July 29 – “Gettin’ serious now”

I went to the Cops and Clergy breakfast yesterday.  It was held right around the corner from our house at the old Zion Lutheran Church.  It is now a retreat center.  In fact we have been sending them some of the groups that call us and find that we are booked.  It was a really small group this time, so I actually got to talk to some folks.  I met Jack Roady, the Galveston District Attorney.  When he found out I was the pastor at Seaside he asked about Mike Bell.  Seems one of the Sundays Mike filled in preaching for me, Jack came out to Seaside to hear him.  He seemed to be a nice enough guy (Jack, not Mike, although Mike can be a pretty nice guy, too).  He provided the colaches and donuts for the breakfast.  I also met a few of the prosecutors from his office.  Our Neighbor the Cop from down the street was there.  He and I regaled the Retreat Center staff with neighborhood-oriented horror tales from Hurricane Ike and its aftermath.  And I spent a lot of time talking with one of the new hospital chaplains at UTMB.  He told me they have reinstituted the program where a pastor can get a name badge and receive free parking tokens.  That will be helpful. 

The 40 Steps update.  It appears that they are getting serious now.  The construction port-a-potty was delivered yesterday.  Oh, and Chris had some things to say when they started woodpecker pounding the pilings into the ground.  Very large, very loud woodpeckers.  And they started before 6:30 in the morning.  I was already up, so I knew what was coming.  Chris came flying out of the bedroom demanding to know how they could dare to start with all that noise so early.  She even googled city noise ordinances and discovered that they aren’t supposed to start with the loud stuff until after seven.  They are done with it now, though.  Looks like our shade from the blazing western sun will be here sooner rather than later.  While they were finishing up the pounding (they had a delay or two when their apparatus started splitting the pilings instead of pounding them), two full truckloads of wood arrived.  Can’t build a house without wood, I guess.  And the junior sized bulldozers started rearranging the dirt.  Gotta have that dirt in just the right spot, you know.  They seem pretty determined to get the thing up and ready.  One of the guys told me this builder had slapped together two houses in less than a month already, and he had 72 more in the works.  Just … wow. 

1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

Father, thank you for the cops and the folks from the DA’s office that I met yesterday.  Help them be safe in their tasks from day to day.  Amen.