Watching the moon come up

As the sun is setting, the moon is coming into view

Now that I have regained my composure, I can write. This is no surprise as Sundays are often emotional ones, sometimes tearful and sometimes filled with excitement, and today’s was both! I struggled with getting myself out the door for church, as I was so attached to the TV and its presentations for 9/11’s commemoration. It was not until I was on the road that I realized my ears were bare---in my haste, I forgot jewelry!

When I pulled into the parking lot at church, I waited in the car to hear President Bush reading a letter that had been written during the Civil War by President Lincoln to a mother who had lost five sons in the war. It was quite poignant to hear, all these many years later, the same horrors but different battlefields.

As evening settles on the river, I have my doors open again, and the breeze is blowing papers off of the table in the river room. The sky was pink to the south as the moon was rising. Hopefully my camera captured the colors and the shape of the moon, I will check later to see if they measure up to the actual sight.

Yesterday in checking my mail, besides letters, there was a key to a parcel box alongside the regular ones. Whenever I get books delivered, they go in those boxes and since I was expecting some, I excitedly pulled a box out. Travis was standing there, too, getting his mail, and saw me pull the box out. Only, it was not for me, it was for my upstairs neighbor, Ron. Travis offered to take it up for me since he was going home, but that left me without my books. According to the tracking from Amazon, the books were delivered on the 9^th. Since I had received someone else’s mail in the parcel box, I wondered if anyone had gotten mine. I sent out an e-mail asking if anyone got a box that was not their own by mistake. The letter carrier will get a note from me tomorrow asking him to check his truck for my books….not sure what else could be done to locate them. It’s not like I am short of books, but I just have looking forward to the new ones! Maybe tomorrow when I wake up, some books will be at my door….

Tonight I had a ‘chat’ with Anne from Victory, and we have made tentative plans to get together for a huge headache and crying party---watching Timmy’s funeral video. She had just started her new job and was not able to get off work to attend, so did not hear the sermon I was talking to her about. The plans were made, then, to watch it together. And perhaps some other ladies as well, or even men, if they wish to watch it. The sermon mentions “be quiet! I have this under control…” which is the theme of the day’s sermons, readings, and hymns.

At Good Shepherd, we sang “A Mighty Fortress” from Psalm 46, as is “Be Still My Soul”, one of my all-time favorite hymns, now #3 on the list for my funeral. (We sang that hymn today, and Robbie said something like, 'if your life was a movie, that would be your theme song'. He told me he could not think of that when he was playing though, or he would mess up.) Anne, if I leave first, will sing for my funeral, and I will sing for hers if she leaves first. We sort of shook hands on it. I will have to tell Anne that Suzanne gets my red cake stand!!

The other emotion today was the Jaguar game, the excitement of seeing the pregame events, stretching an American flag across the stadium, the flyover, the singing of patriotic songs, the tears on the faces of the players, and on mine. Wow! I rushed through lunch with the ladies at St. Johns Seafood so I could get home to watch the ceremonies and to let Justin know when the jets were coming, as is my custom. Terri T. sent me a message later saying that Gretchen and she saw the jets as they drove back over to church for Gretchen’s car, so they got a peek at the excitement, too. G. is a huge fan of the Jaguars, always wears her Jaguar earrings on Sunday and Monday, if they win! It was a close game toward the end, within two points when the Jags intercepted a pass, ending the game in victory! As my friend, Robin, said, “The Cardiac Cats are back!”, and that’s a fact.

On another note, watching the replays of the events of that tragic day in 2001, the terror attacks on our nation, it saddens me how seemingly godless our nation has again become. That day, almost to a person, as they ran from the buildings or reacted to the terror, they are saying, “Oh, my God, Oh, my God!” Yes, it was God who spared them, and God who escorted the dead believers home. The horror is for those who are left behind, to carry on. Daily call upon the Lord for His mercy and His grace, not only on the days when the world is falling down around you. “Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me”.