“Today Leon. Half way to Santiago. In the Cathedral at Leon today, had a good cry; it’s so indescribably beautiful. Forming wonderful connections and sharing such special moments.” Maggie.

Guess what? Cherry from Down Under is back again. She would have been here earlier but I hadn’t asked. This is her thirteenth Thank Goodness It’s Friday piece. Usually she sends a pic but not this time So I’ll put in the popular tomato pic. Thanks Cherry!

“Nice tomatoes Phil!!!

Here’s a quick post for TGIF.

Another important lessons I learnt on Camino was that most things I used to stress and worry about in my everyday life, in the grand scheme of things, don’t really matter that much. The important things that do matter to me are the health and happiness of myself and others.

I seem to have settled quite comfortably into urban life here in Sydney. I have a fantastic job helping unemployed people secure sustainable jobs. I found a cute little apartment close to the beach and my office so I can walk to work.

I was surprised at how easily I transitioned from full-time traveller to full-time tax payer. I think it helps that I am helping others. I think it helps that I remember the importance of happiness. That’s why I try and choose to enjoy each moment.

Happiness is a state of mind after all. It is fairly easy to focus the mind on being happy when things are going well. When things are tough, however, this can be a little more challenging.

I have to remind myself when I’m getting stressed or frustrated that really all this little stuff I’m stressed or frustrated about doesn’t really matter. I’ve been practicing this and it’s amazing how I can actually train my mind to often turn these negative thoughts around. These are just my thoughts and I have the ability to choose which ever ones I want.

I’ve not mastered the art of doing this all the time yet. However, if I can choose to be happy and enjoy each moment as I’m experiencing it, this only eventuates to a more fulfilling existence.

Today I choose to be happy.
Love love, Cherry.”

Maggie showed up big time on our radar screen several days ago thanks to a friend of Our Jennifer’s. I contacted Maggie and she gave me the okay to pass along her words and pics of her current navigation of the Camino de Santiago. The short background is that she is 79 years old and walking and planning on finishing (God willing) on her 80th birthday.

So, let’s get started:

“From day 1 the weather has been absolutely gorgeous which is so fortunate because often the most spectacular vistas are fogged in. There is far too much to write about this experience , especially on a phone keyboard. The walking is going great albeit a few blisters. Avg day is 20/30 kms. Going over the Pyrenees was a baptism of fire. OMG…but I came out of it with memories of a lifetime. The Albergue / hostels have been great. My favourite part is the communal pilgrims’ dinner. Each one is so very different but what remains consistent is the diversity of people, a sense of family and the making of new friendships that I know will continue. I have some days when I walk alone for hours, nary a soul in sight. Love it!”

Inspiring yes? I can’t wait to meet her in person at some point. Love you Maggie! Keep going! Time for breakfast here on Vashon Island. Squeezes big time, Felipe.

One of the best things in what happens in our neighborhood is C y D’s garden scene. It’s latest gift to the world is this beautiful heart! Man we need to bronze it or something. I don’t know any details or particulars on this but wow!

Another wow that needs reporting on is lunchtime at the hospital yesterday. This is the respite in the big day of the Cancer Camino for Our Jennifer and myself. In the spirit of having as much fun as possible and keeping our weight up we decided that having a picnic lunch along would be a excellent idea. I think that this is our fourth try at it as we take turns surprising the other
with yummy content and grandure.

On the Jennifer’s menu was deviled eggs, Buffalo wings with blue cheese sauce, pickled prawns, assorted olives. There was a drink but I’m not sure what it was although sometimes it’s white and sometimes red and sometimes sort of an in between rose color. Anyway dessert was homemade delicious cheese cake. Then coffee and gummy bears (health food for the nails). I probably left something out, oh yes ambience, of course. Have table cloth and battery tea light along.

That was all Our Jennifer’s doing although the tablecloth and candle were my responsibility. So, yea, but how am I going to top that two weeks from now? Better start early hey? OK, I am going to try and do another post (didn’t get one in yesterday) and breakfast in the next hour. Walking at 0900. Miss you, love you, Felipe.

Tuesday morning here and just finished up writing and reading emails. Well, it is never finished, right? I just thought of a biggie that I missed but nothing life and death.

