Some pix:

And it is back on again so we will be off on our trip momentarily. Alperfect, love, Felipe.

My sleepless meditations continue to bring forth fruit. I’m pretty ingrossed because I can’t seem to remember if our beloved Seahawks won that football game last night or not. I looked forward to it all week and now it’s been so easily eclipsed. Hmm. I must be thinking about something important, other than football that is.

My latest notion concerning my cancer seems to be, “Yea, so?” I think somehow, maybe randomly, that I have removed the importance of myself from the whole equation. In other words, if now I regard God as the main character here and my cancer as a sort of messenger from Him things become more focused. Yea, so I have cancer. My work continues, maybe it’s God’s work continuing. Yea, so I have cancer, so what?

This blends perfectly with with a blog post by a friend of ours, Terry Hershey, entitled Broken Things. Recently I signed up to get his weekly thoughts, Sabbath Moments, emailed to me and here was my first one this AM. Although Terry is way more elegant than I expressing himself I think that we are on the same page on this one. We are flying like Blue Angels next to each other, wingtips inches apart.

That image looks very tidy but that is the opposite of the idea really. The idea is that we make a mistake by continually looking for the tidy or by continually trying to tidy up. Some majorly important things, aren’t tidy, don’t tidy up and never will. But this is the exact location of God, apparent in the untidiness, and He is waiting for us to make sense of that.

Off for a morning walk. It frosted last night for the first time this fall. The water in Raven Creek is starting to run across the Camino. Changes happening, love unchanging, Felipe.

It’s been raining for three days straight. We were praying for this precious stuff back in August and September. They call this weather pattern the Pineapple Express around here. Moist warm air coming from the South Pacific and bringing us this rain also known as Liquid Sunshine.

OK, another coffee, quick shower, pick up Catherine and off to our precious Mass. Back to precious you soon. Here I am and guess what? It has stopped raining as the barometer rises. I am going to run outside and take a pic of the weeping willow tree next to our house for you. It has it’s fall colors.

Sorry that I didn’t have a post yesterday. Was dazed and confused by too many chemicals. But today feeling half way. So, have to rally and get ready for my trip which starts Tuesday morning. Have some maintenance on my truck to do and pack gear appropriate to the upcoming weather. So, the blog will be down for four days this coming week. Will be back up on Saturday.

Maybe I will come up with some new ideas and fresh material for you. Maybe new ways to look at old stuff. Maybe old ways to look at new stuff.

I really need to get out to the middle of nowhere and find the time and space to think of and pray for the people of Paris. And the harder part to figure out how to pray for the people that think attacks like this are a good thing. Yea, that’s the way it is, love, Felipe.

I’m bushed today and can’t make a real bog post happen but here is something.
We have a new walking schedule because of the winter darkness and here it is:

Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1530-1630
Thursday 0900-1000
Sunday 1530-1630

It’s raining at times these days but we are walking. Come and check it out. My eyes are closing, later, love, Felipe.

Our Catherine put up such a lovely supportive comment on yesterday’s post about the nourishing Commando lunch. Thank you Catherine. Comments make for a continuation, an amplification of a thought that may not be fully formed as I propose it. The back and forth is priceless to the process of development.

Catherine’s comment has caused some thoughts about finding nourshment. And about Friday the thirteenth, today, which may be related. How does that fit together? Well, the bad feel of Friday the thirteenth has supposedly been passed down from the day the then Pope came down on the Knights Templar. Don’t know the month or year. But one day there was this order and the next a Saturday the fourteenth not. Apparently, this order was charged with belief in Gnosticism. This in a nutshell, as I understand it, is the heresy that salvation is gained by knowing secret knowledge. This is in direct opposition to the standard doctrine that salvation is open to everyone who accepts it, no secrets needed.

This is the ultimate nourishment to me and an end game. But what about all the time that we have where there are highs and lows and need of nourishment for body, mind and spirit on a daily basis. How do we find enough everyday for ourselves and those around us? How do we provide even on the Friday the Thirteenths?

Time to go and pick up Jennifer and travel to Seattle and the hospital. Had a storm over night but safe and sound now, just a little rain to nourish the soil. Till tomorrow, love, Felipe.

Yesterday’s hospital visit was grueling and the one of the major good points was the picnic lunch packed by Our Jennifer and the hot oxtail soup we were able to enjoy. There is something so rich and nourishing about this dish and it has been forever a “soul food” in our world. Soul food meaning a dish that is made from an ingredient that is unpopular because it generally takes longer to prepare and therefore it falls to peoples who have more time than money, people with “soul” it’s said.

