Remembering Times Past

"Raking Near the Great Works"

October, and the leaves turn late but strong.
Rock maples and the reds, clear brazen, blaze
long-burning feats of sugar through our ways.
Their strident hold upon the back roads pulls
our morning drive, out to where Oak Woods Road
crosses the river that they call Great Works.
The nearby fields so rich it's hard to breathe-
the hay treacly with auburn, grasses bronzed-
we stop before a red farmhouse, just shy
of where the river runs, where maple trees
have laid the front lawns ravished with their loss.
From Booker's truck we pull out sacks and tools,
proceed to gather up the autumn's spoils.
He holds each big bag open, and I rake
the broad red leaves together and inside.
The crop is so much greater than our work
could ever capture, even as we press
it in, right close, to fill October's urge,
but we have cleared w windfall just the same:
A clarity, the season's morning hues,
and our sweet chore have worked an art of fall.
As autumn and the Great Works trickle by,
we skim as much brimmed crimson as these few
stout bags will hold within, enough to lay
four inches of the fall upon his fields.
October's task has raked the colors high.
To turn'em in, the soil to bed with yield,
is just as good as planting winter rye.

by: Megan Grumbling

Unexpected

"I've found my mind thinks best when I have no stimulants at all, but the only thing my mind craves is constant stimulus." ...why?

Caught off Guard

"Musing of a self pitied mind."

There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful of habits in the life. Because it is natural, it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is. But its outworkings are tragic.
[...]
Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord.
Then he should remember that this is holy business. No careless or casual dealings will suffice. Let him come to God fully determined to be heard. Let him insist that God accept his all, that He take things out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will need to become specific, to name things and people by their names one by one. If he will become drastic enough, he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in their dealings with God.
[...]
Self pitty [is] one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.

a.w. tozer

Revelation

Thoughts on School

"The least of learning is done in the classrooms."

Thomas Merton