“Wow, a big Snickers!”, My Rebecca’s reaction on seeing my lout from last evening’s Mass. Father David gave out big Snickers bars after the service to everyone. He practically got trampled there in the foyer.

My Rebecca was referring to the day when there was only one size of the candy bar. Having a smaller one or different smaller ones now really confuses things. Back in the old days things were easier in some ways.

Along with the bar in a little plastic bag was some other goodies: two cards and a little note from Father David. He is so great, like the uncle you wish you would have had ready to take you to the zoo or some other get away. The two cards were one a saints card for Saint Oscar Romero and the other a icon of Mary the Undoer of Knots.

Saint Oscar was recently canonized and I don’t know the details on the why. But the undoer of knots is a very interesting idea
to me coming from a Protestant slant as I do. I totally get the idea of it. Being that with help our life could be a lot simpler, freeing us of certain burdens. Nice.

Here this morning I want to copy and paste a comment by Pilgrim Farmer John on my Connections post a few days ago that I thought was particularly good and it spoke to what I was trying to get at:

“Hola Felipe Amigo!

You have to know you “connected” with all my Farmer buttons on this post. We both know the farm we live on is part of our being. In the last 3 or 4 weeks I have harvested all our corn and soybean crop. Then I started the process over again with planting some rye covercrops. Fertilizer for next year too, and then working it in where the soybeans will grow next year. Connections galore, and seasons and plantings and harvests.

Semper Fi,
PFJ” (Caminoheads’ Heartland Bureau Chief)

And that is so Heartland right there. And that’s our couple of things. Later loves, Felipe.

w the camino

We have a neighbor that is actively dying. Got that term from My Rebecca’s Threshold Choir. They sing soft songs for people that are actively dying. Anyway, as this goes on next door I pray. Sometimes praying seems a feeble gesture and sometimes it seems a mighty mustard seed capable of who knows what.

Interesting that we are here with this situation on November 1st the Day of the Dead this year. This holy day isn’t something that I grew up with so it all seems a little weird to my sensibilities but maybe this convergence is going to educate me. No coincidences strikes once again.

I told My Rebecca that I wanted to die in the Elk Hotel, our expedition tent. I don’t know how practical that is really but hey it’s my occasion right? Going out like a Civil War General seems appropriate conversing with my Captains about battles won and lost passing on the grit.

Ah, walking in a moment. Good morning to say rosaries. Alperfect once again loves, Felipe.

We at Caminoheads have become good at connecting. We like to get together with people and ideas that further our cause. And I guess when we say that we are trying to get closer to God and our fellow man we are doing a pretty darn good job these days. We have practiced and learned and gathered insights as we have gone along. This is all exciting.

Connection happens other ways here as I think about it. The goal of getting closer to Raven Ranch and the land is also in play. Wiley and I have been spending an hour or two a day in the past week deer hunting here at the ranch. Wiley harvested a buck late in the day on Saturday and yesterday I finally found the one with my name on it in the last minute of autumn daylight.

I have to admit that I wrestled with how I was going to present this great news to you. Some would think well Felipé that’s all a bit primitive. Well, yes maybe. Well maybe that is it exactly.

Over the almost forty years that we have been camped out here we have attempted to harness the strengths of the place. Our good water comes from here as does the firewood for our heat. This morning I had My Rebecca’s apple butter and blackberry jelly on my toast. Our various gardens and the corn patch bring in a lot of the vegetables that we consume summer and winter. These are all connections it struck me this morning as I prepared to write to you.

Finally last night as I finally sat down to supper after the project of field dressing the deer Rebecca looked at me and said, “You’ve got blood on your face.” Ah.

Harvest loves, Felipé.

I have so avoided writing about US politics this last four years. No one walks through a minefield knowingly. But I’m not going to write about it proper. Just going to remind us that calm is a good place to be.

Let us not do crazy things in the heat of the moment that we will regret. This will all calm down. We will have time to reflect and rebuild. This isn’t a fragile system that we live in and it will come together and be workable again. Have faith.

We have earned and put to use many important lessons with our Camino life. Let us use those strengths to bring people together and to bring ideas together. We are working from a very good place.

Most of all have faith. Remember joy is our main job. Let us bridge the gaps for ourselves and those around us. Let us work with the ebb and flow.

Geographically we are all separated. And we may be separated by a certain amount of political hoopla. But we have knowledge and power that keeps us floating individually and keeps us united as a group. Let’s build on that and see what happens.

Having touched the face of St James loves, Felipé.

PS ~ I know this is a good post because I am weeping. God bless.

Sometimes it seems a long way to anywhere from where we stand. And sometimes we have a certain clarity because we seem to be near the center of things. Ah, that seems so like being on a labyrinth, yes? There we sometimes get very near the center as we travel and it benefits us even though there is more trail and we are not at the end yet. Great connection Felipé.

