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And the dolphins were watching…

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No Wipeout, instead a perfect day

On Sunday, October 12th we had our annual beach Eucharist. We met at Beasley Park, a public beach with a nice pavilion and restrooms on Okaloosa Island between Ft. Walton Beach and Destin. We set up near the water and this year made an altar out of a cross we use on Good Friday set on some saw horses (not seahorses). Last year I baptized two amazing teenagers in the Gulf, full immersion as you know. This year I had an adult lined up for baptism, she has been attending for over a year and really wanted to be baptized in the Gulf but had a family emergency and was out of town this weekend. In the last several weeks I had a new adult visiting by herself who came up to me and said she felt moved to be baptized at this service. We had a nice talk about it, some pre-baptism instructions, and I agreed to proceed. Let’s call her Sally (not her real name). She is a very sweet person who has been through a LOT, seems to me Jesus would have gone through with this also. That was my prayer, anyway..

Soooo we gather on the beach for our 10am service, with baptism as the program and IN the program, but no Sally. So, I just decided to proceed and renew vows and see if anyone wanted to be dunked as a symbol of their renewal of vows (what can it hurt, I am clear this is not a re-baptism, but it can be meaningful). Just as I was about to begin my off the cuff sermon, I saw Sally coming down the steps from the pavilion, dressed in a wedding gown, train and all! I sent the person who volunteered to be her sponsor (she knows her well) to sit with her and make sure all was well and help her during the service (and help me in the water – with my recent shoulder surgery I was a little concerned about dunking someone and not being able to lift them up after!). We had a large turnout for the service, and there were a good many people around us just enjoying a day at the beach, the water was amazingly beautiful and during the entire service, there were dolphins playing in the water directly behind where we set up!

Sally and her sponsor joined me in the water. My wife, Jennifer, suggested I invite everyone to come stand right on the shoreline to better see and hear (her suggestions are usually really good ones, this one for sure!). Before walking into the gulf, I asked Sally if she was ok getting this wedding gown wet or would she prefer I just pour some water on her head. She immediately responded, “oh yes, I WANT to get this wet, I have good reason!”. So, she was baptized, fully immersed in the sparkling clear waters, and came up crying and thrilled. Our people were very gracious welcoming her into the family of God, bridal gown and all! And everyone kept commenting that a pod of dolphins were playing in the Gulf the entire service! I think they knew something was up!

We then prepared for communion, and I invited any of the beach goers nearby to join us if they wanted to. Well…someone did. I didn’t see all this going on but one of my parishioners spotted a woman standing in the back, crying, and knew something was going on with her spiritually. She made sure the woman knew she was welcome to receive communion. She got in line and as I gave her the body of Christ, she was crying big tears. I didn’t have a clue who she was, having never laid eyes on her before. After receiving she walked over to the side and another parishioner went to hug her and thank her for joining us. The new person (let’s call her Kathy), asked my parishioner if she could be baptized, too! She had watched Sally’s baptism, and she felt drawn by something she could not explain to ask that question, crying and shaking all over. The parishioner asked me, and I said, sounds like the story in Acts when Philip was teaching the Eunuch the meaning of the Isaiah passage he was reading, and the Eunuch said, “here is water, why can’t I be baptized?”. How could I and why would I say no? We said the post communion prayer and then everyone made their way back to the shoreline as Kathy and I and my helper waded in the water (yes we sang that old gospel song as we did so – cause God’s gonna trouble the water!). We promised to take good care of her, and then she was also baptized in the Gulf. My people responded with applause and cheers as we made our way out of the water for the chrism oil and a final blessing.

We found out later Kathy had just moved to the area, lived alone, and was hoping to find a church. She happened to come to the public beach where we were for the only time all year, intending to just enjoy a lovely beach day, when the Holy Spirit showed up and took care of the rest. Sometimes folks, we must let the Spirit have her way. The whole day was amazing and Spirit filled, and people were SO full of  joy! I expect to see Sally and Kathy this coming Sunday, ready to join this happy and grace filled body of Christ in real ways. What a day. YAY JESUS!

