Flooding, Windows, and a Retreat Begins

 After a week of really good sleep, last night was rougher.  I would have expected it to be better--we were at the end of a successful installation of sliding glass doors and windows.  But I was jangled.

I spent the day reading reports from my old neighborhood, the one in South Florida that flooded on a regular basis.  One of my neighborhood friends posted video of her flooded property, which I watched.  If her place flooded, I'm sure our old house flooded, since we often flooded when she didn't.

Ft. Lauderdale got 25.91 inches of rain in a 24 hour period.  The previous record was 14.59 inches.  I was first aware of the situation because I'm still on an e-mail list from the city of Hollywood, which was also inundated.

Yesterday was such a strange mix of emotions:  gratitude for not owning a house in a flood zone, survivor guilt because we left while others haven't been able to do that, sadness over a historic flood that one day will seem like a small flood in comparison, worry about friends who are still there.

I had emotions not related to the flood.  Yesterday was our window installation, which made me anxious:  fear that the wrong windows would be on the truck, fear that more rot would be discovered, fear that we'd have the wrong size openings for the windows going in where there weren't windows before.  Two of our windows are very high, up in the vaulted ceiling.  One of the installers told me that it wasn't really that high, that they'd worked on much higher windows.

Happily, I didn't have to stay in the house trying not to watch the installation.  I headed up the hill to Lutheridge's Faith Center to help get ready for the Create in Me retreat.  This year, we're exploring the theme of Creation out of Chaos, and our text is the Noah and the ark story.  We chose this theme and text back in 2018, for a 2020 retreat which had to be canceled.  Back in 2018, I pushed for that theme because of my experience with Hurricane Irma.  Sadly, it is no less relevant.

I created some fish out of foil and decorated them.  I made strips of fabric for an interesting garland that was designed to evoke water.  I helped others get materials and drove people to parts of camp and tried to stay out of the way when people were on ladders to create installations like this one:

I'm sure I will have more pictures later.  Today is the first full day of the retreat, and I am so blown away by all the raw materials that are in the Faith Center.  I'm sure that I was in a jangled state last night in part out of anticipation of the wonders of this retreat.

Breakfast will be served soon, so let me get ready for the day.  Again and again, I know how fortunate I am.  Again and again, I offer thanks.