Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1600-1700 (tapas after)
Thursday 0900-1000
Sunday 1600-1700 (tapas after)

WILL BE CLOSED THIS SUNDAY JUNE 23RD but back to it Monday morning.

Felipé

Was reading a Seattle newspaper article yesterday about how our warm dry Spring weather is going to be replaced by a cooler wetter version which will last for a while. The local firemen always pray for a wet Fourth of July. Vashonites celebrate with a lot of fireworks and tend to burn down a certain amount of stuff in the process. Anyway the corn is reaching for the sky so the weather is fine with me. We are approaching knee high as of now.

So, we made it to the ballpark to cheer on our Mariners and we did a bang up job too. I think the final score was 8 – 1 Mariners. Wow, a good time. And good to hang out with Dave and Helen. Dave is one of my Bible Guys that I have been with for fifteen years studying.

Last night when the conversation shifted to our last Bible Guys meeting, Dave said that that was the best meeting that we ever had and I agree. And I have been thinking on it because I’ve had a little time and space to do that. Without being specific I want to talk about that for a moment.

One of the guys who we haven’t seen in a while spoke of his challenges with his wife’s cancer. It was very open and moving and brought us all up to date. And other guys shared stuff about what was going on with them and theirs. It all seemed to have a central theme as I listened. And that was getting to the place where one can operate, function and maybe even thrive in that place of dislocation and discomfort. That is what I am calling that state for the moment, dislocation and discomfort. It is the place where we may find ourselves after we have spent a lot of time and effort trying to avoid. The place that is the opposite of our best dreams for ourselves and our loved ones. It’s in my own case dealing with cancer.

But how do we get on top of those obstacles? How do we get to the point where we can work with that and live with that and make it into something positive? Yea, and that is really the bottom line of this blog and five years of blogging. It has been the unfolding of this process for me. It has been a long drawn out process but worth every penny and minute of it. That’s what I am beginning to see anyway.

Hey, time to go find my shoes for the morning walk. So glad I can still ambulate. Thanks for being here loves, Felipé.

Working on my clinical trial here at the hospital today. My Rebecca is here since we are off to a Mariners Baseball game this afternoon. Dear friends Dave and Helen are treating us to that.

So, lots of comments on my wedding ring lose and panic post. Apparently a lot of folks can relate to that one. To tell you the truth I never even thought about it til it happened to me. But that’s life I guess, one minute you are happily surfing along and the next minute you are swimming with the barracudas.

Here in the waiting room where I was goofing a couple of weeks ago and first connected with the word Veranda that was a coffee flavor, Veranda Blend. And then there was the guy with the sport’s team jacket that said “The Attitudes” across the back, he is here again this morning. Right now there seems to be an abundance of couples that one or both of them are hard of hearing and are using their outside voices. LOUD IN HERE!!

Well, Henriette showed up for the walk yesterday afternoon as did Jim my friend who has been helping with the corn. We had a short walk and a long tapas session. Some of the talk was about My Rebecca’s book that she is working on getting published. Henriette is a veteran of numerous book projects and was on hand to give sound advice. And Jim’s wife is an author of history books so I was the thick of that, a mire blogger.

CAMINOHEADS’ VERANDA NEWS

Let me repeat the dates which are August 23-26. That is out here on Vashon Island in between Seattle and Tacoma WA. Would love to give you exact location and contact numbers but want to do it via email. My email is [email protected] .

OK, til tomorrow loves, Felipé.

Yesterday was a bit much, speaking of something happening. It was just the most absolutely ordinary day with us puttering around the ranch like a lot of days. It was an all of a sudden realization that my wedding ring wasn’t on my left hand anymore. After forty years of traveling with me it was gone, solid gone. I stared at my hand; it didn’t even look like my hand.

I exhausted myself searching for it. What a frantic feeling. Oh, it is wearing me out right now just thinking of it. There was one spot where I was convinced it had fallen. I went over the area with a metal detector, put stuff through a half inch mesh to no avail. Had to finally give up and lie down.

A couple of years ago My Rebecca had made a beautiful silver ring that she gave to me and that I have been wearing on my right hand ever since. She suggested that I just switch hands, easy peasy. That made sense and felt good. And then she had a story for me about a young friend of ours, a new Mom, that found a wedding ring while gardening and it wound up being her wedding ring some time later. I feel better. Maybe I am part of some bigger story yet to come together.

