Helpers In Tasting

   I bought some cereal the other day. It was BOGO (buy one get one), so I could not pass it up even though I had not seen it before.

   As I poured some into my bowl this morning, I took a close look at what the dialog said on the box. There on the front was a big wheat biscuit with a small side note right next to the right bottom edge. As it pointed to the cereal biscuit it stated: "Enlarged to Show Taste".

   That caught my attention..

   How in the world can you enlarge a picture of a cereal biscuit to show how it tastes?

   Is it a relative of those old scratch and sniff deals from way back, with a new twist?

   The enlarged picture did not help me, I had to put some in a bowl with milk to find out about taste.

   A Bible verse from Psalms came to mind when talking of tasting:

Psalm 34:8

"Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him."

   Later, as we watched our church service on the live stream, it came to me how a picture could relate to tasting. As the pastor talked about the many people who had helped others in some way during the hurricane, I thought of our friends down the landing.

   When these neighbors appeared at our door with food during Irma, they were being the hands and feet of Christ to us.

   When we see the containers of food and the coffee in their hands, we can still experience the taste contained in those.

   We can also "taste" the goodness of God as he meets our needs through His helpers

   But I still don't know about tasting Organic Autumn Wheat from a picture on a box. That too could be a blessing, maybe.

IRMA Comes and Goes..

   Irma was on our radar for several days as we pondered what to do about evacuation. It was mandatory for our Island, but then the storm begun to waver to the west, away from our coast.

   Saturday, we decided to go to Charlotte, but then got to Savannah, got a further western movement for Irma and turned around and came home, deciding to look at it Sunday.

   Sunday found us still here and deciding to ride it out in our condo. We were not alone, 4 other couples stayed also.

   Then Monday, Irma arrived. The first hint was waking up at 3:30AM, and all was well, then again at 5:30, and there was no power.

   The rains were heavy that day, coming in sheets across the marsh. The winds were clocked at gusts to 65mph, with sustained winds at 45mph. Some rain came into our back porch, but the winds were blocked somewhat by the configuration of our two condo buildings, and we did not feel it in its fury at all.

   Our most significant event was the storm surge. I'm not sure of the actual surge, but it was predicted to be 4 to 6 feet. We are at least a mile from the open ocean and were surprised when we began getting water into our driveway and ultimately in the garage on the lowest level.

   All of our water was coming out of the marsh to our west.



  It covered the roadways on the east side.

   It covered the pool and spa on the west side, as well as all the grassy area.

   It went into the storage cages in the garage and soaked anything that was on the concrete floor, rising maybe 8 inches or so.

   It filled the elevator well, and is still there today.

   As we found later, Irma played havoc with the beach area, completely taking out the center span of a pathway to a sandbar and depositing that section up near the parking area, probably 6 feet above the level of the ocean at high tide.

   Trees were down around our area and all about the island, closing roads and taking down power lines all over.

   When Tuesday rolled around, I found on a quick bike ride, that the wood storks had a new place to frolic, just north of our condos. What had been a medium sized lake, was now much larger with the influx of the surge.

   We were without power from about 4AM Monday to 4PM on Thursday, but we had food, and the temperatures were not bad at all, inside or out. Our water stayed on, and we just acted like our ancestors, going to bed when it got dark and rising up when it got light.

   Wednesday, we looked out on a gorgeous sunset, an omen of a better tomorrow.

   As I sat on the back porch, after Mayre Lou had gone to bed on Thursday night, I thought of all that had transpired over the 4 days of Irma, and was very thankful for the view of the pool area with lights on. Those lights seemed to say, "All will be well."

   But the overriding emotion of the storm period was not fear, but gratitude.

   Gratitude for a strong building, for temperatures that cooperated, and for the fact that we had water and sewage, but most of all, it was gratitude for people.

   One neighbor brought Mayre coffee each morning that surely helped her survive the ordeal. Neighbors brought food and more food. People kept us up to date with the latest advisories that they received from outside and furnished hints on better living. In short we were blessed.

   We were uncomfortable, but not fearful.

   There was a better tomorrow to look forward to, and we did, and it did.

   We prayed for help when the storm came, and we thanked God for that help when it abated.

   He is faithful, and we were glad we believed that going in, and coming out.

   Amen

IRMA, A Before Story..

   Irma has been on our radar for a bunch of days, and now tomorrow what is left of her should be in our area.

   We have seen the pictures of storm surge, rainfall, winds, tornado alerts, and heard the pleas of government officials as to the hazards of remaining in the path of this storm.

   We planned on going up to Charlotte for the duration, to stay with Dwayne and Karen, but Irma moved west of the original track, and we are out of the cone of possibility right now.

   But we did have a mandatory evacuation beginning Saturday morning, so most of the residents and tourists left. From the beginning, this large storm had a probable track of right over us.

   Since we decided to stay, I thought I might take some shots of the way the Island has prepared for Irma, and how it looks a day before its arrival.

  

    Some boarded up windows showed ingenuity.

    A deserted Village..

   The pier was closed.

   Sandbags at the door..

   One eatery could not serve any food, but left a game to play outside.

   The Neptune Park area's playground was deserted.

   Barbara Jean's family eating spot planned ahead on plywood window covering.

   A Jacksonville TV station had a reporter and cameraman down at the pier.

   The landmark Lighthouse watches over all.

   A shot of Frederica Rd, the Island's only north-south artery at midday on Sunday. I stopped the car in the middle of the road to take this shot.

   All Swimming pool furniture at our condo is either in the gazebo or in the pool, so the wind will not whip it around.

   So there you are, and tonight and tomorrow should bring the Irma's main event. We'll see what it all looks like after Monday.

   Stay tuned..and pray for all those in harm's way.

Waiting For Irma...

