Yesterday, just to review, we were talking about the horizontal nature of the Way of St James and the perhaps verticality of Lourdes.  I’m working with this presently.  It is just sort of a vague notion that perhaps we are at an important point spiritually.  It could be a junction, a nexus.

Just as I have heard the two separate timbers in Christ’s cross being joined there in his nexus.  He a heavenly being who chose to also embrace a life as an earthly being.  And this nexus is expressed in shorthand by the cross.  It is all a very dramatic and powerful story that is encapsulated for us in that junction of the cross.

I have a great friend who is Jewish and we not often enough sit and drink coffee and talk of things.  He sometimes challenges me with an out of the box question.  As often I hope I do for him.  But the last question that I am still working on and it has been months is why do you where that cross around your neck?  It is a symbol of torture and death.  Is it different from wearing an electric chair?  There is a question and a half.  But now a good way of looking at the cross appears and it is something that can be easily verbalized.

Well OK.  Did you see that link yesterday to a little video of me in Lourdes by the River Gave?  Padre Tomas and I had just been given the “hairy eyeball” by members of a tour group that was near us,  And that is what I was looking at as Father was filming me by the river and then I remembered him and looked toward him and he was capturing the moment.  Sometimes Padre and Felipe just were having too much fun.  But the river is important.  See what a moving mass of silted water it was.  A constant rush of the horizontal that is hardly recognized by the situation going on so intensely on either bank  of it.

Have to go, walking Phil’s Camino in ten minutes.

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It took the trip to Lourdes to put some perspective on my four year report on things Camino.  Yea, May “something” was our anniversary.  Remember that we have been working with the idea and the energy of “When you get to Santiago your Camino actually begins.”  The “what does that mean” has been propelling us along for a long time now.

I was so conditioned to thinking in a Camino way that it was a stretch for me to encompass the new ideas coming in from Lourdes.  I had to make room for them and more are coming in daily.  The best way that I have to explain the situation is to say that I have been reporting on roller derby so long now that switching over to consider opera has been a challenge!

Camino pilgrimage is maybe something very horizontal.  It stretches on for 500 miles or more and it is continuously in motion.  I see that and feel that in my bones.  There are regular times of rest but only for the purpose of recharging for the next stage.  It is immensely restless.  I remember thinking of it as a river when I was walking especially the last 100 km where it was so crowded and the river seemed to be overflowing it’s banks.

But by contrast the stay at Lourdes revolves around the Domain.  The Domain is the grounds or sacred territory of the city of Lourdes.  There is no commercial enterprise inside it’s gates.  All the hotels, restaurants and gift shops are outside.  The very center of the Domain is the Grotto where Mother’s Mary appeared to Bernadette.  So everything there is centered around activities inside those gates which is maybe a quarter square mile, that’s it.  So it is not horizontal by any measure.

So then is it vertical?  It sort of must be.  The river that runs through the Domain and right by the Grotto is a great foil to this.   It is the epitome of restlessness in it’s springtime rush to the sea.  I found myself greatly attracted to it while we were there.  Maybe I subconsciously related to it like that while I was puzzling over the rest of what was going on around me.

But I am worn out for now.  Let me see what comes forth overnight.  Ideas always seem to appear when we need them so we will have faith.  Thanks for stopping by today,  your presence is always appreciated.  Lourdes loves, Felipe.

This schedule should hold all summer, til day light savings ends.  Occasionally I am called away and can’t make it but I try to post that here on the blog.  This has been working pretty well so far.  OK, the trail can be dewy in the morning but other than that it is summer conditions.

We generally walk three laps every session which adds up to a little over a mile and a half.    But you may only feel like walking one or two laps, that’s OK.  This really isn’t an athletic event, it is a get together.  Come by!

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1600-1700

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1600-1700

Hope to see you soon, Felipe.

We have a few minutes before My Rebecca and I have to run for the ferry.  Off to the big city but perhaps we can talk.  Yesterday’s sermon went well.  It was good to get the topic off the ground so to speak.  And when I do a presentation I generally go without notes and sometimes interesting extras come out of my mouth a little unplanned.  We could call that the work of the Holy Spirit I suppose.

One notion that came out that way yesterday was the idea that perhaps a malady sprinkled into one’s life is a sort of a dash of a condiment.  It is an spice or an herb, sometimes a bitter herb.  This seems a strange way to think about things especially when we are so conditioned to shying away from malady or pain or complications.  We go, “Whoa not going near that one!” as we speed up to go around it.  But sometimes these things are thrust upon us or fall into our laps maybe.  But we have to concentrate on the notion at our malady is not us totally although it may help flavor the soup of our lives.

Maybe we talked about this before about St. Paul having a malady that is mentioned in the Bible but not spelled out.  We are not sure exactly what it was but he prayed about being relieved of it.  And was he?  Wouldn’t he been more effective without it?  Or was it part of his mojo?

Consider this quote that came in from Diego:  “You are exactly where God wants you to be right now.  Let that thought settle into your bones.”  St. Therese of Lisieux.

OK, yes, well.  Love, Felipe.

I can feel myself turning over my impressions of the Lourdes trip.  It is a process not dissimilar from working in the compost department of the ranch.  Components tend to need their own time to break down into something usable.  They need air and moisture and warmth helps to speed things up.

What I am getting at is that lessons learned from these pilgrimages aren’t just always obvious, vivid or earth shaking.  That doesn’t mean that they are not there or not significant but they may require some rumination as a riddle or parable does.  We have to gnaw on impressions a while to uncover their meaning for us.

