When an ocean voyage is drawing to an end and the passengers are busily employed in their preparations for disembarking, the lookoutman's bell rings out with unusual frequency.

In this boat we were in the habit of going on some of the maddest freaks in the world.

[Di Mambro] explained to us that one day we'd all be called to a meeting at which a transit would be accomplished. It had to do with a mission, with a departure towards Jupiter.... He said to his listeners that they had to be on call twenty-four hours a day so as not to miss the departure and that once the order was given, we would have to move quickly.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.

Now is the time to go out into the sea of life and bring people aboard the boat of the Church, revealing to them the meaning of human dignity and elevating them to the practice of the virtues of the Gospel. May the blessed handmaid of the Lord and queen of the apostles intercede for me so that every day I may strengthen my faith in Jesus Christ and, following the example of my dear parents and brothers and sisters, find consolation in the voice of the Lord who repeats without tiring: Fear not, I have called you by name.

O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.

Think of mission like the paddles of a defibrillator applied to the chest of a dying church.

When we get out," she said. "Not if. When. We're going to need a plan. If every ship just bolts off on its own, we'll lose contact. They shouldn't know where we went, but we should. At the very least, we should have a record of who went where. This every-man-for-himself-and-God-against-all shit's romantic, but we have to plan for something past just this.

As I stated during my JohnMahamaLive virtual event some weeks ago, extraordinary times require extraordinary interventions for exceptional results. Ghana is experiencing extraordinary hardships, and the youth are also choking under the yoke of these hardships.

Well, that was one boat that did get stopped, wasn't it?

Well we think you'd better wake up capt'n There's something happen'n up ahead We've never seen anything like it We've never seen anything like it before.

There is much to do, pulling people away, right up until the Coast Guard comes and orders us to stop. Scott is dead. My cell phone is dead. My mother must think me dead. So it goes. I pick up the papers that have drifted down on the boat and have become plastered there, these relics from great buildings that no longer stand. The first one I grab is an insurance document. Listen: What I tell you here is true. The first line on the first page I pick up, it begins: In the event of damage to the building… So it goes.

These are extraordinary events. Not measured before, not contemplated before. [the extreme weather events of 2021 will lead to a host of initiatives to help communities adapt in the future] but there was nothing, nothing that could have been done [to prepare for] a three-times-the-historic-high volume of water travelling through Merritt in one day.