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Dirty was the daybreak, Sudden was the change

The title of this blog post comes from a song by Elton John (music) and Bernie Taupin (lyrics) called “Where to now St. Peter”. It is on the Tumbleweed Connection album recorded in 1970 and released the same year as Elton’s self titled album which included the hit, “Your Song”. Tumbleweed Connection is a very unique album in the EJ collection, with a mix of bluesy and country themed tracks, and this song has always haunted me. The words of the title are sung halfway through the 2nd verse and describes, I think, the change in the character’s life as he faces eternity and asks St. Peter, “where to now? Show me the road I am on”.

This song, and especially those words, “Dirty was the daybreak, sudden was the change”, always pops into my mind when thinking about our Katrina experience (by the way for a really detailed look at our experience on the ground, my wife, Jennifer Forrester Knight, offers on her Facebook page some excellent descriptions of what we went through, we being the people of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.

I am not the first person by any means to quote the saying, “the body knows”. It is like muscle memory, a smell, a sound, a song, a picture, bring it all crashing back. Every time a storm brews in the Gulf it happens. On anniversaries, it happens. When even reminiscing about some of the wonderful people who we met along the way, especially the volunteers from all over the world, seeing their hard work and smiling faces can still trigger that deep, ugly feeling in my gut.

Dirty was the daybreak. Although it was near dusk when the storm finished her job on the coast of Mississippi, the sky was weird. Clouds and gusts of wind still played around the rubble as we scrambled to chainsaw our way out of the driveway of the home we had stayed in, about 5 miles north of our own which was one mile from the beach. I had arthroscopic knee surgery for a meniscus tear just a few days before the storm, so climbing over debris became my physical therapy. For many days in late August and September we had no rain (until Hurricane Rita sent some our way), it was like Katrina had absorbed all the moisture in the universe and dumped it on us and many others to our north, west, and east. We were left with bright sunshine and brutally hot and humid days, with no air conditioning or fans of course. Those day breaks didn’t look dirty, until the light of the new day shone on destruction and devastation as far as you could imagine.

Yep, Sudden was the change.

There are no words to truly describe those early day breaks, other than, perhaps, dirty and sudden. So I will close with a great thanks be to God for all those who helped, who came, who sent money and goods, and who prayed. Twenty years seems like a 100 and like 2 at different times. We as a nation have learned a lot about how to respond to disasters like Katrina, I hope we continue to support each other in the better ways we have learned since then. For Katrina there is no doubt faith communities saved us, but they cannot sustain that level of help forever. Jennifer and I were very blessed to meet so many wonderful people, many good friends to this day. Every hand that reached out in any way, was a blessing. My prayers are with all the people of the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts on this terrible anniversary day. May your day breaks be clean and changes bring blessing.

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Katrina at 20

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I have written a lot on this blog regarding Hurricane Katrina and especially the PTSD which still impacts Jennifer and me whenever storms pop up. This August 29th marks 20 years since the storm hit the coast of Mississippi. I am not aware of a lot of activities on the coast to commemorate the anniversary, nor been invited to participate in any. So I am not sure how we will pass the day, we’ve been pretty good at reflecting on our experiences over the years.

I did want to share a story, the memory of which was triggered by an article in the Mississippi Episcopalian, the diocesan newspaper. It was authored by my friend and former parishioner, Doug MacCullagh, who is currently the Senior Warden and historian at St. Patrick’s in Long Beach, Mississippi, the church I served for 8 years.

I arrived at St. Patrick’s as a brand new Rector in March of 2004. 18 months later the storm changed our lives forever, destroyed our church and most of the area we lived in (Pass Christian and Long Beach) and greatly influenced the rest of my life as a clergy person. In the article Doug described the importance of a statue of the mother of Jesus, Mary. Please read his article HERE before continuing, as the context is important to my story.

Katrina made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday morning, August 29th. I (foolishly) had my regular two church services the morning of the 28th, for any folks who had not yet evacuated. We had a decent crowd at the 8am service, then most of those people hit the road. The 10:30 service only had a handful, and after it ended Jennifer and I began to panic a bit and thought about leaving the area, but by then all the highways out were packed with cars, with no way to get to a safe area before the storm arrived. I won’t ever forget a CBS radio news reporter interviewing me between services. As we walked around the property where St. Patrick’s was, he asked what I was most worried about regarding our building. I told him we had made plans to get our most valuable items out of the building and divided them up into large totes, each able to allow church with Eucharist (communion) to take place from the content, but I was concerned about branches from the many Live Oak trees on our property damaging our roof. Can you tell I was naive? As Doug points out in his article, one of the totes contained the marble statue of Mary, the only item recovered after Hurricane Camille in 1969 had destroyed an earlier version of St. Patrick’s (also on the coastline but in a different area on the beach road than the church I served).

