I’ve eaten lots of fish while in Port Aransas and I’m not even a fish lover. The fresh fish is so good, nothing like what we get at home. My niece can’t believe I’ve actually had fish for lunch and dinner—on the same day! We walked along the beach in the afternoon and then again in the morning, wading in the Gulf and looking for sea shells swept up by the tide. A runner passed us, and an older couple and their dog stopped to say hi. But, with the exception of a few others, the beach was vacant, of human life anyway. One day we drove to nearby Rockport, a direct hit of Harvey, and that art gallery filled town was also ready for business. I’m not saying we didn’t see storm damage wherever we went, we were amazed at how quickly the little coastal towns had been brought back from such a devastating storm. On the third night a thunderstorm came through, dropped the temperature from the 80s to the 70s and lowered the humidity as well. That Thursday was clear and sunny, a great day for bird watching. This area is known for the variety of birds that either live here year-round or migrate through. Our time here has been too short.

 

 

It’s a first for me—spending Halloween at the beach. My niece, who works full time dealing with children in crisis, needed a break so here we are at Port Aransas on the Texas coast. She still has phone calls and emails to answer, but there’s time to walk on the beach and read and relax. Port Aransas is one of her favorite getaway places. It’s the non-tourist season so it’s quiet. You can drive along the beach and park if you want to, so we did, stopping to take photos of sand castles made in a Halloween theme. Lots of sand pumpkins of various sizes surrounding a huge ghostly figure, all to be swept away with the tide. We saw the sculptor the next day, beer in hand, taking a break from creating a different scene of churches surrounding a cathedral. We also saw some amateur surfers struggling to get up in rough waves. How did we know they were amateur? Only one even stood a second on his board before he was tossed off. Port Aransas was hard hit by Hurricane Harvey in August of 2017 so we weren’t sure what to expect. Though storm damage is still apparent, Port Aransas is up and running. Most of the beautiful condos along the beach have been refurbished, repainted, windows repaired. Restaurants are serving customers. Gift shops display their wares. Port Aransas is open for business.

One of my neighbors just brought over a huge purple chrysanthemum. She had been out buying plants and got one for me too. Maybe she felt sorry for my poor porch, which doesn’t have even a pumpkin or any other décor to celebrate fall or Halloween. Just hadn’t gotten around to it. One of my other neighbors invited me to his fall spaghetti dinner for the neighborhood. He’s lived here only two years and this will be his third block party. We all pitch in with desserts, drinks and side dishes. I’ve lived here a lot longer and not once had a block party. Wait a minute, I did have a couple of backyard parties for my late husband’s milestone birthdays, where all the food was catered and we had live music and a piñata full of candy for the kids. Those should count, I guess. But I’m just glad I have good neighbors. We may not all go to the same church or go to church at all or agree politically, but we’re still there for each other. If you have good neighbors, count your blessings.

A small crystal hangs in my kitchen window over the sink. One day, when the sun came through, a spot of light showed up on my kitchen wall. It was just a spot of light. But when I went into the dining room and happened to look at the spot from a different angle, all the colors of the spectrum showed up, from dark purples and blues down through the color scale to bright oranges and deep reds. It was gorgeous! I understand that a prism breaks light into the various colors, but why did the color show up on my wall from only one direction. I walked back in the kitchen and checked it again. Yes, same result. I’m sure someone in the know could explain this phenomenon to me. But it made me think that when we look at ourselves as Christians, we see ourselves as ordinary human beings full of faults, but when God looks at us through the prism of his Son’s grace, he sees a favorite beloved son or daughter clothed in a radiant brilliant coat of many colors. Why have so many doubts, worries and concerns when we are so loved by the Almighty God himself, our Father, the Creator of the universe!

Ouch! Zapped again! Got home from my annual dermatologist appointment with blotches all over my face and especially on my nose. All those years growing up, playing outdoors, swimming, horseback riding, without a thought of protecting my skin, now I’m paying the price. Wear a hat or sunscreen? My goal was to have fun outdoors, and getting a tan along with it was just an extra benefit. Yes, a blistered nose often went along with my summer fun. Feeling the sore spots on my face make me think of other more serious bad decisions of my youth and adult years, the spiritual sins. They have consequences too. I won’t go into those for several reasons, but mainly because Jesus’ sacrifice has blotted out those sins from my record. Thank you, Lord! But, even though through God’s grace, my sins are forgiven, like the precancerous spots on my body, the results of sin don’t automatically go away. The decisions we make, whether bad or good, can affect not only us but those around us for years to come. Sin has consequences. Sin hurts people. That’s why God hates sin!