   A couple of weeks back, we spent many days watching Harvey and his aftermath, then the news kept telling us about a new storm, Irma, a monster that we have watched for a week or so.

   So it is Friday morning and Irma has not gotten to Florida yet and probably won't till sometime late on Saturday.

   But we have a mandatory evacuation that goes into effect today, and now we get to scramble and get out.

   But Irma is not set to arrive in our area until Monday, although I know that we'll begin feeling the winds and rains a day before that at least..

   Our story is that we have been watching and hearing about big storms for 3 weeks or so already. The TV news is so full of it, that for the last few days my wife has kept asking me to look outside and see if it is raining yet.

   Yet it is nice and sunny and clear this morning, and yet we wait, and wait, and wait some more, thinking about a storm that will impact us sometime, maybe...

   We have satellite images to show the storm, we have hurricane hunter aircraft going into the storm to measure it, we have computer models to predict its future path, and we have the meteorologists thoughts and opinions, but we cannot do anything about it or know for any certainty of its future ways.

   In short, we as humans, have no control.

   And so we wait, and pray, for ourselves and for others in harm's way.

   But God is in control, of the wind, of the rain, of the extent, of the path of any storm, even a category 5 storm such as Irma, and we are pawns in a plan, that we know so little about.

   But God knows the pawns.

   And that is Good

Harvey Is No Immaginary Rabbit..

   If anyone had asked me before last week, if I knew who Harvey as, I would immediately have thought of that old Jimmy Stewart movie, Harvey, where he has this big rabbit as an make-believe friend.

   But now there is another Harvey, a big one to be sure, but sure not imaginary.

   The news cycle has been literally inundated by the news of this storm, no pun intended, and all we have seen for the past week is WATER.

   But the images that have stuck with me through this viewing have been of scenes like this:

   People appearing out of everywhere to help..

   Scenes of boats on trailers, fishing boats, hunting boats, canoes, kayaks and other floating craft, coming on the roads and highways to try to just help any way they could.

   Ordinary people, caring about what was happening to their neighbors and more people that they did not even know. Strangers, different colors, different income levels, different social status, meeting a need that was larger than the men and women of government could take care of.

   I have seen the looks on those who were rescued and the looks on the rescuers. They were American looks, these were American actions.

   This was no "divided America", this was America in action.

   I can imagine when all of this fades into the past, the minds and hearts of those who did and those who were done for (literally), will recall a moment in time when their lives were forever changed by people who cared and acted on that care.

   There were many more than just the boat people, and they went way beyond the call of duty, too.

   And I still see those empty boat trailers sitting around, speaking loudly that there are times that are not to be forgotten and people stood in the breach..

   And "good ole boys" can be good..

   And they were not invisible either.

On a Rainy Day in Brunswick, GA...

   I saw an article in the local paper the other day about an incident. It happened on the corner of Lee Street and L Street.

   Now you have to know that in the section of Brunswick, GA, lying just north of downtown, the streets that run east and west, running from US 17 on the marsh to US 341, which runs along the waterfront, are indicated by letters, like J and K and L and M. The cross streets going north and south are regular street names, a lot of them named for people.

   The section is not an affluent neighborhood. It looks dirt poor for the most part and contains some housing projects. It is not populated by middle class white southern citizens.

   The one thing that I recall hearing about this section of town, was from a friend of mine who forbade his mother-in-law to ever drive down L Street.

   After I read that previously mentioned article, I remembered seeing Lee Street when we were in that area one time, and I was struck by the other streets around it, as to how they were named.

   So one rainy day, Mayre and I went back over there and checked the names of other nearby streets.. Here is what we found...

  Six consecutive streets named after Confederate generals in this one area. The five above plus Stonewall Street, whose picture did not turn out well.

   I imagine, but don't know for sure, that this area was white when the streets were named, but it is anything but right now.

   In these days of statue removal, and other symbols of the Civil War era being protested, I have to wonder whether street names will be on the protest circuit anytime soon, and, if so, will it work its way down to Brunswick?

   And what do the current residents think?

   I wonder..

  

I've Got The Glasses...

   Yes, I have a pair of the eclipse glasses, those that you had to have to see the solar eclipse on Monday, and, after all, you have to use those when looking directly at the sun as it was eclipsed by the moon.

   And I still have those glasses, unused, sitting on my kitchen island counter.

   We had a cloudy day Monday, and, although some folks who were outside here at the time of the big event got to see a partial in and out of the clouds, we just watched it on TV.

   We saw the total eclipse from Idaho Falls, Hopkinsville, and Charleston, and it was truly spectacular, a once in a lifetime happening.

   Millions of people in the US saw the eclipse, many of them driving many miles to watch from inside the totality corridor to get the full effect.

   As we watched I listened to the commentators and the crowds as the moon blotted out the light of the sun. There was clapping. There was cheering. There was awe and amazement portrayed in the voices of the people on site watching, with their protective glasses of course.

   The event itself was stunning, but when I thought about it during that broadcast, I thought about the many scientists over the years whose experiments had brought us to the point of being able to predict, not only the time of the eclipse, but the totality path that crossed the US. A lot of years, a lot of sightings, a lot of experiments, and a lot of deep thought and study, got us to the point of our own personal experience.

   But, you know as great as all that was, the greater revelation of it all came from the realization of the order of the universe, as planned out by God in the creation, way back when.

   This was a once in 100 years happening, but we can go out each night and see the result of all God's order and planning of the universe we live in. Planets and stars in their orbits, the sunrise and sunset each day, and the predictability of it all.

   A total eclipse is great, but it is only a small part of the miracle of Creation, evident all around us.

   Let's give credit where credit is truly due, and as the Psalmist says:

   The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech,
    and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words,
    whose voice is not heard.