THE DAYS ARE ABLAZE

How can it be November?  But that's what I say each month.  How can it be October, or September, or August?  Don't you?  

For us and our neighbors, October means leaves.  And early November, still a red and golden world outdoors here in the North Carolina Piedmont.  Not so in Western North Carolina.  Our beautiful mountain communities were hit hard this year, tragic flooding, landslides and tornadoes.  Lives were lost.  Every place our family has ever visited in the Blue Ridge Mountains is under reconstruction. So all over our state, joys are tempered.  

But somehow, there is still pleasure in the changing season. What we feel first is an atmospheric change.  The somnolence of summer is over; where heat enervated, crisp air energizes.  Without the glare of the months just past, colors flare more vibrant.  Green in the warmth of August, with colder mornings the leaves' chlorophyll retreats, leaving carotenoid pigments in charge, boasting orange, yellow and gold, like the pumpkins and squashes covering patches and gardens. But only briefly.  Soon the ground will be covered with brown, not yellow leaves. The flamboyant decay will become stealthier. 

At the same time, sunrise and sunset reach their peak luminescence. With less water vapor in the air, we see more clearly.  Colors appear more vivid.  I never understood why before, but this year did some simple research on the science of autumn. It's so interesting.  As the earth turns on its axis away from the sun, light has to travel further to reach our eyes. Blue light scatters out long before it reaches us.  Only red and orange can make the 150 million kilometers to reach our eyes in a blazing sunrise or sunset.

So enjoy this beautiful sight, if you are lucky enough to share it with me. With thanks for whatever is before us.     Nina Naomi

IT'S NOVEMBER. CAN WE GIVE THANKS?

The month of horror movies is over and it's November, when we give thanks.  Not yet time for the angels to sing, but time to gather for another year of reckoning over turkey and gravy. For what are you thankful?  

This morning, even before rising from bed, gratitude for what entered your sleepy mind first?  The sounds of your children?  The smell of coffee?  That you have lunch planned with a friend?  Or mom is doing better?  Or you are?  For me, daily, it is my husband's arm around me, a last warm embrace before I begin to carefully navigate my unreliable morning back.  

Some, like me, may be thankful that the pain is not today as it was yesterday, when a mere sneeze brought a yelp.  Instead, you may have a new challenge to inspire you. Or be grateful for a friend who did something brave.  Or that Election Day is over.  You may feel appreciated.  That's worth a prayer of thanksgiving.  At the day's close, you might sit outside by the fire pit, as we have been doing, watching the sparks fly and the stars come out, the nights earlier just now.  So many things to be thankful for.  

But what if you have to dig within to give thanks?  What if you're remembering someone lost to you and have only their blessed brief or not-so-brief life to be thankful for?  Worse, what if they just left you, even yesterday or so it seems?  What if the time to be the one you need to be now has not yet passed and you fear it never will and also fear you might forget, and which is worse?  Or what if you're just plain lonely, or sick, and have to dig deeper? 

Sometimes blessings do seem buried, hidden.  Sometimes it is easy to give thanks but sometimes, maybe more often than not, we have to find a way through pain or grief or worry or fear.  We have to scale boulders so high they block our way.  I can't imagine how we do this except through the grace of God.  How else do we survive our tragedies and traumas and losses and illnesses and things that, truly, have no upside?  

Together, of course.  We are never alone.  Lonely, yes, people are.  But not alone.  We have friends.  We have family.  We seek help.  We have those who share our faith.  We have God.  

The most fearful things--not the horror movies we watched over Halloween--but mental, emotional and even physical sufferings, never belong to us alone.  There are times I have wanted more than spiritual blessings.  When an illness strikes, I have prayed for healing, not acceptance.  Or "Dear God, make this not be true."  But God Himself has transformed the prayer into something else.  I have not yet been unable to accept life, and death, as it is.  And you too, is it not so?  

We don't give thanks for losses, or suffering, or meanness.  Sometimes we can't give thanks for anything.  But God takes even just a thought, or tear, takes it all.  God takes our lives and inchoate prayers and makes something of them, something to which He responds giving us strength and grace, endurance and love.  We are children who are known and treasured and beyond all understanding given not what we ask for (perhaps) but what we need.  I don't understand this.  But of all that is difficult to accept, this is not.  

This must be a prayer.  AMEN