Golden Fall Days

Padre Pio, on your feast day, pray for us! 

 Well, just like that, the season of fall began. 

Good-bye summer flowers and Old Bay on everything!

Good bye beach!

The temperature dropped overnight from 95 to 55 degrees as if it saw a Montgomery County speed camera. My tomato plants started shivering, as did my 20 year old cat Bentley.

Bentley is not a fan of the changing temperature

 The stores in the neighborhood and coffee shops are now, quite literally, stressed in the fest of being pumpkin obsessed. 

Shame on you if you have no pumpkin decor is the message they send, which is more like pumpkin mandates, however, mums are still optional but good boosters for your front doorstep. "Forget all priorities and immediately get yourself a pumpkin" is the urgent message. We heard the call for pumpkin mandates and answered obediently decorating our mallard ducks above the fireplace with a few velvety pumpkins that will last years to come. Gourds are for roasting and eating in my humble opinion. 

Made with a  double pinch of sweetness and a little pinch of salt

There is something about fall in Maryland though that I wish could be shared with the world: it is this little colorful gift from God that slips in so sweetly and effortlessly. The hue from the trees change day to day in a way that reminds me we have a creative artistic God who loves us in the details of each day of our life. He brings brilliant fiery colors, smooth textures and deep flavors in fall food, and even the orchestral sound of a midnight thunderstorm to usher in a new and breezy season to the year. 

Each morning I go for a little morning hike and pray the rosary. 

Father Larry Swink once recommended stopping if something comes up during prayer that isn't part of your prayer and stay with that meditation. These days the golden sunshine of the early morning slipping through the tall grass by the little creek has me pausing my prayer. 

Breathtaking

I am not sure that is what he meant, but it sure speaks of God's power to me, how He can shine rays of His infinite love not just on one blade of tall wheat grass but on all of them and how even so He makes each one grow independently of the rest, just like He shines His face on us at each Mass in the Eucharist and makes our faces light up with the beautiful reflection of the Son. I think about that when I stop to look at the golden sunshine filtering in the field of tall wheat grass, and I thank God for loving me so much to make mornings beautiful and wheat grass so elegant, tall and shimmery.

The other thing that I have been thinking about, apart from grass, are on the gifts of people that God sends into our lives. When I see the grass mowed and beautiful flowers go through that, I wonder if anyone stopped to enjoy them besides the dogs on their walk. It makes me think of all the people in our life who are true gifts from God, no matter how loud, ornery, or routine they might be. Each one of them is like a flower created out of joy and love and allowed to be in our life to give God praise in His creation. Now, that human gift might be a giant challenge at times, but there are so many qualities and struggles that often go unnoticed among friends and especially family that it is like passing by a gift without noticing or without going past the wrapping paper. 

With my volunteer group, the Gabriel Project Cluster of Montgomery County, I notice the gift of self so very much. So many of the moms that I am assigned to help choose life through their pregnancy and assist for months afterwards are really incredibly strong women who help me. The people in their lives don't see them or their unborn child as a gift, they see them as a giant challenge and stop there. They demonstrate beautiful vulnerability in opening up to a stranger, they demonstrate the rejected pregnant Mary with baby Jesus looking for an Inn where to sleep, and they demonstrate complete and total faith in the providence of God when they choose life. My weakness is so uplifted after spending time with each one of them and I feel like the face of the Son shown on the tall grass of my soul making it shiver with joy and delight. 

My old man and I meeting for the first time.

Basking in the rays of the Son