Dwelling Place

Grabbing my two little people by two little hands and walking quickly, we entered our coastal city’s fish market, our faces smacked with fresh Gulf smells and a salty dampness as the glass doors closed behind us. Joe Patti’s Seafood Market claims to be Pensacola’s second most visited tourist destination, just behind the first place white sand beaches that make us famous. Boisterous, systematic, and efficient, the whole place buzzes with activity any time of day, 7 days a week, and teems with glassy-eyed fish on ice, tubs filled to the brim with fresh-caught bay shrimp, and a staff that eighty-plus-year-old Mr. Frank Patti, a local celebrity, runs like the crew of a ship. Like a king perched on his throne, the second-generation owner bellows out service ticket numbers from the radio handset clutched in his right hand. “Be my shadows,” I repeated my usual instruction as the children and I worked through the crowd to obtain our ticket. I was several numbers down, and an old hand a...

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Mark 4:35-41 New International Version (NIV) Last Saturday morning, as I drove over a bridge offering me a birds’ eye view of our coastal town, I saw the perfect glassy surface of our bay. Determined to enjoy the day, I quickly scheduled an impromptu...