I reconnected last night with Julie, one of the cashiers at the DFAC (dining facility) here, who was the subject of my post "It's About More Than The Bird" from over half a year ago. That post, for some reason, remains the most popular of all I have written. It was a happy reunion.
The weather down here is beautiful. A muted sunshine illumines the whole of the modest landscape, and a slight breeze makes it continual course around each of the barracks and one-storey office buildings. It would be perfect running weather, if I had brought my PT gear (but I packed light and mailed the rest home).
I find that when I walk alone amidst the sunlight and breezes, I get lost in thought about a million different things. I simultaneously feel joyful and melancholy.
I don't know what it is that provokes these thoughts and feelings. I often moved upon a gale force wind while deployed, and now find my feet back on the ground.
There is much, so very much, to process. IEDs continue to be set off by unexpecting soldiers on the other side of the world. A small, female Air Force Captain walks the land somewhere west of here, thinking lonely thoughts of her Heaven-housed husband, taken by terrorists and the sovereign appointment of God less than a month ago.
I am not the man I once was, baptized first in the life and death of Jesus Christ, and now by the life of war and the death of soldiers.
I lift my eyes up to the mountains--where does my help come from? My help comes from You, maker of Heaven and Earth. (Psalm 121)
