

Some actual blue sky out there.  I am off in a minute to teach a class but first I want to check in with you.  Hope things are hunky dory where you are.

We have been looking at the emails that were sent to me to help out with my unity speech that I gave on National Day of Prayer.  Here is a good one sent in from Kathy from Dubuque, Iowa:

“Unity is operationing from the assumption that everyone is doing their best.  We don’t know what their experience has been, what’s in their heart… and yet we make up stories about others’ bad intention.”  Kathy from Dubuque.

I think that we can all relate to that.  It is easy to remember when we have been on both sides of that deal.  So just as Father Tom was talking about hope being a precursor of unity, Kathy is talking about trust being another.

For all you locals I am gong to be giving this speech as the sermon at the Burton Community Church on May 21st.  The service starts at 1100.  Of course coffee and cookies afterward.

OK, have to blast off.  Always thanks for being here.  Love, Felipe.

Sitting here at the hospital checking the clouds out in the distance.  It was a nice enough morning for my drive in but this afternoon is supposed to be thunderstorms.  I hope it will be nothing like the strange storm we had last week.  Maybe we can blame it on the Russians.  That’s what they used to say when I was a kid and there would be strange weather, “Must be those Russians testing those A bombs!”  Yea, these storms and the A bombs all sort of Old Testament stuff, I can see that.

I did get the corn patch rototilled yesterday, that’s my big claim to fame.  Every year it keeps getting bigger but I think I have finally reached a temporary limit.  I’ll have to take down some trees to expand it any more.   Well, maybe next year.  And I just ordered corn and sunflower seed from a local NW company.  I’m looking good, just need to get the rain stopped and the soil to warm up.

Plans are moving ahead for the two women’s archery retreats this summer.  These should be fun.  We are trying to have one in June and one in one in August.  Then Wiley and I are doing the Kid’s archery camp in July at the Vashon Sportsmens Club.  Looking forward to all this excitement.

Well, my treatment is almost done and the nurse will be in to get me unhooked.  So, time to go till tomorrow.  All good, alperfect, love, Felipe.

Yea, just when you thought you have seen everything Wiley finds a five leaf clover.  Yea, and he gives it to me, I’m a lucky dad, a really lucky dad.  And don’t let me forget I am pressing it in the Georgia O’Keefe book on page 84.  So, yesterday something really lucky happened at the hospital, although it took me a while to grasp it, it happened so organically.

It just seemed like I was there at the hospital and I was back again.  Where did my two weeks go?  Time flies right?  Anyway, that time and this time I remember saying to my Doc, “I am trying really hard to come up with something to complain about.”  Which I was.  So maybe that influenced him to move my regularly scheduled scans from every three months to every four months now.  Yea, the medical team seems to be more relaxed about my situation with a move like that.  When I first started this round of chemo way back when he ordered a scan every two months, so it has gone from two to three to four now.  That is the lucky news!

Also, this was my 95th chemo treatment.  I am dropping big hints that a party of some type would be completely appropriate for the century mark.  I want to at least get a cupcake out of this deal being such a frequent flyer and all.

OK, enough of that medical stuff.  Here is another installment from the unity speech.  This is from Father Tom in CA.  He is great at being present to me and talking me up, buoying me up, as we say around here.  So this is what I read at the talk:

“Felipe:

I thought of you so often during the Holy Week Triduum.  More than anyone I know, YOU epitomize the mystery and of the Resurrection, the Central Mystery of our Christian faith.  And, what is that mystery?  It’s simply this:  The finest day of your life is the one not yet lived.

Easter Blessings and Love,

Padre Tomas”

Well, that is quite a letter and at first reading thought that it was incredibly off topic since I had asked him about the topic of unity.  But on contemplating it I realized that it was all about hope and unity might not be possible without hope.  It is an important precursor.

OK, have to go walk and then later I am rotor tilling the corn patch, an exciting Spring activity.   Take care and love, Felipe.

To have a real lunch at the treatment center one needs a tablecloth, size doesn’t matter but a tablecloth.  It is the idea of it really that counts.  And we have this nice brown and white one that Annie sent this last week.  And there was other stuff as well, sort of box-o-tapas.  Let’s see, what else was in there: Spanish olives, cheesie crackers and dolmas.  And I added a ginger ale from the cantina here.  Nice classy lunch, right?  Thank you Annie.