Yea, life and death, that has to do with with confidence and desperation in a very real way. I have been conferring with my mentors about the process of praying for miracles. All kinds of fears popped up for me when I thought about doing this. Deep inner stuff like, who am I to do this or do I have enough faith? I would have no problem praying for other people’s miracles but my own was a different kettle of fish. Strange phenomenon but real. I guess praying for my own put me too much in the spotlight.

So I have been wrestling with this. Wrestling is a good thing ultimately, tiring in the short run but big payoff in the long. So ! was listening to the local Catholic radio station a few days ago and there was a talk on this very topic, suprise suprise.

The idea expressed was that to do this very thing one must have a mix of confidence and desperation. Usually, we don’t put thes two words in the same sentence. The confidence comes from knowing, understanding and internalizing the idea that nothing is impossible with God. Right? Just what would be impossible?

The desperation isn’t hard to get to and it provides the energy that one needs to persevere along this road of reaching for God. Does that make sense? I for one never got close to these ideas, feelings, askings in “normal” life. It takes desperate times to bring these out.

So I have spent a lot of my free time lately they to visualize the tumors within me and asking God to provide for them to start shrinking in size. Medicine has kept them confined in number and slowed in growth. I am thankful but realizing that as time marches on they will catch up to my well being.

Dr Zucker, told me at our last meeting that in non medical terms God is keeping me alive to fulfill my mission. And when I think about that it is a miracle already in itself that has already happened. Althankful, love you, Felipe.

More about Brierley today I guess because his numerous pix are priceless. They have a way of jogging the memory. Maybe he ought to do a complete picture book one of these years.

I haven’t really looked at the Brierley for a long time but it is excellent for recounting the towns and landscapes for me now. This is especially good right now as We are doing Phil’s Camino and trying to get in tune with where we would be in Spain each day. I walked this morning and now we have 79.2 kilometers walked and we are at the town of Zariquiegui and don’t ask me to pronounce that but I can find it on the map.

We are on page four and past Pamplona and past Cizur Menor and climbing elevation. This town we are at is about half way up the Alto del Perdon, the Mountain of Forgiveness. Looking back we see Pamplona and the Pyrennes.

Yea so, I think I will use the Brierley as a companion to my logbook. It will be good to jar my memory and fill in the blanks for visitors. Yes, a good addition to the process. Thank you Mr. Brierley, I take back everything I said about you, just joking.

This is Monday and Wednesday Our Jennifer and myself will be off to the hospital for our treatment again. But I have two days to get some work done. The weather is fairly good and not an impediment to progress. So, I will go for now, thinking of you, love, Felipe.

Yesterday I went into the local second hand store looking for Jim. Found him in the book section, of course. And in the process I found two Camino books there waiting for me. One Jim made off with and maybe he is reading it this moment on the plane back to New York. The other was an copy of Brierley’s “New Lightweight Edition” Pilgrim’s Guide (2007). And we all know Brierley, the most ubiquitous darn thing on the Camino Frances next to blisters.

And this book is hardly lightweight. I mean for a library reference book it is lightweight but that’s all I can say for it. I carried a map book maybe 1/3rd the weight. It actually went across twice as Catherine y Dana carried it this spring. As I look at it sitting on the table in front of me it is a wreck, bombed and strafed from stem to stern. It is sweat soaked and sort of curled up looking most three dimensional and one corner looks like it was chewed on.

Anyway back to the Brierley, which weighs 13.3 oz by the way, according to Our Jennifer’s food scale. And what if we played around here for a minute with some math? I was thinking just how much energy does it take to carry this little unit the 500 miles across Spain on the Camino. That would be .831 pounds X 2,640,000 feet = 2,193,840 foot pounds of energy for one book. A foot pound is a measure where 1 equals moving 1 pound a distance of 1 foot.

So, I have heard that there are 200,000 pilgrims walking each year. What if 100,000 carried this guide all the way across. Just a very rough guess since lots don’t make it all the way across in a single year and not everyone carries it. So, it is just a wild guess. So now we have 100,000 times 2,193,840 ft/lbs equaling 219,384,000,000 foot pounds of energy.

So what does this mean, well, I don’t know but it’s a lot of energy. Perhaps that’s enough to move the Santiago Cathedral one hundred meters. Or perhaps it is enough to move the Vatican one meter. I don’t know why we need to do either of those but if we did… Or perhaps it’s enough to launch an albergue and put it in orbit around the moon, a place to stay. That makes more sense.

Well so much for math. Time to go. Alperfect really, love, Phil.

