October
invites us into the present moment. Don’t hurry through nature’s most glorious
sermon. Know that change will come - the turning toward the winter of things.
The seasons are the earth’s liturgy of life and death, and October is that
liturgy’s thanksgiving of abundance, of harvest, of slanted light. Of coming to
rest in the grace of change. -Diana Butler Bass
God, today, give us strength to go on,
give us hope to see a future,
give us joy to make it not simply bearable…
but beautiful. -Kate Bowler
O Extravagant God, in this ripening, red-tinged autumn, waken in me a sense of joy in just being alive, joy for nothing in general except everything in particular; joy in sun and rain mating with earth to birth a harvest; joy in soft light through shyly disrobing trees; joy in the acolyte moonsetting halos around processing clouds; joy in the beating of a thousand wings mysteriously knowing which way is warm; joy in wagging tails and kids' smiles and in this spunky old city; joy in the taste of bread and wine, the smell of dawn, a touch, a song, a presence; joy in having what I cannot live without- other people to hold and cry and laugh with; joy in love, in you; and that all at first and last is grace. -Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace
