gratitude

 Give thanks with a grateful heart.

Simple to say (or sing).

On a chilly morning with crisp air and blurry edges, I consider the single salmon completing his journey. The river held hundreds just last Saturday. Squirming, and wriggling with life. Electric community! Frantic energy and intense work for the survival of a keystone species. This week, only him.

And, yet. Every journey ends.

Seven days later, every other salmon has moved on and moved beyond. That's how it works.

So, I thank the salmon for his journey. I thank God for the river. I am grateful for everyone working together to help the salmon return home.

yacht resurrection

 An abandoned yacht, built in the 1940s, sank in the waters near my house two weeks ago. It was 108-feet long and built to support the US Navy submarines that frequent the same ecosystem. We didn't notice when it sank.

I don't remember the exact day it arrived, either. Lots of boats and barges come and go in the inlet. They show up, stay a few days, and disappear without circumstance. This boat was large and noticeable--until it wasn't. I saw a social media post saying it had sunk and ran to the upstairs window with the best viewpoint. A newspaper article confirmed that it sank, with an estimated 25 gallons of fuel escaping before divers could cap fuel vents.

A red oil spill boon arrived the next day, with a number of support boats. My soul felt connected to the marine life suddenly impacted. I spent so much of the summer at the nearby marina, experiencing the rising tides and flowing currents with the rich diversity of marine life. I thought of the salmon returning through the same waters.

Then, preventable tragedy struck again the same week. An 80-foot tugboat, also built in the 1940s, sank quickly at the very marina where I found such joy and peace this summer. The marina community immediately rallied around the boat owner, and the Department of Ecology and multiple other agencies responded promptly to the spill. Still, the damage is significant and lasting. Estimates place the diesel escaping at 2,000 gallons. The marina shut down and remains restricted for residents to move boats.

It feels like humans are destroying the planet around me. Not just the boats built in the 1940s, but the person from the 1940s rolling back so many environmental regulations. I am angry about the impact on our neighborhood ecosystem. I am scared about the possibility of a future without clean water, clean air, or healthy soil. I am so sad.

And yet.

Yesterday my family drove down the steep hill towards our home, returning from swimming lessons and errands in the neighboring town. A large crane on a barge was successfully pulling the yacht above the surface of the sea. Pumps on-board emptied the seawater of 12 days submerged. Two tugboats jockeyed the yacht into position and towed it to the closest marina. I witnessed the resurrection in real time.

I exhaled a breath I was unaware I was still holding.

The political violence of the last two weeks.

The suppression of rights for immigrants.

The suppression of freedom for those beyond authoritarian ideals.

The concern for my own children, my students, and our future.

I'd been holding my breath, trying to will away the destruction and disaster. Trying to be the calm that's large enough for everyone's storms. Trying to heal the world.

Even though I read the news story about the yacht's planned re-floating, I was still in awe. The tangible hope of seeing a shipwreck raised to the surface and floating today reinforces my understanding of the Gospel. "For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" echoes in my mind as a child earning stickers for saying Romans 5:8. We watched something dead move again, with human power I didn't believe in.

Maybe it was this moment of hope, maybe it was a sermon stirring my soul, or maybe it was the International Peace Day celebration at our favorite community restaurant. Either way, every person in our family asked to go to the marina today. We were ready to see the damage up-close, cautiously believing things could get better.

We arrived at the waterfront the same time as a friend with her two small children. Together our young naturalists mourned the shimmering water, the ragged jellyfish and the sea anemones withering at the uppermost habitat of the piers. 

"This is a terrible disaster for the ecosystem," my 2nd grader lamented.

"Your mom must be a science teacher," our friend commented.

And yet.

We rejoiced with the starfish, moving below the soiled surface. We celebrated with the seal, carefully moving through three dimensions. We cheered when we rediscovered the school of herring, still sparkling and swimming through deeper waters within the marina's breakwater.

The team from Safe Harbors has erected boons, deployed mats, and actively works to contains the thousands of gallons of fuels polluting the waters. They have assisted wildlife and limited the travel of humans through spaces that can further contaminate the habitat. The boat itself remains mostly submerged.

As we prepared to leave, a young seagull cried the most anxious bird call I've heard in my life. I join her, with the tension of unyielding belief in a world able to be made new and the acceptance of a reality wrecked by sin and all of his consequences.

My heart keeps pulling a core memory: "Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn" from Romans 12 this week. Just as I wanted to dive in and join the school of herring, I want to sweep up my spiritual children who are mourning the loss of a false prophet. I want to carry my kids into safety. I want to gather my flock and remind them of Christ's kindness towards sinners and outcasts. I want to share dinner to every friend, neighbor and foe who is struggling to make sense of the hurt and polluted world around us.

I want them to lay eyes on the resurrected yacht and listen to the story of the resurrected Christ.

So, come over to the deck. We can eat some veggies from the garden, listen to the eagles also surveying the pollution, and believe in the hope for a peaceful today.

fogginess

There's a deep, unsettled feeling that surrounds me as I move through each day. Clouds of questions relentlessly pursue the spaces between my thoughts. I recognize the weight of consequence; I know the depth of doubt. I live in the reality of uncertainty.

There have been times in my life, chronicled in this same blog, where I championed an unwavering faith during similar stretches. A blind loyalty could justify the same approach now. However, there are larger differences at play in 2025. Those claiming the name of the Church are loudly choosing positions and policies that violate human rights, caring for the poor, and seeing Christ's face in each person. The dissonance between the Scriptures I have loved and the practices posed bring a new heaviness, a very darkness.

I am learning the deeper power of kindness: the very power that enabled Jesus to climb onto the cross. A reckless denial of self-preservation is at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus espoused, then embodied the willingness to lay down one's life for a neighbor. From the origin of Abraham's line, there has been space for the alien and the sojourner. Today, more than ever, I claim and cling to citizenship in Heaven, recognizing that America will align with the Beast before she aligns with the Lamb. My soul weeps and mourns for those I love who are choosing to listen to lies. 

As this darkness obscures the vision of the Church, I find strength in a passage so familiar that her influence extends into the culture:

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:8-13 NIV

vision

Where does anyone see this going? As divisions further turn those within the Church from one another, I wonder: "Where is this going?" All I see are those cast aside by the church-goers. What is the end game? How does the Kingdom grow?