The leaves are changing, they said way too early in August—and they were right. It started with a premature crimson splash here and there. But soon the green of summer was transitioning full speed to yellow, orange, brown and crimson of autumn. Fall was here.
It was a pleasant change, everyone agreed. While there’s some debate about summer and winter, almost everyone I know likes fall. No more sweltering heat. No more weeding the garden. No more mosquitoes. There’s apple cider, favorite sweaters, the way the air smells, fires that feel cozy again. We take slow drives down country roads to enjoy the daily-evolving color show. The piles we rake up in yards are better, in my kids’ opinion, than a MacDonald’s ball pit. We press the most gorgeous leaf specimens between book pages to treasure. What’s not to love?
Things are not quite so spectacular from the leaves’ point of view, though. They turn gorgeous colors, sure, and receive more admiration at this time of year than during any other season—but the reality is that their doom is imminent. As the crimson leaches down to their tips, their connection to their mother tree deteriorates and loosens.
I drive down the road in a windstorm, and a rainbow of leaves swirls down from the sky like confetti. This is their fate. Magical to me, the end of life for them.
For them the change means letting go, falling, fading, shriveling, crumbling, crushing, eventually composting away into anonymity on the forest floor. It is perhaps not quite so pleasant described thus, because none of us like those kind of changes either. We all prefer the celebrating kinds, the weddings, new babies and job promotions. Anything to do with rotting? Not so much.
There are changes we seek, and changes we don’t. Sometimes we get to pick the form of change, sometimes we have absolutely no choice in the matter. Sometimes it comes sooner than we want, or much later than we’d longed for. Sometimes we embrace it, run to it in gladness or relief. Sometimes we fight it long and hard in vain. Sometimes changes are slow, over time, barely perceptible. Sometimes they are sudden and earth-shaking. Sometimes change is short-term. Sometimes it’s permanent.
Elusive as change is to nail down, however, there’s one sure thing about it, and it’s that change is as inevitable to life as autumn is to the circle of seasons. It will come. And sometimes that’s a fearful thing to us humans who like to map out our yearly planners months in advance and make our tidy little five, ten and twenty-year plans for success. Even joyful changes can create stress by throwing off schedules.
That’s why serving a God who is unchanging is so incredibly wonderful and comforting. I can’t guarantee you whether the next change in your path is going to be hard or happy, but I’d like to remind you today that though all may change around you, you have a Friend who NEVER will—and that’s a promise.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
I’ve been a bit missing in action for the last month or two, and for those of you who haven’t guessed, it’s all due to a bit of a recent career shift. From here on out, if my posts start to sounding to you like those of a kindergarten teacher, you will be correct. It’s an exciting new chapter for us, but a busy one, with lots of adjustments to new schedules and more time spent researching literature and art projects for unit studies than composing blog posts. I hope to get back to posting more often eventually, but we’ll see!
It makes sense: who else in the whole world cares more about her success than I do?
I sensed, going into the retreat, that my ideas were good but jumbled. If you know anything about the world of home education, you know that the amount of resources available are both incredible and rather overwhelming. I needed some vision to narrow my focus down from all those fabulous options to what would work best for us—and I always think most clearly while walking. And if the walk winds through sun-dappled woodlands around the edge of a sparkling blue lake? If there’s not a sound to be heard but the crunching of leaves beneath your feet and the wind in the oak tree tops? All the better.
Little by little, each day it grew;
“Little by little,” said a thoughtful boy,
“Little by little, I’ll learn to know
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
It was a long, happy weekend of giving thanks. During family dinner as the silverware clinked on fine china, then again later as wedges of pie were passed, between friends, during joyful church services and into microphones, I heard people express gratefulness for so many beautiful things.
The dim, dreary skies lit unexpectedly up with all this splendor that kept going and going and going and wouldn’t stop. I paused to notice the first flush of pink, and then stopped to watch in awe as it spread and rippled and flamed across the entire canopy of the heavens curving over my world. Then the coyotes started to yap far off in the forest, and I thought about the fact that there’s more than one way to make your voice heard.
