Mark Scandrette

I love the white powdered surgar beaches of the gulf of Mexico. Tonight the sunset was beautiful. I’ve considered making a resolution to watch the sun set thirty days in a row this year– only at this time of year San Francisco is often blanketed by the Pacific fog. Its been good to be here with long time friends trying to understand our common stories and imagining a future together. These are good days to be alive. I often tell Lisa that I would rather be in the now than any other point in life. The best is yet to come and life is only getting better.

We’ve been telling about where we’ve come from. Me– once a young evangelist obsessed with the immanence of God and the seriousness of life– seeing things in black and white. I still think there is a message worth proclaiming: Everything matters. And we are invited to collaborate with our Maker in bringing all things to wholeness– living with the existential awareness that a power greater than ourselves is at work within us and in the world around us. The call to conversion I most feel is the invitation to leverage all of my being– my body, my time, my mind, my resources and relationships to cooperate with the divine mystery who whispers “behold I am making all things new.”

When I arrived in Tampa I drove up to see some shirt-tail relatives in Homosassa Springs. I got to spend some time with my second cousin, Bruce Blauer. Bruce is an actor and painter living in L.A. We saw each other last Christmas for the first time in 25 years and it was good to connect again. I admire his persistence in pursuing his passion for acting and living life from a creative center. Bruce took me out on the river to see a group of Manatee. One came right up to the pontoon and I got to pet it. They were huge– and hairy.

On Tuesday night I flew to Tampa to be with some friends and colleagues for a few days. We are staying at a great house on the beach having good conversation and dreaming together about good work to do together in the future. Overnight on the plane I read the Starfish and the Spider– on recommendation from Linda Bergquist– and was reminded of the power of loose associations and volunteer involvement.