The importance of this statue to the people of St. Patrick’s cannot be understated and Doug’s article speaks to this. After the storm passed we were all in shock, the church gone,

28% of my parishioners lost their homes completely, 100% had damage. In Pass Christian, where we lived there were about 9000 housing units pre-Katrina, after the storm 500 of them were habitable. The devastation was enormous.

But I felt within me we needed to try to gather together, to worship and pray and sing and cry – cry a lot! So we never missed a Sunday gathering. The Sunday immediately after the storm found us at Grace Lutheran Church in Long Beach, who graciously hosted both us and St. Thomas Catholic church. We used the parish hall for our service, I think we met early afternoon. The Sun Herald newspaper was miraculously publishing every day, printing the paper off site and delivering free copies all over the coast. We got word to them and WLOX, the local TV station, we would have church on Sunday with the information as to where and when. None of us had working phones, and Grace Lutheran, like the rest of the area, did not have power, but somehow the word got out and a small group of St. Patrick’s folks made their way to the Lutheran church. The reunions upon seeing one another were uplifting and heart breaking as people shared their stories.

Kitty MacCullagh, Doug’s wife who very sadly died this past year, was our long time Altar Guild director and she had the tote with the Mary statue in it. Upon finding this out I got word to Kitty to bring Mary to our church service that Sunday. We sang a hymn and I reached into the tote and pulled out the Mary statue, wrapped in a protective cloth, and placed her on the make shift altar in that Parish Hall. The entire room stilled, people gasped as they realized this long time symbol of hope and recovery was still with us. As I placed Mary on the altar, tears began to fall from all of our eyes. It was a holy moment of faith and grace and thanksgiving.

Fast forward to September of 2007. The Episcopal House of Bishops met in New Orleans. Included in their gathering were opportunities not only to tour devastated areas in NOLA and Mississippi, but also to participate in recovery efforts in both places. St. Patrick’s met on Sundays and Wednesdays at our disaster recovery and relief center, Camp Coast Care (CCC), on the grounds of Coast Episcopal School in Long Beach, where my wife, Jennifer, had run a free medical clinic for five months post storm, serving over 22,000 patients with medical and mental health care. My office was in a trailer at CCC until we finished our new church building in 2009. Quite a few Bishops came and stayed at CCC and were sent out with work crews to help muck out houses, hang sheet rock, paint, etc. It was hot and humid and they worked hard. Then Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Kathryn Jefferts Schori, was one of the bishops at CCC and we discovered she could hang sheet rock like a champ! They joined us for worship and I preached about the Mary statue, which I had on display for them to see. The PB was preaching later that Sunday at a special service at the Cathedral in New Orleans, and she asked if she could borrow Mary and use the story in her sermon. So our beloved statue and symbol of hope was shared with the good people of the Diocese of Louisiana that day, and to this day she is still around, watching over the flock of St. Patrick’s in their new location, truly a messenger of resilience and faith for so many.

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It’s been a year…

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The best way, for anyone interested, to catch up with my health challenges, is to read Jennifer’s Facebook, she has much more than I want to write about here, but below is a summary and small update: (Jennifer Forrester Knight on Facebook).

2025 has been nothing I imagined…

On December 19th, 2024 I had out patient shoulder surgery to repair small tears in my rotator cuff (ended up being several) and a tendon impingement in my left shoulder. They provided a wonderful pain block that kept me comfortable through the weekend. Once that was removed, the expected shoulder pain was there but not too bad. What was bad was my abdomen, I was severely cramping every time I swallowed anything, even water. After several days of this I mentioned to Jennifer how I never thought my stomach would hurt more than this repaired shoulder (yes I heard everyone’s nightmare description of shoulder surgery pain!). I began passing blood and muscus in my stool. She mentioned it to my GI dr who immediately got me in for an upper endoscopy to rule out ulcers, etc. Meanwhile the pain got even worse, I was having lots of diarrhea and continued passing lots of blood and mucous in my stool. So on January 10th I was admitted to Pensacola Sacred Heart for observation and pain management. Soon the shoulder was forgotten.

