Signs.....Intimations of Autumn. There they were
as reminders to me that another summer will too soon be history; a line of sleepy starlings on telephone wires like clothes hung out to dry.
Soon thereafter, two flocks of Canadian geese, flying in tandem, doubling the pleasure.
Then again, more starlings –whirling in 4/4 time, I saw them waltzing in the backdrop of the Alleghenies as if
Zubin Mehta and a full orchestra measured their flight tempo. A late monarch
butterfly, the ancient symbol of life eternal, effortlessly jumped a fence at Oakdale park where I walk and corrected my perspective. Annie Dillard decided that God created a profusely varied world and it was our human
task to experience it all., citing Ralph Waldo Emerson who dreamed that an angel brought him the world reduced to the size
of an apple and noted we must eat every bit of it. So my petition becomes, “give
me wisdom, Lord, to savor Your creation and truly behold Your glory.”
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only
the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that
I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless
it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as
to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to
its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness
to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
— Henry David Thoreau, in Walden
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village
garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have
worn.Henry David Thoreau
Full moon - RIP - Neil Armstrong
The
measure with which God gives the gift of visible community is varied. Christians who live dispersed from one another are comforted
by a brief visit of another Christian, a prayer together, and another Christian’s blessing. Indeed, they are strengthened
by letters written by the hand of other Christians. Paul’s greetings in his letters written in his own hand were no
doubt tokens of such community. Others are given the gift on Sundays of the community of the worship service. Still others
have the privilege of living a Christian life in the community of their families.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
