Over the constant squacking of the black ducks, I detect the hum of a combine across the lake. It's time. Harvest.
Of course, it wasn't machinery to tip me off to what's obvious. We are weeks into a transformation of the countryside which brings a full palette of color within view. My favorite part of autumn is how the corn and soybean fields subtely fade from green to the auburn hue of late, which looks richest just after sunset. I linger with the colors of autumn because I know the monochrome season is long and arduous and not inspiring of deep thoughts.
Autumn is my favorite season; October, my favorite month. October is a month of painted landscapes and warm kitchens, of damp sunrises followed by dry sunsets and bright moons, of cuddly sweaters and slow walks through leaf-covered paths. October is our bridge from the carefree days of summer to the festive days ahead, the ones that call us back to our families for sharing, for giving thanks, for giving praise. And counting our blessings.
I count October as a blessing. All thirty-one days of it.
01 October 2008
29 September 2008
Is Armageddon at hand?
Fall. Dive. Plunge. Plummet. All are verbs used in headlines today to describe the stock market after the bailout failed to win Congressional approval.
Fall doesn’t quite work for me because it implies some sort of accident was involved.
Dive doesn’t quite fit either because the action calls to mind grace and control. Recall the recent Olympic Games and the finesse of those pool-bound athlete divers. See my point?
Plunge is better because the action conjures something forceful prompting downward movement. (Greed for instance.)
Plummet. Now there’s an action verb. This is a verb I’d prefer to use to describe an aviation disaster, the kind when one has a mere minute or two to settle up with the Almighty, and then… . If one were to think of "plummet" in this context, it becomes logical also to plug the word into a headline to describe today's events. After all, when it comes time to "take stock," it seems we ought to be thinking Heaven, not investment portfolio.
Of all the tools one can use to stir emotion, language is my favorite. Now excuse me, please, while I gather all my gold in a safe place and inventory my pantry.
Fall doesn’t quite work for me because it implies some sort of accident was involved.
Dive doesn’t quite fit either because the action calls to mind grace and control. Recall the recent Olympic Games and the finesse of those pool-bound athlete divers. See my point?
Plunge is better because the action conjures something forceful prompting downward movement. (Greed for instance.)
Plummet. Now there’s an action verb. This is a verb I’d prefer to use to describe an aviation disaster, the kind when one has a mere minute or two to settle up with the Almighty, and then… . If one were to think of "plummet" in this context, it becomes logical also to plug the word into a headline to describe today's events. After all, when it comes time to "take stock," it seems we ought to be thinking Heaven, not investment portfolio.
Of all the tools one can use to stir emotion, language is my favorite. Now excuse me, please, while I gather all my gold in a safe place and inventory my pantry.
28 September 2008
A reunion tour 30 years in the making...
It’s been said you cannot go home again. Yet it seems human nature to try regardless, if only to catch a glimpse of the person we once were or to find that piece of ourselves we lost somewhere along the way, oftentimes through no fault of our own.
For a large part of my adolescence, high school was “home” and so thoughts of going back, of going “home” weigh on me as I pass a combine parked along Waseca CR-3 on my way toward the city and a reunion of classmates. Accommodating farm implements is part and parcel of life now that home is the farm; the city of my birth, meanwhile, is just a place I visit less and less. Yet inside a suburban school building significant chapters of my personal history were written. I was interested to see if the pages read the same as I’d remembered.
At first opportunity, I broke away from the crowd to explore on my own the halls that I’d walked for four years; they appeared neither wider nor narrower than when I’d walked them in saddle shoes. The walls were brightly painted and the lockers, too, the latter in green. The lockers looked newer, which isn’t to say they were new. It had been thirty years, after all. I imagine the life of a locker doesn’t exceed fifteen. And the walls were adorned with sketches by student artists named Emily and Britney and Sydney and Raul. I passed a room full of computers and saw that the library was now a media center. And there was a boardroom where the teachers used to take their lunches. And all along the way, lights clicked on as if welcoming my silent exploration. At one point, I startled the custodian (Kellogg High, class of ’77) who told me my alma mater was a good employer. I was heartened to hear it as much as I was to learn that service to others and worship is as much a focus for students as getting good grades.
Yet my visit did not fill me with a sense of warmth the way one expects when one comes home. I was in a school, but not my school. My school was gone or, perhaps, it had simply changed. Or, perhaps, it was I who had changed. Or, likely, both the school, and I, (all of us really) had changed in ways great and small. Certainly, the priest who presided over our Mass, a classmate, had changed. He shared some of the details with us; the others we were left to interpret at the place where his history intersected ours. Had any of us come “home” this night?
It’s been said you cannot go home again. You could debate the truth in that statement until the cows come home. Here’s what I think. The answer depends upon how you define home.
For a large part of my adolescence, high school was “home” and so thoughts of going back, of going “home” weigh on me as I pass a combine parked along Waseca CR-3 on my way toward the city and a reunion of classmates. Accommodating farm implements is part and parcel of life now that home is the farm; the city of my birth, meanwhile, is just a place I visit less and less. Yet inside a suburban school building significant chapters of my personal history were written. I was interested to see if the pages read the same as I’d remembered.
At first opportunity, I broke away from the crowd to explore on my own the halls that I’d walked for four years; they appeared neither wider nor narrower than when I’d walked them in saddle shoes. The walls were brightly painted and the lockers, too, the latter in green. The lockers looked newer, which isn’t to say they were new. It had been thirty years, after all. I imagine the life of a locker doesn’t exceed fifteen. And the walls were adorned with sketches by student artists named Emily and Britney and Sydney and Raul. I passed a room full of computers and saw that the library was now a media center. And there was a boardroom where the teachers used to take their lunches. And all along the way, lights clicked on as if welcoming my silent exploration. At one point, I startled the custodian (Kellogg High, class of ’77) who told me my alma mater was a good employer. I was heartened to hear it as much as I was to learn that service to others and worship is as much a focus for students as getting good grades.
Yet my visit did not fill me with a sense of warmth the way one expects when one comes home. I was in a school, but not my school. My school was gone or, perhaps, it had simply changed. Or, perhaps, it was I who had changed. Or, likely, both the school, and I, (all of us really) had changed in ways great and small. Certainly, the priest who presided over our Mass, a classmate, had changed. He shared some of the details with us; the others we were left to interpret at the place where his history intersected ours. Had any of us come “home” this night?
It’s been said you cannot go home again. You could debate the truth in that statement until the cows come home. Here’s what I think. The answer depends upon how you define home.
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