First Hospitalization

We ended up in the hospital for ten days. I had my 1st colonoscopy (of 3) on January 12. I did what prep I could in an observation room with no shower, just a toilet. My wife was an absolute rock star, doing things for me no spouse should ever have to. The next morning I had the colonoscopy, and when I was awakened in recovery with family there I could tell the news was bad. My entire large intestine (colon) was inflamed, bleeding, and ulcerated. Pan-colitus which means the whole thing! Just touching it with the scope caused pieces to break off, bleeding of course. Ulcerated Colitus is the official disease, it, like Chrohn’s, is an auto immune disease where your body attacks your colon. I do not have Chrohn’s as the small intestine is not involved. This is crucial when considering surgical options, if warranted.

Meanwhile I really could not eat anything, the pain was too much. I received lots of fluid, began throwing up regularly along with the bloody stools, and no change in my condition. I was steadily growing weaker. The Gastro NP who rounded got me started on the standard drugs – messalamine and high dose steroids. Very high dose. Not good for the ole diabetes! We stayed 10 days and were discharged without any improvement in symptoms. Bloody diarrhea, malnourished, lost 30 lbs (of the 60 I would eventually lose), in a lot of pain, and a lot of confusion as we become more knowledgeable about what UC is and how it impacts everything in your body.

We were home a few weeks. I passed out in the bathroom, awakened by the terrible fall. I was so weak at this point I could not pull myself up off the floor. Jennifer improvised using a rug to drag me to the bed where I could push just enough to sit in a rolling chair. I think I passed out two other times after that. It is likely the first fall damaged my spine, see below.

I did get an infusion of Skyrizzi, one of many biologicals used for UC and Crohn’s. The biologicals in theory can train the immune system to stop attacking your own colon which can lead to healing. My local GI chose this one (Skyrizzi) for us, Jennifer’s research pointed to Remicade as the typical “rescue” biological but requires to be given only via infusion while some of the others, like Skyrizzi, eventually can be given via injection or even pills. Meanwhile, at this point, I am not better. At all. Fortunately the Episcopal church has an excellent Short Term Disability plan which I filed for almost at the beginning of all this. This allowed the church to keep paying me while providing extra $$ for supply clergy. Our new vestry, and new Senior Warden Ashleigh, had to immediately step into the gaps, along with our staff (they are AMAZING) and an army of volunteers (DITTO) who showed our people they are the church, they can support me and Jennifer with prayer and food while taking responsibility for a variety of events and programs in my absence.

By February 10th I was not well at all. I was so exhausted I couldn’t hold my head up, barely make it to the bathroom for the over 15 bowel movements a day. In looking back, I think I thought I was dying. I couldn’t function in any way and no energy to do so if if I desired to. I couldn’t even make myself get out of my chair.

Turns out, I was not wrong. Jennifer got home and immediately got me ready to return to the hospital. At the advice of our GI, we returned to Sacred Heart Pensacola even though, unknown to us, the Gastro Health folks were not allowed in the hospital due to some contract issue, they had one travel GI doc for the entire hospital! He was really good for me but admitted IBD was not his specialty and he was in constant contact with the IBD team at Oschner’s in New Orleans. Drs Shah and Gaspar head a team that has a national top 5 reputation, with 6 colon-rectal surgeons on the team along with IBD specialists, infectious disease team, medicine team, etc. I began prep for another colonoscopy – have I mentioned how fun that prep is when you are already going through what I was? The pain was intensive, the prep horrendous, poor Jennifer had to again do things no spouse should ever have to do – I cannot thank God enough for her! The colonoscopy showed my colon was even worse and the travel GI alongside the hospitalist began working the phones to find a bed in an IBD specialized hospital. UAB was not taking patients, Mayo in Jacksonville accepted me but had no beds, Oschner’s became the focus and after a long and miserable weekend of waiting on a bed, I was transferred via ambulance on a Monday night, Feb 17.