I’m off to Burton Community Church in a minute to talk about Lourdes.  They don’t have a regular pastor there which means that they are sometimes looking for amateur acts like mine to fill in for the sermon.  I am going to give them ten to fifteen minutes of the Lourdes story according to Felipe.  This is the kickoff of my speaking engagements on this new topic.  They are a forgiving crowd.

Tomorrow I am off to the hospital for a small surgical procedure to work on my chemo port, out with the old and in with the new.  So pray for me and the doc please that we may get through that gracefully.

Sunday loves, Felipe.

I sincerely hope that my friend Nelson is going to be happy with his name being memorialized in a newly minted saying.  But I thought “grabbing a Nelson” has great value and a certain artistic ring to it to explain when we need to ask for help.  So when I finally put a post on FaceBook asking for technical help with this blog I was “grabbing a Nelson”.  Immediately Nelson popped up with an offer of help, what an angel.  A real Camino angel.

So the other day My Rebecca was grabbing for a Nelson when she was needing someone to give the sermon at her church this Sunday and I said, “Of course”.  Which means like tomorrow I need to speak for ten minutes.  I thought that I would talk about my Lourdes experience.  What else is there right now for Felipe, right?

I do want to unpack that in a leasurely and through manner here every morning on the blog.  Who knows how long that will take.  But we will make a start on it and see what happens.  I don’t think that we are particularly in a hurry.  But what I am getting at is that I may condense most of that for this talk tomorrow giving away some of the punchlines perhaps.

Anyway, for now the corn calls me.  It is in that stage now where the weeds need attention.  Most of it the weeds are a few different species of grass and since corn is a glorified grass it is hard to have one without the other.  Conditions for one are good for the other.

So glad to have you back again here at Caminoheads.  It is always a pleasure for me.  Get your weekend started, love, Felipe.

Yea, that was my very first thought upon awakening this morning, coffee then blog, in that order.  We are back!  Where is my checklist?  What’s next?  Ah, find mojo.  Yes, finding my mojo would be good.

We have been down for three weeks and last evening we, well mostly Nelson, reset the content of the blog back to where it was on May 7th and you will see that.  That was the report on our visit to the fourth century monastery St Savin.  I am not sure that was the very last day of the blog.  We might have lost a few days of material but we can regroup no problem and continue on.  And here we are, continuing on.

Let me say a few kind words to/about Nelson, my hero.  You know that I refrain from using last names here, just because.  I think our Way is more important than our Identity.  So Nelson shows up at the ranch last evening coming directly from the ferry after his day at work in the city.  And he says something like, “Well, let’s take a look.  The answer is going to be very easy or very hard.”  Ah!   Then before an hour is up we are looking at a successful outcome.  Yes, there is Caminoheads!  And I say, “Nelson how can I ever thank you?”  And he says in his own Nelson style, “Just keep doing what you are doing.” Yea, OK!

It is fortunate really that I didn’t have to start reporting about our Lourdes experience right from the get go.  The break down of our technology though unplanned was maybe a good thing.  I have unpacked enough of my memories and experiences now to make a good start at “explaining” Lourdes, at least my Lourdes.  That’s good, my Lourdes.

Please stay tuned to up coming days as we will be “reentering”  our common world with new eyes.  If the Camino was a teaching place then Lourdes must be a teaching place also.  If the Camino was life changing then Lourdes must be also.  What is it that we have learned and how do we put that to use?  How have we changed and what are the implications?

Well yes, and it is the first day of June.  The corn is five inches tall.  I am making a valiant attempt to keep the weeds down around it.  The sunflowers are up also.  They need more water right now.  Yup, I’m coming!

Love as always, Felipe.

or We Are Sooo Back!

or Where Have You Been All My Life!

or My 31st, No Joke!

or Nelson Figured It Out In Less Than One Hour!

or Nelson For President!

or At Least Nelson And His Wife Out To Dinner!

or Nelson Hits Grand Slam!

or Please Put Nelson In Your Prayers!

or Next Time You Have A Problem, Just Ask!

or Or Just Ask Nelson!

or I Can’t Quite Reach My Wine!

or Love You Guys, Felipe!

Just back to the safety of the hotel from a big dinner party.  It has been a tearful sort of wrapping  up of our trip.  I can see why these guys are involved with this long term.  All seems very rewarding.

Tomorrow we have a light day to pack our gear.  There is Mass of course.  Then in the afternoon there is another malade meeting.  This is the second, the first one was a really bonding experience.  Anyway, I plan on telling my one and only cancer joke tomorrow.  Somehow I feel the need to inject some additional humor into this situation.  There is something healthy about being able to laugh in a tough situation.

Ah, what is this my cancer joke?  Well OK, ready?  This guy falls off the roof of a six story building and as he is going by the sixth story windows and someone yells out, “Hey, how is it going?”.   He yells back, “ Oh so far so good! “  And the guy goes by the fifth story window and someone yells out from the fifth story, “Hey, how is it going?”  And he answers, “Oh so far so good! “   So you can see where this is going.

So as you are walking down the the hall at the hospital and your cancer buddy that knows the joke yells out, “Hey how is it going?”  You know to yell back, “So far so good!”  And that is what gets really funny!   So it is all about living in the moment, for today and being happy.  Who knows what is next?

Yea, off to dreamland now.  A little too much wine and laughs.  Buen Camino, so far so good loves, Felipe.