September One

It's officially "fall" in my book. We have started the month of September.

Back in the dark ages, school didn't start until sometime in September. Now schools all over the place are in some sort of academic rat race to see who can start first or stay longest through the summer.

I am not a fan. Not at all. It's hot and sticky on the bus and in the classroom and rivulets of sweat gather and drip, roll and pour from the faces of bedraggled youngsters rousted from their beds and hurried on to school.

It's not right. Summer is for swimming and fishing and planting a garden of favorite vegetables. Nowhere does there seem to be room for books and homework, but there it is.

September's cooler weather just seems to tell me all about Dutch ovens filled with yummy dinners and campfire nights with guitar music under the stars. Quiet nights with a good book or rowdy nights at the football game shouting until you are hoarse for the home team to win. Days filled with blue skies so brilliant they hurt your eyes to take them all in, nights of inky, dark blue skies dotted with the shimmering light of a million stars - all just out of reach - and a smiling moon that brings on the song of my childhood sung by my Daddy...

I see the moon
And the moon sees me
Over the mountains
Over the seas
Please let the light
That shines on me
Shine on the one
I love

Best of all, fall is a time to see the kaleidoscope of God's making as the leaves change from the brilliant shades of greens in His paintbox to the rainbow hued foliage of autumnal splendor.

The leaves fall in the breezes as the fall chill continues to touch them with the almost magical change that tells the leaves that winter will be coming sooner than we think. Drifting leaves are few at first, but then, joined by their companions from the tree, the lawn is carpeted in the multicolored offering of God.

Gradually, the glorious brilliance of the jewel-toned leaves changes into the velvety brown that begins to decay only to become the means for next years' leaves to grow and spring forth healthy and green once again.

But for now, the trees are still bearing a coat of verdant green and vibrant sheen as the leaves are not quite ready to signal the all clear for the change.

I know what is coming for I have seen it before. Yet the change in the leaves and in me happens subtly until one day, I wake to see that life is now a dazzling spectacle of colors new and old.

I love the fall.

Though each season is a reminder that God is in every detail, fall just seems to do so in a showy and theatrical production. All we need is the orchestra...