We must operate here on this earth from a position of occasionally glimpsing the truth, the goodness and the beauty. We charge our batteries while we can because the glimpse is a glimpse and never permanent. It slips away for one reason or another just as the trail snakes away from the center of the labyrinth to send us exploring some misty byway.

It seems to take a lot of energy to maintain when we don’t feel at our best out there at the edge of things. Our solid feeling that we grasped so well yesterday is just a memory. What sustains us to have the faith that we need to continue when things are ragged in the outer reaches? I think now this is the purpose of this new word, heartship, that has come along. It appeared a few weeks ago as a mutation of the word hardship in my auto correct.

Having heart or fortitude or toughness or resilience is what we need. Not that we are inventing a new thing here but we are reviewing something long known. But that’s fine and as it should be as many have walked on this trail before us.
Heartship, we are seeing where it fits in all this.

Monday morning walk is coming up in a few moments. It is a little foggy and very still out there. The rains of the last few days as soaked in the ground. Getting close to starting to fill the feeders for our birds.

Monday morning loves, Felipé.

Here we just got Ronaldo situated as a new Bureau Chief and he is already putting important pieces together for us. Yesterday I was writing about dearly beloved Thomas Merton. I was expressing on my inability to always grasp his ideas. It would come and go. Or my confidence would come and go. Anyway, I find his material incredibly rich but it seems my ability is wanting. So Ronaldo added this to the mix:

“ Yes, Thomas Merton does require more than one reading for most of us. You know he realized words were limited, so also used photography. If you get a headache reading his stuff pick up a copy of “A Hidden Wholeness” to see images and read words that may resonate with you.”

Yes, a picture book! I will try and look this one up. Always appreciate a helping hand to clear my personal fog. Clarity is important. We don’t talk about that enough.

OK, the best to you this autumn day. Another World Series game today and I hope that it won’t be as taxing as yesterday’s. Was it really eighteen innings?

How about eight innings of love, Felipé.

There has been so much commotion this month that didn’t lead to anything spectacular as far as my writing goes. So, I thought that maybe today I could get back in the saddle and produce something spectacular to save October.

Have been reading my Thomas Merton book No Man Is An Island. We talked of it before but I am actually in pretty deeply now. It took me fifty pages to warm up but I’m with it at the present.

“God’s mysterious decisions are themselves our life.” Merton

I have never read anything by him before so I really didn’t know what to expect. But things are working out. He is very challenging in his descriptions of the interior life. It is easy to understand but hard to imagine me doing some of it. Is this a little bit above my pay grade sort of feeling happens.

It is the kind of book that may require a second reading to link all it’s parts together. Sometimes I tend to gloss over things I don’t get at the moment in favor of preserving my grasp on the flow of the book. So I continue.

I am proud to announce that Ron presently living in SW Virginia is going to be our Eastern US Bureau Chief. He is with his wife Ann and they both came all the way to Indianapolis to be with us at the festival. So, at some point in the not far future their plan is to move to Astoria, Spain. How great is that and we will have an actual Bureau Chief right there on the Camino. Too cool.

Well, time for lunch and time to recharge these batteries. Thanks for being here as always. We Are learning loves, Felipé.

The October travel is over and we are getting back to normal here at the trail. The rains are starting so dress appropriately.

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

Once Daylight Savings is over afternoon walks start at 1530.

Can’t wait to see you, Felipé.

So good to be home and be resting up after the last two weeks of adventures. I really don’t know how we could have squeezed any more in. I am back at the hospital tomorrow to start another chemo cycle.

One of the amazing things about the gathering in Indianapolis was all our friends that made the big trek there to be with us for the last showing. I am going to try and list them all because this blog is a journal, a sort of logbook of our journey. So:

Farmer John and Farmer Cathy from SE Iowa.
Roni from Tulsa, OK.
Cynthia from Charlotte, NC.
Ron and Ann from SW Virginia.
Laurie from Maryland.
Catherine y Dana from Vashon Island.
Mike and Tammi from Rockford, IL.
Dave Cook from San Diego, CA.
Libby, My Rebecca’s cousin from DC area.
Susan, My Rebecca’s cousin from Indianapolis.
And of course, the incomparable Annie O’Neil from LA, CA.

I know that I probably forgot someone. And also Doug Blush would have been there but was off teaching in China. So, what a deal to be supported in this way.

OK, I am going to get out and walk around the ranch and see what is going on. We are pretty tired because our flight was five hours late due to the heavy fog in Seattle. But we are on the mend.

Here I go loves, Felipé.

It was so gratifying for SFSG to receive this award at the festival.

But above and beyond all that hoopla was the gathering of great folks that happened there at the Heartland Festival. Folks that we knew and new ones that were attracted to the message of the film. Very nice scene all around. More tomorrow

Traveling loves, Felipé.