Yesterday was a quintessential Fall day.
It was overcast and blustery, but warm, foretelling the cooler temps and stormy weather to come.
Leaves, carpeting the streets, were making that classic blow-down-the-street sound in the wind.
The kids and I went out to plant tulips and daffodils.
87 bulbs.
Papa let each of the children choose 20 tulip bulbs, the really big beautiful kind, from a large variety at the garden center.
I spent time one on one with each of them.
I dug the holes.
They put the bulbs into the ground, tip up, and then covered them with soil.
I felt like we were planting hope, tucking it away into the earth, hoping we were doing the right thing, that the sun really will catch them in Spring and bring them pushing up through the earth. I imagined us watching them through the window every day then, a bright carpet of color.
Sitting there, I was reminded of this quote:
"No ray of sunlight is ever lost, but the green which it awakens into existence needs time to sprout. And it is not always granted to the sower to see the harvest.
All work that is worth anything is done in faith."
--Albert Schweitzer
This guy and I were bent over the flowerbed, when we heard that familiar honking sound in the sky and Benji said, "I want to watch the geese, Mom."
(Watching the geese and hearing that sound are another thing I love about this time of year.)
We could hear them before we could see them, and here they are, disappearing beyond our view as they blend in with the treetops.
I've been thinking.
Sometimes I feel like there is almost a false sense that we control so much of our life, or that what surrounds us daily is mundane.
While I believe that agency is at play and we manipulate certain factors, I am convinced of being surrounded by grace, and that God is the great Keeper of Life.
He gives Himself away all over the place, in a multitude of miracles.
Flowers blooming.
Seeds put into the ground that grow beautiful, healthy, delicious food.
The joy of sound and smell and touch and sight.
Amazing creations in music and art and technology and science that had to have happened with enlightenment from a higher source. To me, the impact these things have on my spirit is enough to witness of greater inspiration and involvement beyond the mortal realm.
Listening to my boys reading to me and witnessing the miracle of the brain, doing what it does (somehow) and astonishing me in the same breath.
The color of the sky and the enormity of a vast universe out there.
Spirit-to-spirit connections with others.
I'm stuck here, feeling gratitude.
Next March, as I look out the window and see lots of happy tulips, I want to remember this:
God is awake.
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