Bread on the Water: September 2013

There are times where it is much more likely for me to share here if I just plunge in and type as if I am not going to post anything...not even a photograph of some pretty scene like this...

Years of hand written journals,rarely shared with anyone, have created a deep demarcation in me. While it helps me to write I don't necessarily expect anyone else to find it interesting or helpful. There really are a number of roadblocks to my popping up posts; there is propriety, privacy, and...hmmm...there must be other descriptors that probably also start with a "p."

Yes, in this world of divergent views it is easy to wonder about "political correctness" ( I'll just leave that one sitting there in quotes...)

and of course there is the question of profundity or more likely the lack thereof.

I often ponder the pain I see going on in our world, the lack of peace and prosperity so many experience but I don't want to simply remind others of what they also know. How to touch the giant troubles with purpose, how to inspire each other to make the world a safer and happier place ...?

The other day four very kind neighbors, retired people, a doctor, two nurses and a military officer and expert in defense, spent the afternoon with my husband and me... they gave us a little good-bye party as we prepare to leave our job here and move home. The way they spend their free time is humbling. Many hours are being devoted to others by these four people alone. Meals are being delivered to shut-ins, rides given to doctor visits, letters are written to elected officials, efforts are made to understand the dilemmas of the times, docent duties are under taken for educational programs, bereavement ministry services are manned and hospital patients are visited with therapy dogs, (yes, even their dogs are helping!). I'm encouraged by who they each are.

I'm reminded that the world is a complicated place and yet simple responses are ever so helpful and they are what one can do while pondering what else can be done...when the headlines make you feel blue...

What we are doing right now is moving...and the bird house and the kitty cats are going too.

For seven years we have lived on an astounding cliff

above the Pacific Ocean in a cottage from which we stewarded the gardens and oversaw the visitation of the other houses.

It was much work. It was good. It also feels good to be entering a new season. While we return to our house where we lived for the 17 years prior to coming here, we know we won't be going back to things as they were. We are not quite the same ourselves. But there is a sense of returning home after a long adventure.

As I wrote to another blogger who shares my love of nature, I will miss the sudden spouts that alert me to watch for whales surfacing. I will miss the sounds of otters cracking open their dinner and miss spotting them on their backs in the beds of kelp.

I will miss sighting the flash of dolphin fins and the orange of star fish clinging to the rocks. I will miss the strands of pelicans flying over and the white egrets walking on the water in the groves of kelp. Seven years by the sea has been a lovely privilege and I have tried here on "bread on the water" to share the beauty of this place as a balm for others.

Ironically, even though my watery neighborhood fits my blog name quite well, and many posts document seaside nature encounters, the inspiration for the name of my blog preceded living by the sea. In many ways the move we are about to make back up the road, north and a bit inland is just another response to the Word that tells us to "cast our bread on the water..."

I hope to post more often in the near future. I have hundreds of photos to organize and new -old vistas to capture and many thoughts to tease out and just maybe I'll type them up and deposit them here rather than drop them in that drawer of files which I might also take the time to cull.

But you'll understand if I disappear for a little while...yes? I hope so, because the little bit of sharing I have done here has meant a lot to me. I appreciate all of my readers, especially those of you that actually read to the end of my missives ( you must be one of those...) and those of you who return to check up on me and leave comments and a trail back to the thoughts and pictures and hopes of your own lives.