Santa Barbara Burning

Thursday night a Santa Ana windstorm struck the Southern California coast: and our beautiful former town was suddenly on fire.  It was sad to watch from up here in the NoCal territory, as blazes sprang up throughout the Southland – but especially hard to observe the conflagration in our American Riviera, where over 100 homes went down in flames.  Some of those were the dwellings of people we know, I fear; but all were incalculable losses for those poor families.  A further heavy blow struck as we discovered that the beautiful hilltop retreat house, Mount Calvary, was razed and utterly destroyed.

These structures will rise again; and no doubt so will the indomitable human spirit that somehow knows instinctively how to regroup and rebuild.  I know too that the old lesson will be written on the hearts and minds of the people who lost so much: no Thing matters, as long as love survives.