Savoring My Passage - the monthly journal of A. C. Gray

October 2011
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Autumn Leaves

“What seeming wastefulness there is in nature!  Across the vast deeps of space, God’s hand has scattered countless millions of stars.  Every tiny flower of the heather on all the moors and glens is fashioned with patient, consummate artistry and perfection of detail, though no eye may ever look upon it. ‘To what purpose is this waste?”

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

    -Edward Gray: Elegy written in a Country Churchyard

That is the divine prodigality in nature – the breaking of God’s alabaster box; and you must call it either colossal waste, or else the token of a love ‘broader than the measures of man’s mind’ and lavish beyond our wildest dreams.”  James S. Stewart in a sermon,  The Extravagance of God

 

Alas, the extravagance of the Creator is once more being writ large along the byways of the Shenandoah as October explodes with the rich tapestry of Autumn.  Close up, the small garden that fronts my villa has intensified with colors that even I with my color-blindness can detect.  I try to imagine what others see in what for me is the splendor of this world of mine; anything more majestic would take my breath away.  Each passing year the deep feeling of gratitude becomes more intense:  to be aware of my faculties to observe the changes in nature, of the passing season, of birds in migration, of a special awareness of metaphysical voices reminding me every moment is a treasured gift, to send up praises for Life so abundant.  At such a time as this, I petition heaven to take away my preoccupation with unimportant things and worrisome thoughts and flood my soul with the mantra:  “Let not your heart be troubled.”

 

TODAY  IS  THE  OLDEST  YOU'VE  EVER  BEEN, YET  THE YOUNGEST  YOU'LL  EVER  BE, SO  ENJOY  THIS  DAY WHILE  IT  LASTS.   It's Not What You Gather, But What You Scatter That Tells What Kind Of Life You Have Lived !

 

 God says:  I like youngsters.  I want people to be like them.  I don’t like old people unless they are still children.  I want only children in my kingdom; this has been decreed from the beginning of time.  Youngsters – twisted, humped, wrinkled, white-bearded – all kinds of youngsters, but youngsters.  There is no changing it, it has been decided, there is room for no one else.  I like little children because my likeness has not been dulled in them.  They have not botched my likeness, they are new, pure, without a blot without a smear.  So when I gently lean over them, I recognize Myself in them….But above all, I like youngsters because of the look in their eyes.  In their eyes I can read their age.  In my heaven, there will be only five-year-old eyes, for I know of nothing more beautiful than the pure eyes of a child.  It is not surprising, for I live in children, and it is I who look out through their eyes. “

     Abbe Michael Quoist, Prayers of Life.

             

                        
 “Did we in our own strength confide,

Our striving would be losing;

Were not the right Man on our side,

The Man of God’s own choosing:

Dost ask who that may be?  Christ Jesus it is He,

Lord Sabaoth, His name, From age to age the same,

And He must win the battle.

Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress is Our God

 

                                                                          

Autumn leaves # 2
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Autumn leaves