Friday, June 2, 2023
Friday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Back from the sandy beach
Back with good memories and sand in our car, sand in our shoes, sand in other less mentionable places … Miles caught four fish with Marc’s help, and Miles’ Grandpa Ken caught a big whiting, again with tackle that Marc set up for him. We found a place to rent rods and reels and get the right bait, and it worked!
Just to keep track, as Miles likes to do, he has now caught five fish in his life, all of which were while Marc was with him, getting things set up and showing him how to reel them in. It can only get better from here. And Miles won’t need a fishing license for a decade yet!
Ken remembered his fishing days in Tokyo Bay. He usually rode a public fishing boat and spent the morning on it. His eyes misted over a little in the memories, at least I thought so. Perhaps he’ll spend more time fishing in Texas, now that he has his fishing license and a catch under his belt.
Now will I praise those godly men, our ancestors, each in his own time. But of others there is no memory, for when they ceased, they ceased.
Marc and I walked awhile down the beach at sunset one night, talking about our lives and plans. We happened upon a circle of 30 or so Adirondack chairs around a fire, which broke up as we approached. The group walked toward the surf. A woman stayed back with her phone, taping them. A young man and woman carried ashes, we realized, and after they walked into the surf, they poured them out, into the wind and water.
Through God’s covenant with them, their family endures. For all time their glory will not be blotted out. The Lord takes delight in his people.
They hugged each other, the video gal backpedaled, and everyone returned after ten minutes or so, back to the fire. We kept walking, not saying much for a few minutes. Letting what we’d seen sit. Knowing our lives too are short.
I had one last chance to see a sunrise over the Gulf, and since Miles and Jasper woke us all up at 6 am anyway, I took it. I drove past the small Episcopal Church and noticed three cars and bright lights inside, and I imagined they were praying a morning mass. Andi and Aki walked into the sunrise, and I followed them at a little distance. The hungry gulls, sleek and beautiful, dove, sang, dove, sang. A single piece of driftwood had floated up with the tide. Blood red fireball climbing out of the sea, another day in the history of the world. I remembered last night’s ashes, somewhere by now in the middle of the sea.
I didn’t go straight home, where Aki’s parents were making eggs and bacon. The Chapel on the Hill (the former Episcopal church) was two blocks away from our long, turquoise house on Trojan Street, and I stopped by to visit. Climb the dune through the grass and wildflowers, look inside at the exquisitely painted walls and ceiling of the chapel as the sun washed the white adobe walls, and I wondered about it, almost a hundred years ago, how Miss Aline and her ice cream socials made it up that hill. The kids helped her, no doubt.
Have faith in God. Whoever says to this mountain, “Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him.
We had our own ice cream social at Desserted Island Ice Cream, with Rae her mom Marie, and their dog Colonel Mustard. They moved from Austin to Corpus Christi (just a few miles inland from Port Aransas) soon after Rae finished her massage classes with fellow student Aki. Andi, Aki and Rae remain good friends.
In Austin it’s hot again. Marc and I spent a couple evening hours last night, listening to music and being Austinites, before his 8 am flight back to Champaign.
On the beach at Port Aransas, with its constant breezes, it is not hot. We flew kites above Andi’s new beach tent, dug holes and filled them with salt water, watched for jellyfish, and ate two sandy lunches, both delicious, both a little gritty. This was our second trip to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. It surely won’t be our last.
But that’s up to God, not me.
(Sirach 44, Psalm 149, John 15, Mark 11)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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