Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1600-1700
Thursday 0900-1000
Sunday 1600-1700

Come by and be with us. Small group outside activity.

Felipé

I have my sermon to do later this morning. And I am working with my memory to relate to as many of the audience members as possible beforehand. I know three quarters of the folks who will be there and there is not that many to start with. So it is not as daunting as it might sound.

Maybe I could challenge you to do this for your next meeting. Whether it is one person or forty. And whether it is one of your children or someone you barely know. Try to get them in sharp focus long beforehand.

Try to focus on them rather than on yourself or what you are going to say. Let the Holy Spirit put words in your mouth. That will happen!

So, I need to go and work on this very thing right now. Please excuse me for leaving early today. Miss you and hope to see you soon.

sharp focus loves, Felipé.

Over the years I have developed a speaking style that works for me. When I started out the whole emphasis was on what am I going to say? To have everything strictly scripted so as not to forget anything. Now what works is almost the total opposite. Instead of placing all the time in preparation on the script I spend time on thinking about the audience. Who are they? What do they need? Why are they here? How do I get closer to them?

The folks at Burton Community Church wrestled me into sayin OK to coming and giving the sermon tomorrow at their Zoom service. They are very tiny a group and haven’t had a full time pastor for a while. So they are always looking for folks to fill in here and there. And I figured what the heck. I’ve done it a couple of times over the years.

So since I just got done with writing on the Pilgrim Beatitudes on the blog in February thought that I would give them an overview of that. Should be up to speed on that material and it is one of my favorite things. And they are not big on the dogmatic or the strict doctrine. They mostly want to be inspired for the upcoming week. I got that!

So I have to give that a tiny bit of preparation today. I got to get out and do some firewood work. The weather is a little iffy but I will work with it. Oh, and I think that it is time to order the bandanas for the Oasis. That will surely get it to happen!

order the bandanas loves, Felipé.

I just happened to have heard that Cris CSABC broke free of her apartment and did a seven kilometer hike. She has been hardly outside for a year. Now look at her gallivanting around the countryside.

My Rebecca has a big breakout this morning also. She is a part of Catherine’s writing group and they are having their first in person meeting in a year. Things starting to open up here and there. People sticking their heads out of the bunker and looking around like Spring flowers.

I see Pilgrim Farmer John and Farmer Cathy escaped Iowa and made it down to Tulsa to see Ken and Tori. Saw a pic with Roni and her sister with them there. The Tulsa Thawout!

And tomorrow or the next day is the Vernal Equinox! The Spring equal day and night or the first day of the Spring season for us here. Oh boy!

And then Easter coming, April 4th.

thawout loves, Felipé.

The dinner, yea, the dinner was a great occasion. It was just warm enough to eat out on the tapas table which is always a thrill in the Spring to finally do that. So, our corned beef brisket was super and disappeared except for a few crumbs. Catherine and Dana were here to celebrate St Patrick and also the first dinner party of the post pandemic season.

I know that post pandemic phrase may be a little premature but it is the very beginning. We have a lot of pandemic to go but we have a start. Getting vaccinated sure is a breakthrough in personal relaxation. And there will be more and more of that. We are having oxtail soup today that is the back end of the cow. About as back as you can get. So we are going stem to stern on the pandemic and on the beef menu.

We had some readings about St Patrick and St Brigid yesterday and some material on fairies. And we had some Guinness and Harp and a little Jameson. But the drinking was highly under control. The pandemic has done that, left us with a certain caution or fear of new freedom. I am falling short with my words but you get it. It will take a while to find our new place in all this.

Henriette had a blessing in the Comments that I will place here.

“As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never point in the wrong direction!“

the banister of life loves, Felipé.

I am so on the edge of my seat this morning. At Dr Gold’s waiting room trying to whittle out the blog here now. He has the results of yesterday’s scan, after nine weeks of immunotherapy. So I can’t wait to talk with him.

St Pat’s Day today! Got my green on. Catherine and Dana coming over for corned beef and cabbage later. This is our first dinner party in a year. What will we do? How will we act?

OK, just saw the doc. Nothing dramatic to report. Nothing much has changed so we will go another nine weeks to a scan. Stay the course, says the doc. He did give me a prescription that should help with my cough which has been bothersome. So, things about the same for now. Let’s just figure out a way to celebrate staying the course.

But my people here at the Institute are well. It is always fun to check in with everyone. One of the nurses waiting for Spain to open up so they can go do the Camino. So great! In the meantime come walk Phil’s Camino!