Having a coffee now to get me through the last hour and a half of treatment.  I need to finish this post, I can’t fall asleep now.  But it is noisy today here.  A new “call the nurse” mechanism was installed and it needs some fine tuning because it is making a racket.  I got my earplugs in.

I don’t know if it is sunny out or not right now, no window.  I could look on my weather app here I suppose.  Something wrong with that, it seems.

Just saw Suzanne the leader of Ladybug House.  That is the upcoming palative care center for youngsters with deadly cancers.  It will be a facility for children and young people, geared for them,  to spend their last days.  And today is a big giving day for all non profits.  Suzanne is asking for your dollars for this worthy cause.  I shared her Ladybug House info on FaceBook today.  Maybe check it out.

David one of my nurses is off on the Camino Frances now as we speak.  I think he is around Pamplona.  I am writing him to slow down.  As Kelly used to say, ” It’s not a race people!”  David posted a pic of a spot where Kelly and I had a photo taken.  Must find that and put it up.

OK, that’s all I have for now.  Time to straighten up here and get ready to go.  See you tomorrow, love, Felipe.

So excited that Spring is making an appearance if somewhat shaky.  We need to gear up for the whole season through September of happenings and visitors.  Lots of emails in from folks that will stop by to walk the trail at some point.  Then old friends will stop by unannounced, all good.

The winter blogging season seems to be coming to an end.  When the weather is bad and the days are dark it is easy to be absorbed in reading and writing.  Now I can feel the draw of things outdoors and being away from the keyboard.  Yup, but there is a lot of inspiration outside which makes it easier to get stories up.  Maybe it all evens out.

Speaking of blogs, Terry Hershey has a great blog called Sabbath Moments which I read every Monday when it comes out.  I had to email him yesterday because we seemed to be writing about the same stuff.  I was writing about the baseball pitcher who reinvented himself as he got older and he was writing about a woman who was a fabulous musician and had her viola stolen so she took up voice and kept going with her music not looking back.  We all seem to be inspired by stories of folks that shake off their disappointments and turn the old lemons into lemonade.  Maybe it is the springtime of reinvention?

Hey, have to go grocery shopping at Shawn’s Market.  He offers 10% off on groceries for folks over 65 every Tuesday.  We call it gray haired tuesday around here.  It’s fun and it probably means I eat 10% more broccoli than I used to so I think that is a plus.

OK, off to the market, reinvention loves, Felipe.

P.S. –  that means post script to all you readers without gray hair.  Anyway, I was going to continue with my quotes from my speech on unity.  Number one was from Pope Francis which we did several days ago,  So, number two is from Reverand Bonnie from Arizona: “This is AWESOME.  I also like to look up the dictionary definition, choose one and focus on a word or two.  That also is powerful.  Let me know how it turns out.  This is fabulous.”  So I did look unity up and came up with, “The state of being joined together or in agreement..”

I’m still thinking about the value of reinvention.  Inspired by the story of Gaylord Perry the longtime baseball pitcher.  His spirit and his mind carried him when his body let him down.  When he no long could sustain a certain pitch or set of pitches he reconfigured his plan.  Sometimes this required developing new ways, new approaches, maybe new pitches.  I don’t know about this in any depth but his new plan had to fool the batter and that is the proof of success, plain and simple.

And he was able to do this over and over again lengthening a career remarkably.  I guess he didn’t see himself cast in stone unable to change wedded to some ideal or method.   It is rather that change was his secret weapon.  To actively strive for the effective whatever that might look like.  What little bird told him he could do that to that extent?

And I know about reinventing through my own life.  At least one time reinventing.  But I have never given it the thought it deserves really.  And what if I or we just had it in mind that maybe that is a continuing process not just a response to a specific onetime happening.  Perry seems to have used it as a strategy not just a stop gap measure.

I hear such amazing stories these days of people I come in contact with who have made a break with jobs, careers or life styles and have fashioned new more effective situations.  All this is very creative and brave.  Sort of dancing with the “hands we are dealt”.

Just thinking that this reinvention ought to be something that is celebrated not just observed.  And maybe the process of continuing reinvention ought to be celebrated.  It is sort of hopping across the river on the rocks not exactly sure of what is next but trusting in our ability to be nimble.

Yea, time to gear up to walk.  We are getting close to the salt water “in Spain” here at Phil’s Camino.   After reaching Santiago for the second time we are on the side trip to the coast, to Finisterre and Muxia.

After while crocodile, love, Felipe.

