Friday of this week Annie and I are going to do a radio interview and I was asked for a bio. I have spent so much time on it this AM that I thought I would just post it here for you. Just in case you didn’t know the story yet.

The Bio Of Phil Volker

My last eight years have been dominated by my cancer diagnosis, my conversion to Catholicism and my walking the pilgrimage trail the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Of course none of this would have been possible without the love and support of my wife Rebecca and our family. Nor would it have been possible without the continuing care and treatment given me at Swedish Cancer Institute, Seattle through doctors Philip Gold and David Zucker. Nor would have been possible without the continuing support of Teleios Bible Study, my parish and the Archdiocese of Seattle.

As part of my Cancer Rehabilitation I developed a trail here on our property to be an exercise program. Walking and being in the outdoors appealed to me as I was already out praying my rosary daily in the weather. At some point in all this I had seen Martin Sheen’s The Way and was taken with the idea of it, this pilgrimage thing. The idea that I could somehow do a pilgrimage right here where I was, in the condition that I was in, gelled for me. It could be said that it was a fantasy, a myth but whatever it was it proved incredibly helpful and vital for my overall health and well being. It was part medical, part athletic, part historical, part religious, part spiritual and I would learn that it would connect me to a whole new world.

In the winter of 2014 we saw Walking the Camino the feature length documentary where we were introduced to Annie O’Neil my future cohort. Rebecca and Annie started communicating through FaceBook and Annie came to visit us and walk Phil’s Camino in March of that same year.

At this time I was very weak from rounds of chemotherapy and was tentatively walking my camino never expecting to go to Spain to do the real thing. Remarkably Annie was at this time working on her book The Everyday Camino With Annie in which she was giving readers a glimpse of the magic of walking the Camino from wherever they might be physically. So artistically we were working on some of the same ideas. And that was the magic that occurred between us and the genesis of my documentary, Phil’s Camino.

So through a series of small miracles the film got started and my pilgrimage to Spain looked like it would happen “for real”. It was a marvelous time and it taught us a lot about each other and about ourselves. With much help from numerous sources the film progressed and came to be, premiering in the spring of 2015. And now the years have started to pass and the film has gathered momentum. It is a joy to be associated with it as it continues to educate and inspire. Sometimes just being us becomes noteworthy.

Phil Volker 1/8/19