I picked up another Zoom meeting for this month from a friend. There seems to be one scheduled every week. New audiences, slightly different topics. It might be a Cancer audience or a Camino audience or a Catholic audience or a combination but each has a slightly different shade of emphasis. And then I had my weekly Bible Guys class this morning which is totally Zoom. And even if we do get together again in person I am sure that we will figure out how to have some sort of fusion with Zoom to include those who can’t be there physically.

Sometime at Bible Guys our hour and a half long class is taken up entirely with the topic of study. For instance we may be concentrating on a particular chapter of the Bible or a particular miracle or parable of Jesus and it fills the whole time. And on another occasion half of the time might be what we call fellowship or just BS ing about our week or a problem or item of gratitude because we handled the topic in a shorter time. We always fill the whole time productively regardless.

We worked on a miracle today that appears both in Matthew and Luke. It was the healing of the Centurion’s servant. Somewhere in the discussion I was talking about one of my personal messages which is the difference between healing and curing. Curing being over your disease and healing being something larger and mainly spiritual. One can be healed without being cured. That is one of the favorite parts of the Phil’s Camino documentary for lot of viewers.

As I was speaking about this particular thing to my Bible Guys I was reminded how important this is. And I have been searching for a topic to speak about on some of my upcoming Zooms. Some of those meetings are QandA’s about the film and some are more like talks. And I was searching for an exciting topic for the talks. That’s good to have in focus as this Covid disruption has me distracted and unfocused.

So yea, with Zoom, without Zoom, with Covid, without Covid. How to adapt? How to come up with the meaningful and helpful? How to focus in?

Saturday loves, Felipé.

Believe me I have no idea what that means but it just flew into my brain. But once I put up a title on a post it hardly ever leaves. It’s in stone.

And sometimes I have no idea what to write about and I start anyway. I guess it is all a sort of stream of consciousness. And usually one thing leads to another, one idea leads to another and pretty soon there is a post. I think that it is mostly in just getting started really.

So why don’t I put an invitation out to you readers if anyone feels so moved to want to write a post here that you email it in to me at [email protected] . And send a pic of yourself. I will edit it and put it up. You need to keep it under 500 words and have it relate to the Camino past or present.

Let’s see what happens with that. This is very much your blog. It is our neighborhood watering hole. Anything on your mind these days? Let us know. If you need help let me know.

So My Rebecca what’s to use this IPad for her meeting in a minute. So, I will take off for now. Let’s keep up the conversation.

500 word loves, Felipé.

I know one thing that is new and that is Zoom. Last year at this time I barely heard of this thing. The same with you. Now it is everywhere and it will come out of this pandemic as a standard everyday thing.

In the next two months I have five Zoom conferences that I have been invited to and scheduled for. Two with cancer groups, one with a pilgrimage class and two with church groups. That’s great and it represents a lot of airline miles that I don’t have to rack up. And a lot of wear and tear saved on me and the environment.

So, those five are in the “Three C’s” of Cancer, Camino and Catholicism. We are still mainly bouncing around in those three categories here at Caminoheads. Well with some Corn thrown in occasionally.

algood, alperfect loves, Felipé.

Just a little while longer with our winter schedule:

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

Then Sunday March 14th with the coming of Daylight Savings we will be walking:

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

The trail is wet in spots so wear good boots or rubber boots.

Felipé.

Our beloved Cris has looked up “oasis” in the dictionary and come up with two meanings. One is a fertile place in the desert. There is water there for plant growth and our thirst. We can drink our fill there after our year wandering in the desert. We can rest in the shade there. We can enjoy others there as this watery magnet draws people in from the surrounding parched landscape.

The other definition that she found was a place of calm in a world of chaos. Ah yes, chaos. That is the word for this minefield of a year. Uncertainty has ruled. False narratives have gathered and reached dangerous proportions like violent storms. We have economic and political upheavals. Fear of this and fear of that is common. That’s all chaos in different forms and intensities. Calm is at an all time low right now.

Don’t we want to touch base with some calm. A retreat perhaps, a respite, a recalibration, a check in. We need to look at each other and say, “Ah, see we made it!”. It will be two years since we were together here. And maybe we can bookend this thing or at least the worst part of it. We know what the before felt like and we know what being in it feels like. Let’s formulate what being over it feels like.

We are in for a couple of sunny days with temps reaching 60 F tomorrow afternoon.

sunny day loves, Felipé.

