Colorful Reminders

As we drove up to Winding Ridge yesterday, I took this photo through the Jeep's sunroof.

Lately, autumn's colors pop more each day. I've even got the tripod set on the porch, hoping to capture the same scene as it changes daily. One day I'll post that moment of beauty that captures the essence of fall 2009. The season will flee all too soon, giving way to what the almanac promises: a hard winter. So each day's glimpse offers a taste of grace, most obviously in a visual offering.

Musically, I have recently joined the Garrett County Choral Society, where seeing grace notes reminds me of grace-filled sound bites. Yes, I do have to copy the syllable-by-syllable pronunciation of the German for Bach's Cantata140, but the harmonies of the chorale make the effort worth it. The 70-member group practices each Sunday evening for 2 1/2 hours simply to make music together.

Visual and auditory grace notes, because they demand our attention, can overpower other graces. My husband just took the time to print out each song that's on my iPod. Dave's computer skills grace me everyday. Last night he changed the profile photo for my college Divas' (Divinely Inspired Vivacious Affectionate Sisterhood) Facebook page. And a friend who's collected quotes for years mailed me a typed copy last week. To quote Luther, "The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious." Yet another friend from Bible study gave me a jar of her homemade cream, a cream that has given her the skin of a youngster!

Grace notes in music, small in notation and quick in performance, make a lush difference in a tune. Why don't we all purpose to "grace" someone this day? The apostle John reminds us, "From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another." (John 1:16)

August's Garden

In the woods on our ridge, autumn comes early. The daisies' innocent beauty fades; the cone flowers' vibrant pinks grow pale; the first colored leaves lie scattered on the ground. Soon signs advertising "hardy mums for sale" will dot our surrounding country roads. The halcyon days of summer give way to the hectic pace of school schedules.

Words and their derivations fascinate me, and Stephen Messenger, writing in The Wall Street Journal, provided some information earlier this summer on the naming of flowers. "Like many words in our language, many of the names of flowers hold clues about their history and relationship to us. The daisy, for example, known for its small yellow blossoms, is quite common throughout the world. Daisies are unique in that they close their golden petals during the night and keep them shut, as if in sleep, until the morning. This peculiar characteristic earned this little flower the name 'day's eye' from speakers of Old English. Eventually, that name was compounded into the word daisy." A less favorite plant, "dandelions also derive their name from their characteristically numerous thick and slender yellow petals. It is not so strange for an imaginative observer to equate the dandelion's coarse petals to rows of teeth on a well-fanged beast. This comparison explains its French origin dent de lion, or in English "teeth of a lion." Haven't we all tried a myriad of treatments in our battle with this lion as it seeks to devour our lawns?

God provides a visual and a linguistic reminder in The Message as it paraphrases Isaiah 40:6-8

I said, “What shall I shout?”

“These people are nothing but grass,

their love fragile as wildflowers.

⁷The grass withers, the wildflowers fade,

if God so much as puffs on them.

Aren’t these people just so much grass?

⁸True, the grass withers and the wildflowers fade,

but our God’s Word stands firm and forever

So as flowers' hues fade and summer passes into the yellow leaves of fall, we can remain steadfast, not on the ephemeral elements of the seasons, but on the surety of God's Word to us.