Run, slide, repeat.
Ah, winter with all your juxtapositions of icy beauty and cozy routines—how glad I and my sleek fun-loving neighbors are to welcome you back!
It should be noted that, since there is no hunting season on shooting photographs, I generally secure my photographic venison on whatever random day of the year and in whatever random location (
See? There he went, after that long curious look, finally deciding to flee the lady with the giant black eye. He will, however, have to call upon more wariness than that if he doesn’t wish to be caught by his foolish hesitation and end up in small packages in someone’s deep freeze within the next couple weeks!
I’ve been seeing this black and white photo challenge happening around social media that sounded like fun.
And speaking of contrasts, here’s verse that contains a truly glorious one:
Since the leaves are mostly fallen now, I sat down the other day and sorted through all the autumn pictures I’d taken this year. As I did so, I found it interesting to note the varied locations they were photographed in. One was from our backyard, another across the front yard. Some were along familiar trails, others along never-before-hiked trails. Several were taken deep in the heart of the Chippewa National Forest.
…
The masked faces of the dental surgeon and his assistant seemed to float above me. She braced my chin; he pushed and pulled.
I’ve been answering room design questions all summer, so you can hardly blame the word for having a decided ring of familiarity. It started with how big the room should be, where the walls should go. It moved on to how many ceiling fixtures there should be, where the light switches should go, how many outlets I wanted. Then it was questions about door styles, and trim styles, and cabinet styles. And stain colors, and wood types, and hardware styles.
Two weeks later, I sat at a picnic table beneath a canopy of gilded autumn leaves, and took a cautious bite of the bread tucked in next to my bowl of wild rice soup. Smiling ladies and a few husbands milled through the woods nearby, cocking their heads to admire the dozens of stunning quilts suspended among the graceful white birch trunks, commenting to each other over steaming cups of apple cider. I chewed slowly, careful of the still tender incisions in the back of my mouth, then swallowed. And marveled. After two weeks of smoothies and soup, I was chewing again!
Where do you look when you are hiking through the autumn forest?
Do you look straight ahead, at the path winding mysteriously out of sight and beckoning you on? At the receding layers of craggy barked tree trunks marching along its edges, with the occasional surprise mushroom accessory? Or at the jaunty straw hat and satisfyingly fall-ish plaid shirt of a walking companion ahead?
Or do you look down? Down at the dainty trailing vines between the tufts of orange pine needles, and the tidily capped wee mushrooms springing whimsically up along the damp mosses of aging stumps? At the calico of autumn leaves softly layering over the creeping cedar and wintergreen?
While I was hiking with relatives recently, we talked about this, and discovered that our answers differed. Some in our hiking party were more inclined toward one than the other, therefore each bringing their own unique perspective to the commentary that enlivened our exploration of the forest.
The Bible calls these things gifts, and they are. Sometimes, though, I think we can lose sight of this in the nitty-gritty of real life. It can be easy, for instance, to get annoyed with that other person who is always worried about mowing the grass (looking at mushrooms) when you’d rather be discussing the accuracy of the latest Bible translation (looking down the path)—or vice versa. However the fact is that each perspective is valuable and needed, and they’re all meant to weave together in harmonious balance, not at odds with each other.
“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and not all members have the same function, so in Christ we who are many are one body, and each member belongs to one another.
Lately there’s been a lot of extra activity around my flower pots and garden. Maybe it’s because they all know that cold weather is right around the corner, and aren’t lulled into complacency by the recent heat wave like the rest of us. At any rate, the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees have been busier among my flowers than they’ve been all summer. In fact, they’ve been so absorbed in the accumulation of nectar and pollen that they’ve hardly seemed to mind when I came by with my camera.
“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
To drink to the fill and be completely satisfied, as He promises.
Rejoicing Hills 