Sunday morning and just back from Mass.  Catherine and I were out at Thriftway after Mass to do our tailgate ministry.  It was nice and sunny and warm enough to sit out and have our coffee and doughnut and talk to folks.  We did have to pat ourselves on the back for surviving the winter one more time.   We had a lot of business to cover since we were apart last week.

Oh, at church our Father David was away on retreat.  A cousin of his filled in, also a priest.  He was fun, a real personality.  At the blessing with the holy water he drenched everyone after saying he believed in being generous.  At the passing of the peace he got out and shook hands with everyone that had come.  Nothing stodgy about this guy.

So, our day is off to a tremendous start.  Now I need to mow like the wind with my time today.  Everything is nice and dry out there, perfect for the mower.  Well, that is my plan.  First though we have to get to reinvention.

I was watching a Seattle Mariners baseball game yesterday and they had Gaylord Perry on who was a longtime pitcher with the team.  He has been retired for years but he was with the team for many years back in like the 60’s through the 80’s maybe.  I don’t know , I wasn’t interested in baseball back then.  But the commentators said something interesting about him after he had taken off from the broadcast booth.  They saying that anyone who pitches for that long has to have the ability to reinvent themselves numerous times.   The body gives out not allowing him to pitch a certain pitch so he changes and develops a new way of doing things.   Or maybe the game even changes over time and a new response is needed.  Anyway the importance of adapting was brought up.  If you don’t adapt you won’t be able to continue long term is the lesson.

This brings to mind the old Marine Corps motto of improvise, adabt, overcome.   This is all as I grapple with issues in my own life, trying to make my life continue to “work”.   Nothing for you to worry about but just sort of constantly readjusting on my part.

Yup, time for lunch and then riding the mower.  Make it happen today.  Love you, Felipe.

We had a thunder and lightning storm two nights ago and everyone is still shaking.  That was pretty high on the weird scale for us here, a little too much drama.  But we survived and I think that we are in for a couple of dry days.  That means mowing to me.  Keeping the jungle back is the major preoccupation here in April through June.  Then at a certain point in July the heat and lack of moisture brown out the grass.  Yea, that is where we are in the yearly outdoor cycle going from having too much water to too much grass.

Boy, we are going to have visitors to Phil’s Camino this summer big time.  Starting later this month and through July folks are coming so far.  Got the destination thing happening here at Raven Ranch.  Am I bragging or complaining?

Well, I have to go in a few moments.  I’m still basking in delight over the speech on Thursday.  Feeling comfortable with getting up in front of folks is a great breakthrough for me.  And twenty minutes was a long time to keep them entertained but we did it.

Later gator, Felipe.x

Well, of course we all know fun comes first.  Hey, the speech happened and pretty much according to plan.  Not that it was highly planned.  Anyway, it all went well and it was well received by the audience.  It is too bad but I don’t think that it was recorded.  But I was asked to repeat it on May 21 at the Burton Community Church so we have another chance.

One thing that I noticed with this event was that I had fun doing it.  I have accumulated enough confidence and brashness to pull this stuff off without a lot of stress.  Times past I would forget to have fun and just sort of be happy when things were over and buttoned up safely.  But now it’s safety third, right?

Would like to thank a few people that I had contacted for ideas earlier on in this project: Reverand Bonnie from Arizona,  Kathy and Carolyn from Iowa, Cris from Argentina, Padre Tomas from California and Steve, Catherine and Commando Bill from Vashon.  Oh, and there is Pope Francis of course with his timely TED talk.  I was trying to show unity by gathering ideas from as far out as I could reach.  Thanks amigos.

Better thank the audience too.  Thank you all you folks for coming out to the event.  Too bad that it is such a slight percentage of the Island population.  Maybe with more exciting speakers like Felipe we can change that!

So maybe I will put in the posts over the next few days some of what people wrote to me as ideas and what I did with them.  So below is a paragraph that I gathered from Papa Francisco and I started with it and I finished with it in the speech.

“Quite a few years of my life have strengthened my conviction that each and everyone’s existence is deeply tied to that of others.  Life is not time merely passing by, life is about interactions.”  Pope Francis 2017.

OK, off I go to make stuff happen.  Friday is the time when you have to work extra hard to make up for all the times you slacked earlier in the week.  Love you, Felipe.

https://www.ted.com/talks/pope_francis_why_the_only_future_worth_building_includes_everyone?language=es