Life is like that I should remember from the Camino where it seemed like daily I was loosing and finding things. Of course in the end these things are only things and sharing them with people that we don’t know may be important somehow.

Walking later today. Henriette will be here with a bottle of Sangria. That could be the opening line in the great novel that I need to write yet.

OK gang, time to scram loves, Felipé.

I, particular me, had a great Dad’s Day! From morning to night all good. Hoping that you did as well or that you participated somehow.

Father David started it out by making us all stand up at church and receive applause and then gave us each a flashlight. There he was shining light on the world as usual! Guys and flashlights go together like peanut butter and jelly I would say.

Then watching our dear Mariners play baseball and then I was out in the corn for a few three hours wrestling with the weeds. Jim, one of my archery students has been coming to help out with that and he was there also. Dads in Corn. And Wiley and I got the water system set up and we have been throwing a lot of water at the crop. Way almost knee high way before the Fourth.

My Rebecca took me out for dinner and a show in the evening. We visited Camp Convos a new establishment on Vashon. They have their own beer and food. They feature meat pies, way yum.
Convos by the way is the name of the water between Vashon and the land to the west of the island, that waterway is called Colvos Passage.

Then the show was the best thing that I remember seeing here on Vashon well maybe after all the kid’s plays. Anyway it was called O Brother and was a musical I guess. The plot was that it was the audition for a Island show featuring the music from that great film O Brother Where Art Thou. So, it was a crazy mix of quirky Vashon culture with the fun soulful music of the movie. I laughed and cried my way through the whole thing. Kudos to all involved. Vashon has so much talent and one tends to forget about it til there is a call to arms like this and they come out of the woodwork. I am going to try a lure a few to play at the Veranda maybe.

So, ah right on time, have a walk in a minute. Phil Volker you had better get out there and say a prayer of thanks for all that which was your day yesterday! Oh, and I forgot to say that I heard from both our wonderful kids yesterday, right on time. So everyone got an A plus.

A plus loves, don Felipé.

We are back with the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit and speaking with number seven today, our beloved Counsel. Well Counsel, someone had to be last so nothing personal. With the others once I got started one thing lead to another and we spoke with you all one by one.

I did look up the word counsel and one word in the definition stuck out and that was “advice.” Why don’t we start there? You say that you often speak through the saints. Yes, meaning that their quotes are sound advice for us. I’ve often felt that they are our big brothers and sisters who have traveled these roads before we came along. Yes, the same roads.

We need good advice don’t we? Or else we could try and figure it out all by ourselves. Personally I’m running out of time to be doing much of that anymore. What’s that, there is not enough time in the whole world. Ha, good one.

Any last thoughts today? Oh, you just want to say that you and your brothers and sisters, the other gifts, enjoyed the opportunity to be here and say a few words. Yea, it was fun and educational for all of us Counsel, I thank you all too.

Walking in a few minutes. The sun has broken through. See you all tomorrow. Alperfect loves, Felipé.

Ah, time to be together for a few minutes anyway. This morning we will invite Wisdom in to speak with us about, well wisdom. I have seen that term and thought that it was something for old guys. But wait I am an old guy. Hmmm. But it has always had an unattainable quality about it like it was for someone else to play with. I’ll have to wait for someone else to fill me in on what is wise and what isn’t.

This morning we had a great Bible Guys meeting and we talked of a lot of things but one thing that came up was a definition for wisdom. And that was that it is healed suffering. Wisdom, any thoughts on that? Yes, you say that it reminds you of the phrase School of Hard Knocks. Yea, haven’t heard that in a long time. That is learning through living life, right?

Well yes, each one of those knocks needs to heal up to garner wisdom out of them. Yes, otherwise we could complain about them and not get any further. Or we could be unforgiving and it wouldn’t go beyond just a painful memory to relive and relive. I see that.

How else can we think of this? Yes, we know heart rocks. We like to collect them and have them around, yes, rocks that are in roughly a heart shape. So, you are saying that the cleft in the heart rock is basically an injury. That the rock is rolled and tumbled for a thousand years afterward and it becomes worn smooth or healed but there is still evidence of the injury. That’s cool, yes I can see that. In order to have heart as we say we need to have suffering and healing. I will think about that, yes.

All right, there you go! Heart shaped loves, Felipé.

