Sing a New Song...

   One responsibility we have, when we are home here on SSI, is to prepare the coffee for the Sunday morning services. This involves our going to the church on Saturday evenings, filling the pots with water and coffee, and getting out all the condiments that go with it. Then on Sunday morning early, I get up and go turn on the pots so they will be all perked when the first people come in around 8. As such, I am out on the road before most of the Island wakes up.

   This morning, as I was on my way back home, I had to wait for a light, and, while sitting, just glanced across the street to a relatively new park, one that had been created as a green space where the old Sea Island stables had once been located.

   When we came to the Island back in 1995, the stables were in business big time. People would come and take rides on the horses and their route would take them back across the main road so that they could go on out to Sea Island and ride on the beach. So several times a day, we would sit at that light and wait until the string of horses and riders got across to the other side. Between the horses and the roosters that wandered out from the stables to the road, it was an adventure to pull up to that light.

                       



   When the stables moved to a new location a little farther out in the middle of the Island, there was much consternation about what would happen to that property. It was a valuable piece of land, situated at one of the major intersections, and consisting of about 2.3 acres. Would it become a small strip mall, a retail store with a paved parking lot, or what?

   As I thought about all of that, and then looked at the nice park, full of green grass and old live oaks, that had replaced the old stables, my heart was grateful for all the folks that had made that transformation possible.

   Then, right before going back to church for the early service, I read this part of a verse in Psalms 96:

   "Oh sing to the Lord a new song;"

   Missing a green light,

   A quick glance across the street,

   A memory of what used to be,

   and a gratitude for what now was,

   That could be a new song to sing today.