For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, For love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
About a 1/2 mile walk north of the Blind Pass Beach on Manasota Key is a little place I refer to as my Chapel-by-the-Sea. It's not fancy. There are no padded pews or air conditioning. Just bare bones sand, sea and salty wind blowing against my face. There are no choirs or instruments. Just the melody of the waves rolling in to shore with an occasional Osprey singing harmony from a nest high in an Australian Pine tree. The parishioners are feathered and are not paying any attention to a sermon. They are more concerned with the schools of white fish moving across the surface of the water. There is no collection plate passed but my shell bucket receives many gifts from the sea. As my thoughts and words of praise & thanksgiving go up, I feel my Heavenly Poppa's love come down and invade my heart in this sacred space. It was, after all, His invitation for me to join Him and I simply said Yes. ...