we're on our way - - to Apalachicola F-L-A

It's 80°F out here and, with 83% humidity that's a bit muggy, still a lovely morning at 7H. Sound of waves lapping up onto the shore seven stories below, so breakfast outside on the porch. 

Mug of black from my magic machine, three slices toasted extra thin 40 cal whole wheat bread and my last bit of incomparable Holy Nativity pork butt, the rector's lunch for the Highlanders marching band from Indiana that played in our 10:30 worship service last Sunday morning. Yes, a highschool marching band in church, the very best the Episcopal Church can be. 

The pork doesn't need it, needs only an open salivating mouth, but out of compulsion, TJ's sriracha with roasted garlic bbq sauce mixed with mayo to cut the heat and spooned on top, then forked onto the toast bite by bite.

Ship passing right now just off 7H porch, heading east.

Clouds coming over, with black bottoms, and the temperature seems to be dropping in the cool breeze that seems to be coming with the clouds; and yes, 78°F now and, hopefully, dropping. 

One bite of toast left, which I'll cover with a spoonful of the German strawberry fruit spread bought yesterday in the TAFB commissary after my haircut. Why go to the barbershop at Tyndall, because - - though I say just a light trim, the barbers seem obsessed to go with military white sidewalls - - after what HMichael did to the base, now decimated population and mission, barbershop needing custom, the place seems deserted, ruined buildings being demolished, and no contractor population here to help rebuild because there're no homes for incoming folks to rent. Everyone at TAFB needs encouragement; and quite frankly, so do I. 

Meeting the City of Parker sign upon coming back across Tyndall Bridge, I wondered what HMichael did to the population of this ruined town, and Callaway and Springfield: seem to be no livable houses, townhomes, or apartment complexes left, just ruin.

Sudden driving rain now, shot of the ship now in the far channel, heading west and making for The Pass.

Remembering that this is my blog where I can and do write what I DWP and like it or lump it, thoughts bring me full half-circle back to The Subject. Of the past twelve months and fuming, Cat5 HMichael.

As opposed to the thumbs up, smiley face, keep a stiff upper lip crowd of cheery optimists, myself has been and written on the side and from the viewpoint of those of us whom the hurricane crushed. Emotionally, morally, theologically. Physically. Many economcally, financially. Someone said that in Bay County two-thousand-five-hundred schoolchildren are still living in tents today, a year after HMichael. So, I'm on their side, write from their hearts and frame of mind, and mine. Someone seemed puzzled by my post "from all Your sins" in which every capital Y stands for the Divinity and the blame seems placed squarely on. Can I be mad at God whom my theology always insists "did not do this"? 

In modern Time, "seeing" God is anchored in the holocaust memory, not sure but I think Elie Wiesel recorded it, in which a crowd in the concentration camp barracks had been forced outside to witness another murder, a hanging. In which someone phrased the question "Where is God NOW?" and someone else said "There. There he is," pointing to the nine year old boy on the scaffold, still twitching and jerking as he strangled to death at the end of the rope. Can we be angry with God? Mighty damn right we can. And for all the evil that has come about, both at the hands of humans created in His image (read Joshua) and at the hands of Father Nature, since the Word first said "Let there be."

This is not to say that God wills the tragedies that come upon us, which'd be blasphemy of the first order, for, Lamentations 3:31-33 KJV, "the Lord will not cast off for ever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict nor willingly grieve the children of men". Nevertheless, if and as the Creator brought all things into being, including our free will in His image, as it is said, "God is in control", then He who gives us the beautiful spring days of life for which we thank and praise Him, is also responsible for life's darkness. 

A book, a favorite little book I've written about here from time to time, I bought in the early 1980s in the bookstore at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, where I was a student seminarian at the Time, is by Father Pierre Wolff, then a Jesuit priest* titled "May I Hate God?" It is, as advertised, "A compassionate book addressed to those who have suffered pain or senseless loss" and has been a help to me ever since. HMichael left me in a fury, and needing someone to blame. God, as Fr Wolff said, is of such unconditional Grace as to offer Himself as needed by us His creatures, lovingly to suffer our anger, rage, hate; in the theology of the Cross, crucified again and again and again; only to return in unending love when the skies clear and our Sunday comes. All this in mind, I can let HMichael go and, as I said earlier, move on with my own Time. 

This is, I think, a true theology of Grace, not intimidated fear but love divine.

RSF&PTL
T+ 

* https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/pierre-wolff-obituary?pid=188048772