7H
The sun plays games with Creation, making clouds one instant flat, another instant sharp and crisp. And often back to flat in the next instant before I can get to the porch rail with my camera to snap the shot. A shrimp boat with its bright light down deep finishes up overnight work and heads for StAndrews Marina as personal boats speed out toward The Pass.
From the shoreline just below me, seagulls fuss noisily. Pelicans glide east into the rising sun, headed wherever their habit is for the day, some of them to the pilings of that private dock that, until Hurricane Michael, with a padlocked gate. and sign "Private" extended out from the sidewalk along East Beach Drive. Since the storm, just pilings for the pelicans.
This evening they'll glide back into the setting sun, toward Bird Island to rest.
Thursday, June 30, 2022, a summer morning on the shoreline of StAndrews Bay in the Florida Panhandle. From here on 7H porch. 97% humidity and even with a bit of mist right on the water at a distance, I can see over Shell Island into the Gulf of Mexico. All my life I wondered why anyone would want to go someplace on vacation when one could live there permanently. Navy years I couldn't wait to get Home to stay, and here I AM.
Again, living at 7H is like being in an ocean liner docked at my favorite place on Earth. From my stateroom suite balcony I can see Heaven. From the walkway dockside I can see where my brother and I grew up. And everything on the ground and on the sea and in the sky constantly changing around me as I look on. I don't need to go anywhere.
Now if only Captain's Table would hurry up and open, eh?
Heaven on Earth? No, Earth IS Heaven, enjoy. My friends, life is short, and we haven't much Time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us.
RSF&PTL
T
A U S Navy diver tender heads out into the Gulf for a morning of deep water exercises with a class of diver trainees
fish-hawks - - and, I've never managed to snap him up close, but a shrilly chirping Osprey sails back and forth just reaching distance from my porch railing
His Peace
I love to think of them at dawn
Beneath the frail pink sky,
Casting their nets in Galilee
And fish-hawks circling by.
Casting their nets in Galilee
Just off the hills of brown
Such happy, simple fisherfolk
Before the Lord came down.
Contented, peaceful fishermen,
Before they ever knew
The peace of God that filled their hearts
Brimful and broke them too.
Young John who trimmed the flapping sail
Homeless in Patmos died.
Peter, who hauled the teeming net,
Head down was crucified.
The peace of God, it is no peace,
But strife sowed in the sod.
Yet brothers pray for but one thing --
The marvelous peace of God!