Here we are back on the Veranda with another guest gift of The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. I just had to consult the big fat English dictionary to look up understanding and wisdom two of our seven gifts. In my normal sloppy thinking I could consider those the same or close in meaning but we have to go beyond that here today. And I was debating with myself which one of these two should be first.

So let’s do Understanding first and welcome to you today. I did have a little trouble separating you from your brother Wisdom. You seem closely related. Any thoughts on that to start out? Right, all the gifts are interlocked and function as a whole. Yes, we are starting to see that in a number of ways.

So, when we understand something we grasp the meaning or the significance of it, right? You like that word “grasp”? Yes, it is a process of grasping. That was almost too easy. and yes, grasping is very easy for us all to see.

What about teachings, for example parables, that are used to explain? They are sometimes more like riddles. Well, that’s true riddles have been used to teach also. Why make the understanding harder? Ah, the difficulty causes us to think in new ways. We have to think in a different way to solve the riddle or unlock the parable. It is the thinking in a new way that is as important as understanding the underlying principle. Right, OK.

What about the challenge of we ourselves trying to be understood? Yes, that is important also. Oh yea, there was a quote from Saint Francis about “it’s more important to try and understand then it is to be understood.” That’s close I think. Yes, that is about the importance of listening to the other guy instead of forcing our own point across. OK, interesting, understanding the two way street.

OK, time is up for today. Thanks for being here with us. Two way street loves, Felipé.

Hey, here we are again. We are not doing these gifts in any logical order, just in how they jump up at me. One is not more important than another just because we covered it first. And as we work our way through it is becoming apparent that the gifts are interlocking. One makes another easier or better. They are meant to be together as a group. Wasn’t there a film, The Magnificent Seven?

Fear of the Lord welcome to our humble scene. We have been interviewing your friends here at the Veranda for a few days and everything has been going well with that. I was just telling our audience how I was seeing how the gifts work together, one helping another or one complimenting another.

More and more this word fear is being translated as something like awe. Would you agree with that? Mostly you say. It wouldn’t be bad to realize that one is around something extremely powerful and dangerous when one is looking into the cone of an active volcano. Or that a storm at sea is nothing to trifle with. Yes, I see, there is a dangerous aspect.

It is hard for me at the moment to go beyond that, it was so powerful. Yes, fear is a natural reaction that we certainly all recognize. It leaves an impression. Yes, but God is so much more. Yes, right. So we can’t get stuck there, I see.

Yes, Julian of Norwich, had that vision of meeting God and He held in His hand what looked like a hazelnut. And that little finite object was everything that was or ever will be, in other words the whole of the universe. Yes, that is a powerful image that we can dwell on.

Well, with that we will have to sign off today. Folks are coming to walk and I am still in my jammies.

Hazelnut loves, Felipé.

As of now we have 30 folks who have RSVP’ed and I know of 10 more that are local mostly. So we are still counting. Fifty would be a nice round number for us.

This is a gathering of pilgrims and pilgrims are resourceful and flexible so that is how I am envisioning things. We don’t want to over plan this thing but a few things are becoming apparent.

Transportation: Uber to Fauntleroy Ferry Dock, West Seattle from Seattle International. We can pick you up on the island side. Or if you can afford a rental car please do that as we need a certain amount of vehicles. GPS on Vashon to our address: 24228 Wax Orchard Rd SW.

B and B’s: There are bunches on the island but need to make reservations.

Camping: We have lots of room for tents or RV’s. We will have a portapotty or two. We will have an outside kitchen for food prep.

Eating: We are going to be outside. Propane stove and bbq available. Fire pit available. We will have outside kitchen and tables and chairs. We will have paper plates and napkins and condiments. Food will be a potluck situation. Stores and restaurants on the island to pick things up. Will have ice chests. Need to figure out coffee. Food that we have from the island: sweetcorn, apple sauce, venison chili and blackberry jelly.

Activities: walking Phil’s Camino of course, some live music, setting up a few tours at various sites on Vashon. I am going to ask each Bureau Chief to have a little ten minute presentation and then there are other celebrities who will want to address us I am sure. There will be plenty of time for telling lies and tall tales.

Donation: I am asking a donation of $10 per day for your party/family or $5 if you are alone to cover expenses.

Helping Out: I am asking if you are coming for the four days if you would kindly act as a Hospitalero for one day during your stay. Things need to be accomplished and that seems a good way to make that happen.

Questions: [email protected]

Felipé.x