We are excited! The “S” word is being whispered about the neighborhood. The flowers are blooming, the bees are out, the hummingbirds are smiling. Spring is happening here at this degree of latitude. Of course it has skips and starts but we are making progress. Time to find the soil thermometer and to start checking.

And Lent is on. Things are pretty disjointed here with church and the patchwork of Covid measures that have been imposed. Fortunately Catherine and I have been able to cobble together a meaningful sort of pilgrim worship. Maybe we will keep some of that even when church opens up again. But it will be the second different Lent in a row.

And there is some planning for our Oasis party in August. Cris and Ron working on the use of Zoom to help connect those that won’t be able to travel. We’re going to be uncertain about travel for a while yet. But Zoom is here to help us. And let me say that I think it is really important to hold the Oasis and to have it happen on whatever level that we can get away with. We need this and this will help us.

So, this is our world. It has big chucks that are uncertain but we move forward to make all that we can of the situation. Here we go!

smiling hummingbird loves, Felipé.

Wow, that is almost too much! February seemed like it lasted for ten years. I guess those are Covid years. Anyway, here we are on the door step to March. Yippee!

So, St Patrick’s Day coming on the 17th. Catherine and Dana are coming over for corned beef and cabbage dinner to celebrate that one. And it is really the first real dinner party since shutdown. We are opening up again or starting to. It will be two weeks after all four of have had full vaccinations. Looking forward to that.

This reminds me of part of our conversation on Saturday, that’s Cris and myself. She was saying that they just started in Argentina with the vaccination program and she didn’t know yet how they were going to handle the priorities. She would know more in April. So this uncertainty as to whether she would be able to attend the Oasis (8/20-8/23) here is sad for me. But it has also led to some thinking as to how can we use Zoom for some of our party activities to connect with anyone who won’t be able to come. So, that is exciting. I am a little uncertain as to how that is going to integrate but I have faith.

The other very important thing that Cris and I talked about was the future of Caminoheads and the Caminoheads blog. I proposed since in my estimation she was the best prepared to take over leadership of things if I was no longer able that she consider that. And she graciously accepted to do just that. Don’t you think she is a good fit?

I tried to express that this would include great freedom to mold and shape things as she saw fit. For instance the blog could come out in English and Spanish at a certain point. That is just a for instance. I don’t want to burden her with ghosts of Felipé in how she chooses to navigate. But please support us in this.

Off I go for the Monday morning walk. It looks reasonable out there, calm and cloudy, temp of 43F.

doorstep loves, Felipé.

Yesterday I was describing a certain intimacy that I had discovered on the Camino in 2014. It was this intimacy with God that just was. I didn’t have to “conjure” up God in elaborate communications. It was all very simple.

Yesterday I had a two hour FaceTime chat with Cris. I had a pile of things to cover with her and finally we connected so that was where the two hours went. And in addition she sent in a comment about #10. You can read that in the Comments. And one of the things that she included there was this blog post that really sums things up:

Walking becomes praying, pilgrimpace blog

I would have a hard time putting it any better than what is there. Please check that out. So I think that I will say goodbye to February 2021 and tuck in the Pilgrim Beatitudes till we review them again. They are really such a joy, it was beautiful to unpack them and see once again what a treasure we have. Till next time.

So Catherine will be here in a moment to hold our homemade church service. It has been dry for a few days so hopefully the standing water has subsided. We had wet feet on Thursday.

wet footed loves, Felipé.

Here is the last one:

“Blessed are you pilgrim if you discover that, the Camino holds a lot of silence; and the silence of prayer; and the prayer of meeting with God who is waiting for you.”

OK, here we are at the tail end of February and we are at the tail end of the Pilgrim Beatitudes. Everything working out so nicely. That very seldom happens!

And here we are with the Camino holding “a lot of silence”. It is like we are moving through deep space. All of a sudden there is openness, space, opportunity for us. We have to know how to deal with it though as that could be a frightening thing. But somehow we dealt with that.

Then there is “the silence of prayer”. That one was easy to do and hard to understand. So much prayer in our lives seems to be institutional prayer or modeled after it. A prayer leader strives to sort of conjure up God from afar with a lot of pleading. But I think we learn on the Camino that he can very close by and indeed inside us already. And even if we are out of breath praying can easily happen. And I believe that this is what they are referring to here.

And then “meeting with God”. I really thought that He was very close to me then. Then when I was so tired and disheveled. That is what being on the mountain top looks like.

OK, alperfect. The other day I did Google “Pilgrim Beatitudes” and I did get some info of folks who had them and were writing about it. I still have to explore that. So that is coming up.

thanks as always loves, Felipé.