Let me tell you laying on an ambulance stretcher for a 5+ hour ride is torture, especially when you trying your best not to poop all over it. We had one long stop to get me cleaned up and then on to NOLA in a pouring rain, Jennifer following the ambulance in her car and Mackenzie meeting us at Oschner’s from her home in Pass Christian. I will never forget how terrible that trip was! When we finally arrived I walked out of the ambulance (yep) in such misery and pain. Mackenzie had found which room they were putting me in and I went to the bathroom there with blankets all over me, freezing cold, waiting on what was to come.

Tuesday morning the daily doctor parades started in earnest. The hospitalist in Pensacola had told them I was his sickest patient, and the docs at Ochner’s said I should have been in ICU pre transfer. My room was an ICU step down so the care from the nursing staff was phenomenal. I learned that surgery was always an option for me but everyone wanted that only as a last resort. Surgery for severe UC like mine calls for complete removal of the colon (large intestine), rectum and anus, reconstructing the small intestine to replace the large. I would have had an ostomy bag, probably for life. Younger patients can have what is called a “J pouch” which is an internal bag, but someone my age usually doesn’t have that as an option. Every member of the surgery group assured me they were ready to operate at a moment’s notice (at this stage there is much danger of perforations in the colon – a life threatening event). But also saying, we’d prefer you keep your colon.

I had received a dose of Remicade in Pensacola at the advice of the Oshner team while waiting on a bed. Due to biopsies not resuting, Oschner team decided that I should have another colonoscopy where they can take their own biopsies. Thankfully they limited the prep to a couple of enemas (Jennifer and the night nurse had to handle that mess!), and they were able to do the scope. Afterwards Dr. Shah basically said surgery was about my only option. This was devastating news which took me a couple of days to process. Jennifer was so supportive and positive I came around to accept my fate. Meanwhile due to my weakened condition they wanted to wait a few days, get some nourishment and another dose of remicade and see where we were.

The remicade worked great and I began to heal somewhat. There is way more to the story here but eventually we all agreed to see if the biologicals can continue to improve the colon enough to avoid surgery for now. Slow, very slow improvement was the ticket and we were released about 10 days later.

This has been too long already so I will summarize the rest. I ended up requiring emergency back surgery for an L5 laminectomy, hoping my completely blocked spinal column at that point is the source of numbness and floppy foot, my whole lower body is numb in many places and my walking gait dramatically affected. So we were admitted for all that and stayed a few more days, bringing home with us Covid! Jennifer was very sick from it, ended up at the Urgent Care back home where she tested positive, so I tested with a home kit and was also positive, although other than one day of low fever I didn’t have symptoms. Until I did. 3 days later I am running a temp and go to get checked out where an xray confirmed pneumonia. My immune system is compromised so this is not an unexpected development. Ran fever for several days but have been fever free now for 5 days in a row. I do have bouts of extreme sweating, something evidently UC causes. The back surgeon asked me to delay PT and to not do to much walking until I see him on April 30th. I am doing exercises (with permission) in our pool and that will suffice for now.

So it’s a new life for the Knights. I am slowly improving and praying to get my next biological dose soon. Jennifer is better but tending to me and all my complicated meds, etc. is a lot even for someone as good as she is about medical stuff.

Fatigue is a real deal with UC. I went to the office for a few hours last week and it took two days to recover from that 4 hours of light work. I will be at church a couple of half days this week and then the Holy Week marathon begins. We are so blessed to have the Rev. Alan Sutherland to supply for me often (I love him and our parishioners do also), and he will be by my side for Holy Week services. After Easter Sunday, the surgeon asked, hearing my schedule, that I refrain from returning to work until after my follow up on April 30th.. After that I will ease into a normal schedule including most Sundays and half days at the office for a while. Time will tell. I am so blessed to have a congregation that has cared so deeply for me and Jennifer, with prayer, food, support, cards, love and understanding. I give thanks to God every day for them, for our Bishop who has been a great pastor to me and Jen, for my kids who have missed work and family things to come help take care of me, and most of all for Jennifer, the real hero of this story and of my life, my cheerleader, my truth teller, my all. This illness takes a village and I have a large one! Thank you all!

***** (As I said at the beginning, Jennifer’s Facebook posts have more details and I am sure I have a lot of dates wrong, considering my condition that is to be expected.) Thanks for reading this far and for your prayers and concern.