Life is such a distraction. . .

T-minus two days and counting.

 

Vacation is almost here, and i can almost focus on my work. Or maybe not. Winter is fast approaching. i watched as a wicked wind blew the last leaves off of the trees in the backyard today. All of the orange, yellows and reds fell from the sky to carpet the earth. Soon all will be white.

i have been thinking a bit about humility and the state of affairs in our household and my life lately. We are exceedingly proud in most all that we do. The kids learn from the parents who were kids that learned from their parents. i am going home soon, well, not home, but to where my parents live. i have struggled much to not be my father, but it happens that you pick up things from your environment. And so little bits of him have slipped in over the years. Not that he was a bad man - a bit distant and a hard man at times (my grandmother and other relatives say that the war changed him a great deal) - but the attributes that made him hard and distant i have struggled to suppress in myself and not replicate.

So i think i will have a chat with him, and then with my wife and children, and we will work out the things that are in us that are fed by pride and that are foolish and cause us to be anything other than what we know Jesus would have us to be.

It's going to be good. The foliage is now past up here, but we are headed south where the foliage will be in its peak. i am not all fond of winter, but i cherish autumn as a season of change for its brilliance and its simplicity.

 

Ramblings under the night sky. . .

i thought that i did a pretty good job remembering to look up a the night sky from time to time. Yesterday floored me though. It was as though i had never looked up before. Maybe it is the coming winter air, but everything was so crisp and brilliant. The planets seemed to jump out of the sky, the stars never ended. i just don't remember the sky being so brilliant and alive.

i spent of a bit of time thinking about the bit there being a star in the heavens for everyone of Abraham's descendants. So am i a brilliant star that jumps out or a faint star that melts into a sky full of stars. Not that one is better than the other i am content to be either of these. But to think that we are all perhaps represented by a brilliant light in the sky is fantastic. i feel small as i look up and yet totally connected to the one who made them/me. What a weird contrast of feelings.

Back in town again.

It always pains me to come home from Bellvale. We spent the weekend in 85 degree warmth working in a HUGE garden. We celebrated the harvest and our friendships a few birthdays and our neighbors. Our time together was fantastic. The conversations were great, the food was good, and the quiet time (what little I could make while making rounds with all of the families) was perfect. And so now I am back. It's weird coming back to the "real world".   But it gives me an added desire to see community happen here in Maine.