THE CALL TO LIVE EVERYTHING

One of the sad things today is that so many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence. They are dying to tie themselves into a system, a role, or to an image, or to a predetermined identity that other people have actually settled on for them. This identity may be totally at variance with the wild energies that are rising inside in their souls. Many of us get very afraid and we eventually compromise. We settle for something that is safe, rather than engaging the danger and the wildness that is in our own hearts. We should never forget that death is waiting for us. A man in Connemara said one time to a friend of mine, ‘Beidh muid sínte siar,’ a duirt sé, ‘cúig mhilliúin blain déag faoin chré’ – We’ll be lying down in the earth for about fifteen million years, and we have a short exposure. I feel that when you recognize that death is on its way, it is a great liberation, because it means that you can in some way feel the call to live everything that is within you. One of the greatest sins is the unlived life, not to allow yourself to become chief executive of the project you call your life, to have a reverence always for the immensity that is inside of you.

John O’Donohue

Excerpt from WALKING ON THE PASTURES OF WONDER
John O’Donohue in conversation with John Quinn

Inishbofin / Co. Galway – 2017
Photo: © Ann Cahill

I get a certain amount of spam on this blog site and one that I just trashed said something like “finding your thoughts beneficial and your ideas really work.”  Something like that.  That would be nice if it was actually directed toward this blog but this kind of stuff is written so it applies generally to anyone and everyone.  But a good thought none the less.

I don’t know about my ideas really working but I do hope that my thoughts are beneficial.  Lisa one of my favorite people that I met at the Hot Spring Film Festival last year asked how my treatments were going.  She had a teenage son die of cancer and knows the whole drill.  I told her that the treatments were kicking my butt lately and I was feeling like the proverbial little flower coming up through a crack in the sidewalk.  Not really any good reason why I should have survived this long, just too ornery I guess.

I used to think about myself being a three legged dog when first wrestling with this cancer of mine.   Not that there is anything wrong with those guys but I am thinking that the flower in the crack is better for where I am at lately.  I just must have work to do yet and God is keeping me around for that reason that is all I can figure out.  But that seems like a plenty good enough thing at the moment.

Alperfect really, love, Felipe.

Such nice thoughts have come in on the comments lately.  I am really blessed with such a great audience.  I may feel beat up because of the chemo but I am “mighty because of Grace.”  Thank you Nancy for that.  Cris and Loretta sending blessings and covering me with prayer.  I am in the flow of pilgrims for sure.

Speaking of pilgrimage, Phil’s Camino is looking for another route to walk here.  We finished our second SJPP to Santiago and then just recently Santiago to the coast and back.   Maybe you have a guidebook or map detailed enough to extract the little towns and distances between them.   Any recommendations?  We might even be ready for Ireland or Italy.

Today is supposed to be the hottest of of the days in our current heat wave.  We will be up to the 90’s and some places even low 100’s.  That is broiling for us wimpy northerners.  The air is full of smoke from wildfires.  That is always creepy.  I am going to get my walk in here in a few minutes and say a rosary or two before it gets any warmer.

OK, thanks agin for being here with us.  We are walking our pilgrimage even though we are not physically together.  That is about right isn’t it?  Love, Felipe.x

At the hospital getting ready for my 100th chemo treatment.  I got sucked into working on the jigsaw puzzle in the waiting room but just got myself away from that to be with you.  So, here I am.  How’s by you?

Last week I was writing a bit about our focus here at Caminoheads.  My question was are we doing anything beyond me journaling away on life.  That has some value but now that I have your attention we should be doing something beyond that.  And as Cris from Buenos Aires and Dana from our neighborhood have expressed to me lately is that we are doing something greater.  And that is that we have been able to keep the Camino flame alive away from Spain, away from the Camino proper.

Cris put it that we here at Caminoheads we’re providing a place, a space for it to exist.  And she can read the blog and feel connected to pilgrimage.  Maybe she doesn’t have anyone to get together with in her world to do that with and that is why she likes to check in with us here.

Meanwhile Dana came to walk at yesterday’s walk and we had time to work on the question.  She  always has great takes on things and she came up with we had the Camino in real time.  We are present to it.  Then she came up with the metaphor that we were like her shell tattoo in that we were a constant reminder.

Well, just clarifying things for ourselves.  Just trying to do the best we can at what we should be doing.  OK, good to see you again, Felipe.x

Yesterday we flashed back to July 31,’14 and that seemed to shake a bunch of stuff loose from you all.

William from Calgary was relating to Emily’s thoughts about being frustrated with her body’s weaknesses.  So, his Camino moment occurred when he started noticing all the slow moving but relentless snails traveling along around him.

And then Jim from Lake Arrowhead, CA sent this ancient but timeless prayer:

“Pilgrim’s Prayer This Pilgrim’s Prayer is from the Codex Calixtinus, the 12th-century guide book to the Camino de Santiago. God, You called your servant Abraham from Ur in Chaldea, watching over him in all his wanderings, and guided the Hebrew people as they crossed the desert. Guard these your children who, for love of your Name, make a pilgrimage to Compostela. Be their companion on the way, their guide at the crossroads, their strength in weariness, their defense in dangers, their shelter on the path, their shade in the heat, their light in darkness, their comfort in discouragement, and the firmness of their intentions, that through your guidance they may arrive safely at the end of their journey and, enriched with grace and virtue, may return to their homes filled with salutary and lasting joy.”

And then Gracie from Australia posted this new pic of herself on FB.  Gracie was in Phil’s Camino in a number of places.  She was with me at Mass when I passed out and saved my head from bonking on the stone floor.  Yes, I went to church and fell into the arms of Grace, it’s true.

Ah, so many great memories we have right?  And how about, “filled with salutary and lasting joy.”  It makes me all smiley inside, love, Felipe.