Eighty-two degrees outside, clear, warm and steamy here on the Florida Gulf Coast. Yes, I could be out on 7H porch watching flashing navigation lights and the occasional light of a boat moving across StAndrews Bay, overhead a moon and Jupiter; but muggy hits me in the face as I slide the door open and go out for a quick look and return to the A/C, where Life is Good. Still dark yet, sunrise not until 5:55, more than an hour away as I loose the fingers.  "Loose the hounds," cries the queen of Harfang, Land of the Giants, as, returning from the hunt, she spots Pole, Scrubb, and Puddleglum the marshwiggle, the joyfully anticipated piece de resistance of their Autumn Feast, escaping into Underland. Narnia is never far from my mind, and recently I watched "The Silver Chair" again because someone stirred memories of teaching at HNES years ago.   What was I doing, what do I like to do in retirement here in 7H? The usual things, obviously a film now and then. Books, a book....

It's always something. There are always things. Factors, something going on, happening, seen or unseen, surface or undercurrent. Active or lying dormant. Thought of, or unconscious, out of mind. Thoughts, actions, silence, noise, the sound of silence, silence itself. Silence itself, what it stirs, and what it lets lie.  People who see you, in ways that you don't see yourself. Remembering a proverb or saying that I saved and clipped from a worship bulletin one Sunday morning at First Baptist Church, Gainesville, Florida in 1955 or 1956. I carried in my wallet for years, decades, and I'm sure it's still around here and I can find it if I stop and search; because there are things that I don't throw away, not only memories, but a few things temporal. The proverb went something like this. "Somewhere, someone is following you as you make your way through life, perhaps going your way because they know no other direction to take. The power of leading others is inevitab...

  Tuesday early, and we've already had a morning. When I went outside at four o'clock the day was dark and cloudy but clear, warm and humid. An hour later, lightning, thunder and driving rain. Ten minutes later, clear again but light as the Sun makes its promises. Sitting here contemplating and tippy-typing something to say next Sunday morning, I've not even had my second mug of hot 'n black. Much less have I started getting ready for my six-monthly eight o'clock visit to the skin doctor, stripped to the waist to lie and then sit while he zaps here and there as he mutters to the nurse. What I always hope to avoid is when he gets out the needle, scares and hurts me, waits a moment, then I sense a cutting sensation and smell burning flesh.  From the consequences of a boy's years blistering in the sun at the beach, Good Lord, deliver us. What? smearing Noxzema all over me, blistering burning red anyway, Mama dabbing cool tea all over me to sooth my searing stinging...

  Monday promises to be a day of Peace, a bright opening, clouds on the southern horizon over the Gulf of Mexico, raining somewhere off to my east beyond the docks that Hurricane Michael enjoyed shredding -> as I write an hour later, the clouds are building and towering to the south of me, shades of gray. But still Peace.  Finishing my second mug of hot black, second pot of the July installment of my coffee club gift, a strong dark Nicaraguan coffee. It's all good, and fun, and stirs love. For me today, The Peace Of The Lord Being Always With Me will include reading the Propers for the upcoming Sunday and waiting for the Holy Spirit, τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον, the Spirit the Holy; or, in God's first language, ר֣וּחַ she, her, the Spirit . As I've said, sometimes she doesn't show. I mean, not to go off offensive, but if you thought God's first language was English, as in the KJV, you're an idiot.  Anyway, here are the Propers for next Sunday, and then I have more ram...

  As I started my car to back out of the garage into the light drizzle, Linda came out the back door of The Old Place and tapped on the car window.  "Community called: your mother just died." It was seven o'clock Sunday morning, July 17, 2011, exactly eleven years ago this moment. I was dressed and headed to HNEC for the eight o'clock service, intending to head out to see her after church. She was at Community Rehab out US 231 because she kept falling, including once during the night, and couldn't get up, and twice had been taken to the hospital by ambulance. When I got there, she was still warm. And as I removed her wedding ring to give to Susanna, the nurse said, "You must be her son? She asked me, 'Where's my Bubba'."  Mama had recently passed her ninety-ninth birthday. She  was born Hazel Louise Gentry, on May 7, 1912, at McDavid, Florida: from Pensacola, you drive out Palafox, north on US29 about to Bluff Springs near the Florida Alabama...

  A lot has changed over the years, my years, changed with others, society, the world, and me. Those I grew up with and loving, the generations ahead of me, are all dead but one, and increasingly, more and most of my own generation of friends, loved ones, and associates. Summer is upon us, mid-summer that always takes me back in memories to my late teens and early to mid-twenties, stirred again this morning by an email from The New York Times titled "The Morning: Salad Days" Summer’s bounty I have spent more kitchen hours than I care to admit trying, in vain, to recreate the Caesar salad dressing of a certain Midtown Manhattan lunch spot. Sometimes I go all in on the Parmesan. Other times I double the lemon juice. I’ve made my own oven-dried anchovy powder, left out the Worcestershire, added a sprinkle of MSG. I’ve convinced myself that if I can just get the formula correct, I’ll have a magic elixir I can dribble over any combination of vegetables and voilà, the perfect salad...

  Rising early never gets old. Perhaps especially at this age when Time is Dear and Life is Short. Today, Friday morning, for instance, up to sacrifice to Father Nature at one-something, eagerly back to bed, only to see a brilliant flash of light over the window from the direction of the sea. Oh, Joy! Up, coffee percolating, out on 7H porch with a cuppa hot black to participate in an electrical display far out in the Gulf, scores of miles wide, from the direction of Destin all the way to the direction of Port St Joe.  And sound from below: shouts and laughter of young people wading in the shoreline, a couple of groups of them with a light. They're still out there, but the lightning has moved on beyond my sight and it's just dark.  So, what then? Am I, are we, alone? Alone here? Are we here alone? Evidently not, and we are not so significant after all. Nothing is Certain except that nothing we knew was correct, the galaxy pictured in the little square is as far distan...