Autumn

For some reason I have been really looking forward to Autumn this year. I don't really understand it, I have never been super excited before. Perhaps I am looking forward to the lower electric bill because we won't be running the AC all the time. This is indeed a perk, but it isn't the essence of my joy for autumn. I have a beautiful image in my mind of a tree covered lane in a development, with deep carpets of warm colored leaves on the lawns with patches of the summer's last remnants of green grass still poking through, the trees still clinging to their cargoes. I see children running around jumping into the large piles their dads raked together, laughing and throwing handfulls of the colorful soon-to-be rotted material onto each other. I see baskets full of gourds on coffee tables and indian corn hung on the door, cornucopias and pumpkins keeping their October vigil before they become the sagging, shrivelled faces of November. I see mountains as of flame, their rocky tips perhaps covered with the slightest white caps, a testament to the deep sleep which is soon to come upon the land under its alabaster blanket of snow. At least, this is what I expect in Vermont. Here in PA we still have brown Christmases. How sad. I see the sun filtering through the thining canopies of shedding trees, as each breeze takes more of the load from their sleepy, heavy laden branches, as though to say, "Rest, dear beloved. You who give life now, take your rest and I shall awaken you when the time has come. Do not fear for your charges. Your ever-green brethren shall keep watch over your land while you slumber in silence." I see young men and women in sweaters, but needing nothing else for the moment by way of warm covering, walking and laughing together under azure skies, ignescent trees, pale sun. I see picnic-ers with their baskets and red-and-white checked blankets on hill sides enjoying the days of indian summer. I smell the scent of apples drifting from the orchards, with their promises of hot, spicy cider ladled from a pot.

Indeed, I'm not sure whats going on with me this year. But I am really loving autumn...my desire is to share this lovely season with someone special this year. A friend, a family member, maybe just Jesus, from Whom all good things come.