The electricity has been interrupted for a few hours now and our generator is banging away as I speak, noisy little guy. It is good white noise though to get a blog out. It has just been too much partying with Jim and Gloria to concentrate on the posts lately. But here I am trying to remain faithful to the mission.

Jim helped me out this AM to teach my bible class since it was my turn and he was willing to do that. It went well. One thing noticeable about this endeavor is that it seems no matter how many times you cover a certain chapter you always come away with something new and different. It’s really uncanny. We did Matthew chapter 16 which I have done maybe three or four times now but there is something new each time.

Yesterday Jim, Gloria and myself walked down Shinglemill Creek Canyon here on Vashon. The pix are about that. The weather was overcast but the canyon was beautiful all the way down descending three hundred some feet in elevation from the top of the island down to saltwater. It is so picturesque and wild in there for being just a few minutes from the pavement. If you bring your hiking shoes we could get down in there.

So in a few moments we will be off to Seattle and a hotel near SEATAC airport to drop these guys off. And I think that we are being treated to dinner along the way, yum. Yea, I have to get back to reality and work after these guys leave. But you know, it has been a good time and memorable.

Have to go peek and see if the neighbors have their lights on and see if I can turn off this generator, had enough white noise. Nope, still off, more noise to go.

Well, anyway, there was some discussion about fate this morning at our class. About the idea that we all have some sort of fate that is good to fulfill. It completes a certain life drama or lesson for our selves and others. Sometimes though fate seems to be able to be bypassed and the result is a lukewarm warm for everyone. Something to think about for today.

Just wanting you to know that it seems that fate has thrown us together and what could be better really. We are learning and having fun getting the job done. Yup, crazy about you, Felipe.

We took the show on the road today and had a hike in the woods and a picnic at the beach. There are some pics coming up here maybe. My Rebecca took a few which was good since I always get caught up in the action and forget such important things.

Pilgrim Farmer John checked in with a great comment on yesterday’s post. I love the guy’s energy. So if you have any energy check that out. Sometimes the comments get lost if you don’t pay attention and check back a couple of days once in a while. I try to answer each and every one that comes in but once in a while I miss.

OK, so here’s a deal. We have a friend that is a salesperson for a product called the Biomat. I am probably not going to do this justice but I will try. This particular model is filled with thirty pounds of amethyst crystals and after you plug it in produces infrared heat and negative ions. So you lay on this mat, like I am doing right now writing this and soak all this good stuff in. It feels sooo good. So we have this baby for a month and I am going to throughly check it out.

We are off to the local Thai restaurant for a fashionably late dinner this evening. Tough duty I know. This is the kind of stuff that you maybe don’t normally do but with company here it happens. Thank you company, Jim and Gloria.

Is there anything Camino related in any of this? Well yes, in fact I talked Jim and Gloria up with my favorite Camino stories on our walk today. Fresh meat you know is appreciated. Most local folks have heard my stories three or four times by now.

Yup, further prayers for John in Iowa and his nightmare corn problem. Always forward, love, Felipe.

Here I am out of the rain cooking breakfast for my people here. Got a fire going in the woodstove to take the chill off. Got strong coffee going and bacon afrying. Folks starting to stir.

But really thinking of our dear friend in the heartland who is deep in the corn harvest. That is Pilgrim Farmer John who has been very faithful at sending in tremendous comments to this blog. They are tremendous because they are one energetic, two soulful and three challenging. So we like John and his talk.

Now, he is deep in an important part of his and his family’s livelihood, the corn harvest. There is a combination of plant disease and wind that is working against him. The stalks are weakened so they are falling over before the ears can be picked. I don’t know the details but it sounds like a nightmare. We pray that he works his way through this gracefully. Or that he works his way through it period.

Of course being a Marine, which John and I share, is helpful in these situations. Just yesterday I was talking with one of my Marine buddies that I saw on the ferry and hadn’t seen for a year or so. I was describing my relationship with my cancer and we were laughing the way guys joke their way through things. The end result, our conclusion, is that why Marines do so well in dire situations is that we are just too dumb to grasp we are in trouble. So we just fight our way through it unburdened by a fearful brain and get to the end and say, “What’s the problem?” I think that it might be that easy. Sure John will have something to say about this when he surfaces, stay tuned.

Prayers for John and his crew in the heartland. OK, off to today’s adventures here, best to you, love, Felipe.