In his book, The Grand Design, the late Stephen Hawking wrote that we don’t need God, that God wasn’t needed to create the universe. Mr. Hawking was an extremely intelligent man. I’ve read an earlier popular book of his, A Brief History of Time. Though it was supposedly written at the layman level, I have to admit I sometimes got lost in his explanations. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised he came to the conclusion that there’s no need for God, other physicists have as well, at least in theory. (Hawking referred to it as the M-theory.) What does surprise me is his statement that something can come from nothing. I thought that was against a law of physics. According to what I’ve read, he gives the law of gravity a lot of credit for the spontaneous appearance of something out of nothing. Whatever his reasoning was, I need more than his word for that. Quantum physics or not, it seems to me quite a stretch to say something can spontaneously come out of nothing, without a cause. I would have to have a lot more faith in Hawking and his pronouncements to wrap my mind around that conclusion, gravity or not. Of course, God claims he made something out of nothing as well. It’s a conundrum. Do I have faith in what Hawking said or in what God says? I think you know the answer. However the universe was created, big bang or whatever other theory scientists come up with, God did it!

I actually went out to my studio and painted last week. For quite a few years now, I’ve painted a Western scene to be auctioned off at our annual family reunion. These paintings always include horses or cows or both—no surprise there, considering where I live here in horse and cattle country. The auction helps support the next year’s reunion. So, even if I don’t get around to painting much of anything else, I have to paint this one painting. My studio is a shed in the backyard that’s set up with all the materials I need to paint or draw or whatever. Several easels, lots of canvases, brushes, oil paints, special lighting. But, whenever anyone asks me to paint anything for them, I tell them I’m not a real artist. I only paint when I get around to it. Real artists can’t help themselves, they have to paint. I really admire my friends who are real artists. If I were a real artist, I’d be out there in that studio just about every day, painting away.

 

For all my time in Texas, I’ve not once gotten a traffic warning, let alone a ticket. I pride myself on being a safe driver. But, I can’t say that anymore. Last week, on my way to see a movie, I see those familiar flashing lights behind me. Surely that’s not for me, but I pull over. It’s for me. The lady cop tells me I was speeding in a school zone. I’m not confrontational, but I tell her I don’t think so. I saw the sign and I slowed down. She said my car probably picked up speed coming down the hill past the school. (What! I thought, if you knew that, why stop me?) She tells me she’s giving me a warning and asks for my driver’s license. I sit there, averting my face from the traffic going by, in case someone recognizes me. How humiliating! Then I wait, and I wait and I wait. Ten or 15 minutes later she returns apologizing that her printer wasn’t working. I noticed another police car had pulled in behind her, so I guess she called for backup! I tell her it’s my first warning for the last 15 years, since living back in Texas, hoping she might empathize. “That’s good,” she says, as she hands me the warning to sign. By this time the movie had already started and I wasn’t in the mood any more anyway. I muttered again I didn’t think I was speeding. I didn’t want to sign something that read I was speeding in a school zone. She said, as she walked back to her car, “It’s just a warning.” It was the letter of the law for her, but for me I wanted grace! Come to think of it, maybe that was grace.

I saw a sign in front of a country church: “Jesus lives in the community. He only visits church.” I’ve been intrigued with that statement ever since. I think I agree. When I read about Jesus in Scripture, he was actively out in the community doing his Father’s will everywhere he went. And, yes, he often went to the synagogue and the temple, so I’m sure he’s at church every week. But if Jesus is working everywhere and only visits church, why have church? If I asked that question of churchgoers, I would no doubt get a variety of answers. Jesus visiting there is good enough for me. But I’m meandering away from the writer’s original statement, which is, Jesus lives in the community. He’s not just around one day a week, conveniently going his way right before Sunday afternoon football comes on. At first when I read church, I thought the writer was referring to the church as church services or church buildings, not the ecclesia, the body of Christ. The more I think about it, maybe not. Let’s rephrase that: “The body of Christ lives in the community. They only visit church.” As followers of Jesus we are the body of Christ. We ought to visit church but more than that, we should be living in the community. That’s where Jesus lives and works all week long. That’s where we are the light in the darkness and the salt of the earth.

She asked what side dishes my friends wanted with their meals. After their orders, she said, “No carrots? Nobody likes carrots.” “Oh, do you have carrots? I like carrots,” friend Paula said. But she didn’t change her order from green beans. This started a discussion about the merits of carrots. “I like carrots too, but not overcooked. I like them still crunchy,” I said. Paula said Jerry (her husband) liked them that way too. She and Billie Jean said they liked theirs mushy and sweet. About that time, the waitress brought in a small bowl of carrots and set it in front of Billie Jean. Surprised, she passed the bowl over to Paula, who took one bite, declared them mushy, but not sweet enough, and passed them back. She also didn’t like the cinnamon in the carrots. That’s when the waitress came back in with a bowl of carrots for Paula, who also hadn’t ordered them. By this time, the situation was getting funny. When we had finished eating, the waitress offered to save the still uneaten bowls of carrots in a to-go box. This was too much. We broke out in the biggest laugh of the evening! Small town diners are the best!