Hoping to find some stories about St Patrick and his feminine counterpart St Brigid to read at our dinner tonight. Always fun to learn something new or touch base with old saintly friends. Oh I know, I have a big book on the saints that the Padre Tom Hall gave me. Easy peasy.

Yesterday I had a great afternoon walk with Chris, Mike and David, siblings. They had Camino and Cancer experience so we had plenty to gab about. And it was 5:29 when they left and I finally got back in the house for a Zoom at 5:30. Action Central! That went great. It was a QandA with Catholic folks in California. At the end of the day I feel like this is what God is keeping me alive for, talking to these folks whether live or on Zoom. Very rewarding stuff.

OK, off in a few minutes to run for the ferry back to the Rock. Thanks for stopping by and keep up the good work!

green loves, Felipé.

Yesterday I wrote about our innocent little few flakes of snow falling here. Farmer John was trying to get a pic to me of conditions there in Iowa. I think that they had some real snow. But the pic came in here totally blank. Well I don’t know is that a technical glitch or a white out from their blizzard. John was saying something about wanting to travel to Arizona or New Mexico, maybe find some heat.

Man, it is almost two years since I have seen the guy. Hope that he finds a way to make it to the Oasis. I hope all of you find your way here in August. Remember that is the 20-23rd. God willing we will have a decent corn crop for you.

News from the airlines is encouraging. Bookings for flights are way up. People are having confidence that they will be able to travel soon. I’m liking the sound of that!

I think that I will order the bandanas for the Oasis. How many to order? I had 56 for the Veranda and should get at least that many for this year. What fun!

So, I better get going for my trip to the Institute. Looks like a beautiful day out there, 32 degrees F. May the traffic be light.

all quite good loves, Felipé.

Hey, now wait a minute, snow flurries, this wasn’t in my vision of Springtime. I was thinking more along the lines of blossoms and tweety birds. Well, maybe it is over.

I have some walkers coming tomorrow to do the trail. Someone that talked to me on a Zoom and friends. Great! It appears that things are loosening up with people being more confident about getting out and about. This last year has been pretty darn quiet around here and one begins to wonder if things will ever recover. But Spring brings hope.

Have a scan tomorrow daytime and then a Zoom in the evening. Big day! The scan is pretty easy really, it is just a matter of getting there and back. The Zoom I need to work on. It is more of a talk than the usual QandA so it takes a little prep. It is with a Catholic group down in Southern California associated with the Marauders. Remember the Marauders? They were some visitors that we had years ago that came just to be here with us for three days. There were six or seven of them and they rented a rustic beach cabin here in the Island. It was way fun.

So, time to go and gear up for the Monday morning walk. The snow has stopped and it really didn’t stick anywhere that I can see. OK, let’s get this week going.

Marauder loves, Felipé.

I was eavesdropping on My Rebecca’s Zoom church this morning. The choir director puts together some choir music for the service using an app called Garage Band. She gets the choir together on an earlier day and records their voices remotely and puts together a charming product from that jumble. And “garage” and “garage band” go into my brain and I start thinking about Bill Gates starting business in his parent garage. You know how I celebrate people doing amazing stuff in their backyards. Have to include garages. Well, and then there are basements.

What do those spaces have in common? They are the margins of the property. They don’t have strict specific functions. They’re semi defined. They are places of experiment, messiness and places to make mistakes.

I don’t know really what to do with this or where it is going? But perhaps our lives need some free unstructured time and space to just play, to unscramble in. Just a thought on a Sunday. And it is not just any Sunday but it’s Time Change Sunday. So walking here at 1600 in a few minutes and will be for the summer. Yay!

missing you loves, Felipé.

This is a blessing of immense proportion! They had been gone for three, four days, a week maybe. The eye doctor didn’t have an opening till forever and I was looking in the wrong place. If I had one more glitch I’d have a Trifecta.

Anyway, the moral of the story is good things happen when you are working on the corn. Farmer John knows this. I was out cleaning up some piles of branches that had gotten piled up on the corn field because we will be tilling soon. And the sun was shining brightly and I was seeing pieces of glass that had surfaced after a winter’s rain. So, OK, I’ll just pick those up before the doggie gets injured. And there shining brightly we’re my glasses only partially crunched! Yea.

This happens when you get older. You loose your phone, or your keys or your glasses and you enter this netherworld of distraction. Half the brain is locked in to this no matter what else is going on.

But I broke free! Geez, what a relief. So, now I can get on with life. Will try and take down some firewood trees today. It’s that time of year. Wiley is out tilling at a neighbor’s. My Rebecca is on a Spring cleaning rampage. I’m not going to recognize the kitchen I think.

burst of energy loves, Felipé.