It seems that while we try to enjoy our lunch every nurse on duty has to come by to check out what’s on the menu with the Commandos. It’s nice, wouldn’t have it any other way. But I was suprised to hear how few of them knew what it was. Yea, how could something so good be so little known? So I decided to write about it today. Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

“Oxtail soup is made with beef tails. The use of the word “ox” in this context is a legacy of nomenclature; no specialized stock of beef animals are used. It is believed by some that oxtail soup was invented in Spitalfields in London in the seventeenth century by French Huguenot and Flemish immigrants, from the tails of animals.[1] Different versions of oxtail soup exist: Korean, Chinese, a fried/barbecued oxtail combined with soup variation which is a popular dish in Indonesia where it is called as sop buntut. An ethnic dish of the American South which traces its lineage back to the pre-revolutionary war era, and a thick, rich, gravy-like soup popular in the United Kingdom since the 18th century. Creole oxtail soup is made from a tomato base with oxtails, potatoes, green beans, corn, mirepoix, garlic, and herbs and spices.”

That’s nice but the food chemistry of it is on the unique side and noteworthy. The tail bones being an extension of the backbone are individual verebrae. These have cartilage between them and yeild a large amount of gelatin that is the secret ingredient. Also there is no shortage of fat most all of which needs to be drained off. Then maybe the stock includes some tomato as Our Jennifer’s did. Then there is the grain barley, carrots, celery and assorted herbs added. All this makes for a soup that as Our Gracie’s smile could change the weather so can this stuff! A thing of beauty.

I guess that I am raving here, which is better than ranting. But we need to make this stuff the offical soup of the Cancer Commandos. How’s that?
Good job Jennifer.

Have a few more emails to write and then will get ready for Thursday morning walk. Wonder who will show up? Yup, all good and more, love, Felipe.

Jennifer and I are off to the hospital today in a few moments to partake in our prescribed dose of magic chemistry. How much of today is laid out for us and how much do we have control over? How many people will we come in contact with today that will be open to us? And how many people will we be open to? How greatly can we employ our God given talents to influence today’s situations, Commando style. Sometimes all it takes is a wink to deliver a big message if we are just present. Let’s try to be there. Short and sweet, love, Felipe.

Every year on this date all around the world US Marines celebrate the birth of their beloved organization which occurred in 1775. Padre Tomas, Chaplain, sent this into me recently and may go a long way to tell of us.

Gotta love the United States Marines

Subject: Marine Math: The “Old Corps” Method

The Korean War, in which the Marine Corps fought and won some of its most brutal battles, was not without humor.

During one such conflict a ROK (Republic of Korea) commander, whose unit was fighting along with the Marines, called legendary Marine Gen. Chesty Puller to report a major Chinese attack in his sector.

“How many Chinese are attacking you?” Puller asked.

“Many, many Chinese!” the excited Korean officer exclaimed.

Puller demanded a more specific count. Back came the answer: “Many, many, many Chinese!”

An angry Puller swore and called for a Marine liaison officer, imbedded with the Koreans,to provide a more useful count

“Lieutenant,” he growled into the radio, “exactly how many Chinese you got up there?”

“General, we got a whole shitload of Chinese up here!”

“Thank God,” Puller said. “At least there’s someone up there who knows how to count!”

Seems like since Daylight Savings moved my sense of time around I have an hour each morning to pray, meditate, wonder, get inside. My brain is waking up at. 0530 because the light is the same as 0630 a few days ago. Don’t have me explain that but let’s say sleeplessness has its benefits. And I finished the book “The Alchemist” in bed six hours before and I was still thoroughly saturated with that juice.

Now I have to back up to the Camino last year to tell you of the benefits that I came back with. It was a huge sack of plunder but the biggest prize is maybe the subtlest. The biggest prize is the knowledge that God is always next to me, so very very close. I didn’t need a lot of words to pray anymore as in the past. Before Camino God seemed to be always a distance away and a lot of words were needed to lure him in but not anymore. As I think of it we were so breathless and desperate at times that we didn’t have the luxury of all of those words, did we?

Another very important part of my situation was a workshop that I had the very good fortune to participate in recently. And this was a course taught by three lovely and capable women on what I would call Natural Horsemanship. It was all about communicating with their highly trained horses with one’s intentions. Yea. If we are without inner conflict and clear we can “talk” to a horse and get him to “dance” with us with our intentions. It was a very transformative experience is how I would put it and hard to put into words.

Well, what does that have too do with anything? It has to do with the idea that if God is close by and I just need a word or two to communicate what does it mean to communicate with God with no words, just my intentions. And if there are no words involved it must mean that God is very very close, yes? And this is where I have been lately working with this.

But let’s pull all this together if we can. This is all going to sound very “out there” and yes it is but follow along. So, also recently I have been trying to visualize and talk with my eleven tumors in my lungs. Can I convince them to start growing smaller, relinquishing their power. In that process I am trying to meet with the Soul of Cancer, that essence, that force that we dread. So, this morning with confidence and desperation I called a meeting with my Cancer, my God and Myself inside me. Yes, it happened!

Something has to give. We have to work things out. Cancer and I both have missions to complete. How is that going to work. Does one of us win and the other loose? Do we both become meaningful because we are locked in opposition? Do we both win? Do we continue to try and live together beating each other up? Hmm. And that is why God was there to start to sort this thing out. I don’t know anything beyond this at the moment but we got started and that is the news!

I am off to see Dr Zucker this AM. We will have some good stuff to talk about. So, keep tuned, more to come. Thanks, love you, Felipe the Pilgrim.