Dear Friends –

Autumn is bursting forth here in the mountains with fall’s vivid and varied shades of gold popping out everywhere you look, and highlighted so beautifully with accents of burgundy red from the maple and poplar leaves, all beginning to fall to the ground by the ever so gentle winds of this time. The birdbath is frozen over each morn, but by noon a warm embrace of the sun’s rays can be felt on your shoulders as you look out over the drooping annuals struggling to survive their first frosty cold night. I have such mixed emotions about this season, which I really love so very much for its spectacular beauty, but that first night of frost is the harbinger of winter, which is not a welcome change for me. I was built for summer and the outdoors, especially being in my garden, which after months of my digging and planting, I have finally achieved that colorful beauty and serenity I want… so to enjoy it daily is my absolute delight while I read or write in the shade of majestic pines. The soothing trickle of the waterfall down through rocks I have so carefully placed mesmerizes me in a single gaze, while the birds also amuse me with their bathing antics in the shallow pools provided there and in several other birdbaths throughout the garden… it’s heaven… and I don’t want it to go away… but go it must. I fight this departure from the outside world as long as I can, taking a blanket out to curl up with along with my book or laptop, but eventually the plants must be put to bed and the covers come out for the furniture to be protected from snow. I do not go gently into the indoors for this imposed period of dormancy, but eventually my spirit becomes enlivened by involvement and preparation for all the holiday events soon to come. While my skiing days have long been over, I do still find pleasure in being out for winter activities; bundled up from head to toe you can have one of the most invigorating walks of your life striding through the unending luminous white mantle covering and unifying everything under a crystal blue sky that is intensified by the sharp contrast to the pure white all around; and even snow shoveling I can enjoy for its exercise, which I refer to as my winter gardening. That first snowfall is so captivating as you stand right next to the window and watch each snowflake gently wafting downward… I try to quickly decipher its’ God-given unique pattern akin to our own fingerprints, and at its disappearance I quickly search out for the next one to study… one after another, these snowflakes can turn into a storm from varying degrees of creamy sunlight to dark grayish fog where nothing is decipherable… that’s when you are glad to be inside curled up by a roaring fire. After an ugly storm, you can wake up to such brilliant sunlight bouncing off this massive white coverlet, which it almost seems like that God has embellished it with a gigantic handful of golden glitter that dazzles from ground to rooftops… beauty and peace are definitely manifested in the artistic handiwork of Almighty God.

The seasonal change from autumn to winter is the most dramatic opposite change in nature which has been growing and thriving since spring… and isn’t that just how much it can be like in our own seasons of human life? From birth until twenty-five, it is our springtime of life… we are born, being nurtured to grow and deciding where, when and what to become. From twenty-five to fifty we have started to blossom in the summer of life… we have found our vocation and we thrive in the success of worth. From fifty to seventy-five that is our autumn of harvest, reaping in the pleasures of one's life long labors and having reached goals we bask in the golden pleasures achieved. From seventy-five to one hundred we can often maintain the pleasures of a successful life, but we have definitely entered our winter of dormancy and death. Of course these are very general traits in the evolution of our material existence, for we all know how at any age we can experience another “springtime” to life with a brand new beginning by a marriage, re-marriage, or child born, as though we are starting all over again. We can change our vocation or avocation at any time in life and time and all of a sudden realize we have entered another “summer” of growth in areas we had never imagined. For some, the horrible reality of an “early winter” can come from a tragedy that ends a life prematurely.

Each moment of life is precious whatever the stage of its’ development, and with the aid of Almighty God, every soul can experience life to the fullest with His Divine Intervention; if you think you can do it alone, on own personal worth, you may very well have some success, but never will it be as great a success that He could and would have provided if you asked. The Creator of life began humanity in a garden… God The Father desired and provided that His creatures have a very comfortable material life, and the best of spiritual lives if only they would refrain from sinning. Whatever the season of life you are in, seek His help to live its fullest potential, and therefore when your wintertime arrives, it won’t be cold and dreary, but will be a time of great peace and contentment for a life well lived.