Saint Monica's Episcopal Church
Messenger
August 2016
From the Rector’s desk by Rev. Anthony MacWhinnie, II
When I was a young man, in my teens, I spent my summers in the bayou. And when I say “in the bayou”, I mean “in” the bayou. I grew up in Warrington right outside of NAS Pensacola. Walking distance from my house were three different bayous and Pensacola Bay. Long time members of St. John’s owned a piece of land, right around the corner from our house, on Pou Station Road. Their property was large. It was dark with 200 year old live oaks. There was a pond and a saltmarsh. There was also beach front they’d let me walk to so that I could slip into the warm waters behind Rock Island and White Island, to ply my chosen weapons: dip net, cast net, fishing rod, gig, and Hawaiian sling… On occasion, I took friends or my father came with. We caught blue crabs in the dip net, sometimes luring them with a chicken neck or fish backbone on a long string, teasing them via their stubbornness and tenacity to within scoop of the net. Sometimes we just cruised the flats looking for them, the angry flash of their outstretched claws giving them away before they attempted disappearing into a puff of bayou-silt-covered smoke. One had to sweep with reckless abandon in the spot the crab was going to be, not where he was, to have a chance of seeing that azure claw snapping inside that white mesh. Stone crabs were a different sort. Slow and lumbering, they were every bit the tank of the crustacean ilk. Turning over a long defunct train trestle’s rock rip-rap that ever-soneatly parted the sand of the flats that were the mouth of Bayou Grande, Davenport Bayou, and Starlake Bayou as they flowed into Pensacola Bay, would occasionally reveal the vice like crunching and tearing claws of the stone crab, ready to grab hold of you and crush whatever was put before them. Stone crabs took grit and determination, and many times a partner, to capture. Removing one claw, we put the crab back to grow us another one for the next time we came across him in his trestle rock home. It’s the dog days of summer now, and I can still feel
those waters coursing through my veins; briny but not too briny. Muddy, but not too muddy. Warm, but not too warm… For some reason, this is memory making season. School hasn’t started yet. Church is in the long green. Afternoon thunderstorms prevent guaranteed outdoor activities, unless you’re willing to dodge them. We’re tied to nature whether we want to be or not and this time of the year reminds us over and over. Really, I think that that is all part of God’s plan. There are thin-places and thin-times, places and times where the veil of the here and now, the reality of this world, is thinner and we can dimly see through to the next. You might be tempted to think that the great heat has gotten to my brain, and maybe it has! But, think back… When were those magical times in your life? Were you cold and freezing? Or were you hot and in a bathing suit, looking to cool off with your friends and family? I say, go make some memories and come back refreshed, ready to change the world. You deserve it! The world deserves you! And God sure as heck calls you to it. God bless you and stay cool. Peace, Anthony+
Our Staff & Vestry Rev, Anthony MacWhinnie, II, Rector Vestry: Chuck Barnett - Senior Warden Jim Warner- Junior Warden Beth Woods, Susan Early, Ann Philen & John Velaski Twinette McDonald - Music Director Sally Putters - Parish Nurse
To volunteer or for information on when and where to drop off donations, contact Dawn Hayes