Has turned a corner and is picking up speed.
The trees are racing to drop their leaves. Everything is sunset colored. Only the evergreen trees stand still and unchangeable. They do not rush about seizing the day.
I do rush about but mostly regret that by nightfall. Strange, how all the hurry never seems to amount to much other than a headache.
Now the days end in sudden darkness. We light a candle every night at dinner. We read Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing,
I ordered a stack of new fiction from my library before realizing I am really only in the mood for gardening books. Like this one. Or this one.
My good friend Amy served me this tea recently. I do not exaggerate when I say that the taste is astonishing. It’s a cup of tea even a coffee drinker would love. A steaming cup is a very good antidote to hurry.
Tell me, what’s slowing you down these days? It may be lovely (like tea), it may be awful (like autumn allergies or the way young children pay no attention to the new time on the clock), but I hope that, together, we can say thank you.
For this dark month is for saying thank you.
I am grateful to be sharing my words in new places. Today, I am at The Laundry Moms writing about motherhood and calling. You can read it here.
Have you read Wild in the Hollow
We just moved to Australia, so I’m heading rapidly toward summer. It is disorienting after the past five years in Europe with the glorious, golden autumns, but I am not complaining about sunshine and warmth. Funnily enough though what slowed me down in European autumns are still the same things that slow me down in an Australian summer – my children, my children, my children. Their pace is so. slow. And this is good for me, at least I need to keep telling myself that.
Same here, Devi. Same here. 🙂
Autumn is my favorite season. The dark is a time to pause, to reflect and draw close to God. I am reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s “Learning to Walk in the Dark,” and enjoying it immensely. I must say that I am coming to appreciate Summer more, but it is Autumn’s beautiful transformation that my melancholy nature is most comfortable. Happy Fall!
Leslie, I’ve been meaning to read that book for a while now. Thanks for the reminder! I imagine it’s a good read especially for this dark season.
So thankful for your beautiful piece at Amber Haines place. As you know I’m a Spirit addict and I hear so much glory in that startling of water. I’m being startled now by serving in a place I did not pick but was picked for me. Can I love and move forward the Kingdom when it’s not about me? It has to be yes, a daily prostrated yes. Blessings, Friend!
Summer, may God give you the grace to daily say Yes. Like Mary. Much love to you, my friend.
Hi Christie, the beauty of Autumn slows me down. Inhaling the cornicopia of color; burnished oranges, reds, and golds. At night, I light a few candles and sip my favorite Autumn drink; The Republic of Tea’s Hot Apple Cider. Thanks for the tea recommendation, chocolate tea sounds yummy!
Have a blessed Fall at Maplewood. 🙂
p.s. Thanks for recommending Bandersnatch. An amazingly creative read that resonated on so many levels.
Veronica, I am so glad you loved Bandersnatch. It’s so much fun to share good books. Truly one of my favorite things.
We love Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing around our house too.
What I’m loving right now? Hot chocolate and season 3 of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Also just started Kate Morton’s the Lake House.
Love that Miss Fisher! Although I don’t think I’ve seen season 3 yet. Is it streaming on Netflix?
Fall is slowing me down too: these darker days, yellow leaves, and more tea. Always more tea. Thanks for these words, Christie. xo
Grief is slowing me down. It keeps me distracted and like I am forgetting something, but it also makes me throw up my hands, helpless. I can’t accomplish right now. I can only survive. I give in, light the candles, ask the children to be quiet for the millionth time, chip away at the laundry, never “properly” clean a bathroom…and lose my temper way too often. And yet I have been in a worse place. I have been in the place where I can’t enjoy anything and I’m not sure if I will survive. This time, I am sure. So if all I can do today is microwave some food and read Charlie and Lola to my kids and snuggle and kiss them and try to enjoy them as they speed past me…then I will do so and be glad it is “enough.”