I’ve been counting and tracking my steps now for more than a
year.
All I have to do is open the app on my phone and I can tell
you how much I’ve walked on any given day.
Right now, I can tell you that the last time I walked so few
steps as I have today—was September 10 of last year.
Otherwise known as the day Hurricane Irma hit Florida.
It was a Sunday.
Tomorrow I will not be going to church.
It will be the first time I have not gone to church on a
Sunday since Hurricane Irma.
So what does it take to keep me indoors and away from
church?
Well, hurricanes and—apparently—the flu.
My mere 400 plus steps today came from walking to get the
mail—after which I had to stop twice on the way back up the stairs to catch my
breath … and from the few steps I took after driving around the corner to check
on the White Pelicans. I parked the car
and took a few steps to the grass and then a few steps side to side and then a
few steps back to the car.
The pelicans are still there, but I get the feeling they’ll
be moving on soon. They won’t leave
until they’ve consumed every last fish.
As beautiful as the White Pelican is, it can decimate the environment.
Last year, the pelicans were at the Wetlands and that
spring, I counted only one Great Blue Heron nest there that saw a baby hatch
and live long enough to fly away on its own.
My belief is the herons died because there were simply no fish left, no
food for the mamas to feed their chicks.
And yet, somehow the Great Blue Herons have returned this
year at the Wetlands in greater numbers than I have ever seen. There are nests everywhere. I have not seen babies yet, but I have seen
lots fish in the ponds which is encouraging given the drought that left a
cracked-desert-like landscape at the Wetlands last spring.
A drought, I should add, that was healed and reversed by the
dumping of massive rains by Hurricane Irma.
There are also no White Pelicans at the Wetlands this year.
Storms come, hurricanes, plagues of birds. Animals die.
The land appears wounded.
Sometimes the scars last a long time.
There are trees along the highway still leaning west from the relentless
winds of Irma that battered us from the east.
But somehow, life returns.
The land heals.
Storms come in our lives too, illness, job loss, death.
But somehow, we return.
We heal.
Through the grace of God.
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