I have gathered, over my fifty-two years of extended visits to this personal paradise, a rich bank of diverse and wonderful memories. Years of deheading shrimp on the dock, of eating those same shrimp that night, breaded and fried to a golden brown.  Years of fresh mullet and fresh trout, crab cakes and oysters right out of Perdido Bay.  Years of swimming in warm brackish water, of learning to waterski and then teaching my children to waterski along the same routes around the creek.  Years of sailing with my Dad, of watching dolphins and amazing sunsets from the dock.  A lifetime of sand castles and “turtle cities”.  Summer days often taken for granted, spent on the front porch swing, watching egrets, cranes and pelicans swoop down to grab dinner from just below the water’s surface.

     My grandfather bought this land in 1950, seven years before I was born.  And no matter where my Dad’s job took us, Perdido was always home, from June through August, back when summers lasted three months.  Perdido Beach, Alabama. Every summer of my life. Every summer of my children’s lives.   Year after year, kicking up the same sand down the drive to the mailbox.  It has always been there, at the dead end of the two-lane highway where I learned to drive, where I taught my kids to drive, nestled between two creeks, a place where life was simple and time stood still.  My very own golden pond.

     We learned over the years, how to weather the hurricanes.  More than once we packed up the valuables and drove inland to wait out Danny or Ivan or Katrina.  We  repaired the roof and rebuilt the dock.  We cut up the fallen trees and cut down the dead trees, killed slowly by the salt water or the beetles. Adjusting to the altered landscape after such a loss of was a real challenge for my eighty year-old father.  Now, five years later, the trees we planted to replace the lost foliage are beginning to fill in the gaps.  It’s just beginning to feel cozy again.

     Now we face an enemy most of us had never even thought about.  We sit on the porch looking out to the bay and we wonder.  The weather patterns direct a menacing darkness of a different kind which is hovering somewhere out there beyond the horizon, threatening our peaceful paradise. We wonder where this ominous oil slick, the size of Rhode Island, will make landfall.  We wonder how many dolphins and sea turtles, pelicans, egrets and cranes will be lost.  We wonder how, in an already hurting economy, the shrimpers and the fishermen will survive this blow and how tourism will be impacted.  Will folks who are just now regaining their footing along the coast be able to withstand a catastrophe of this proportion?  We watch and we wait and we listen to the news to see who will be most affected.   We wonder how long it will take the marshes and the swamps, the nesting grounds for so many life forms, to recover.   We go to the beaches and try to help with clean up before the oil hits.  We take classes in how to deal with  “contamination”, specifically how to clean oil off of animals.  It is knowledge that we never knew we would need. We buy Dawn.   

     With this gigantic shadow looming just off the coastline, we watch, we wait, we wonder and we hope.  We watch with sadness and inexplicable grief at the scope of the struggling wildlife, at the potential loss of this haven, this refuge we have called home for so long.  We are confused and disoriented by it all.  We are uncertain.  A general oppression hangs in the air. We are afraid.  We wait to see how this unexpected and unwelcome threat will impact our individual communities and our individual lives.  And we wonder, most of all, why a company that boasted a pre-tax profit of 14 billion dollars last year would opt out on a $500,000 shut-off valve that could have prevented this catastrophe. We hope that the experts know what they are doing now. We hope that we can learn the lesson from this costly mistake: that we never have to repeat this one.  That we can figure out a way to balance our need for energy with our absolute responsibility as stewards of this earth to pursue these goals in the safest way possible, while treasuring and protecting God’s creation and people.

       It looks at this point like I will be able to enjoy the clean shores of Perdido Beach this summer since current forecasts predict a landfall west of the Alabama line.  Our homeplace has probably escaped the worst of it.  But I feel the loss for all those along the coastline whose lives will be drastically altered by this tragedy.  And there is no doubt that, among those most affected, there are eleven families who will feel the pain of this catastrophe long after the shoreline is cleaned up.

       My parents were raised just a few hours down the road in Philadelphia MS.  They lived there until they were married and all of my grandparents are buried there in the town cemetery.  I still own the house there where my mother was born. Every summer we make the trek from the coast of Alabama, over to our family reunion in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Though miles from the open waters, this sleepy inland town was affected in the darkest way of all. This community lost a son to the oil explosion that resulted in this terrible spill.  Dale Burkeen died a hero, the crane operator who lifted every one else onto the boats to safety.  He was thirty-seven, a loving husband and father, a hard working man who saved many lives before going down with the rig. It would be easy for the massive ongoing struggle with the oil slick to obscure the price he and ten others paid.  It does seem insurmountable.  It’s a literal, incomprehensible mess.  But, as we muddle through the fallout, it is critical that we remember them.  We will deal with the complex problems of this menacing evil and our lives will go on.  The debate over domestic oil exploration will go on. But they will never sit down to another seafood dinner with their families; and they won’t ever enjoy another sunset over the Gulf of Mexico.  After mulling it over, this is where my thoughts land.  All the more reason to figure out exactly what happened, and to make damn sure that it never happens again.

      For now, we need to unite our hearts and prayers in support for our neighbors to the South, remembering them as

 they face these struggles in the days ahead.  May the Lord give us the extraordinary patience and supernatural wisdom that we will need as we embrace these challenging times and work towards better solutions.  May the Lord bring comfort and practical relief to those who find themselves on the forefront of this adversity.  It is His peace that surpasses understanding th

at brings the calm in the storm and it is His strength that moves us forward to a place of overcoming.

Julie Kilgore Joyner is a native of the Gulf Coast. These days, she and her husband, Rick Joyner, live in Fort Mill, SC. They co-foundedMorningstar Fellowship and Ministries over 20 years ago and both participate in ministry leadership, with Julie focusing on music and social justice initiatives. She is the loving mother of Anna Jane, Aaryn, Amber Grace, Ben, and Sam;

 and proud daughter of Mississippi natives, Jane and Clayton Kilgore.