These October Days

These early October days hang, suspended between full summer and dark November. The blue bowl of the sky seems rounder, its shape accentuated by sharp silhouettes of trees and hills. 
 

As the days slip by and we go about our daily tasks - home, work, school, church, community - each of us absorbed with life. But for some these days hang, suspended between hope and despair. 

A young couple loses their first baby just days after birth. They go home from the hospital with empty, aching hearts. In tears I pray for comfort.

Friends wait for appointments, slow to come, to determine the cause of worrisome symptoms. Frustration mingles with fear of the unknown. I pray for peace and action.
 

Rose hips hang now against the blue sky where scented wild roses once arched. To everything a season.

Others I know embark upon waiting, too. Days are filled with the ordinary tasks, but behind each one lies questions. I pray for grace.
 

And still the sun shines, the leaves delight with their colors, and the marvelous beauty of this paradoxical world fills us with wonder and gratitude.

Linking to Mosaic Monday. 

These Days: Five on Friday

1.  Cherry time! We planted trees last spring (2013) and there are enough ripening this year for a generous bowlful for the two of us in a week or so. I covered the tree with a net to prevent birds from getting them all. The net goes right to the ground so that birds cannot get underneath and perhaps get caught. We wouldn't want that. 

2. Baby beets (thinnings) and greens were on the menu this week. Is there anything more luxurious than going out to the garden to choose part of one's dinner? I've been watching the BBC series Land Girls and marvel at how hard people work on farms. Other BBC programs such as Wartime Farm highlight the intensive nature of reliance upon one's physical strength and working the land, too. Gardening used to be a necessity, not a pastime. I'm glad to have the options of gardening and of shopping for my food.

3. One glowing raspberry. There are many more of them and we're picking some every couple of days. Our growing season is several weeks ahead of normal this year, unlike the eastern part of the continent. These photos were taken yesterday in warmth and sunlight. An unsettled front moved in overnight and I awoke in the wee hours to feel a rain-freshened breeze drift across my face. I lay awake for a minute, cozy, as I listened to soft droplets of rain begin followed by a trickle as water collected in the eavestrough.
 

4.  When unsettling news comes it's hard to know how to respond. As a person of faith, I pray throughout my day. Sometimes, it's impossible to find words or to form thoughts. Ellis Peters, in one of her Brother Caedfel mysteries, writes, "He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding in his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands, all those people who were in stress or grief." I love this picture of holding broken people up before the God who loves them. 

This has been a week of holding any number of people in my heart - ill friends and those with broken relationships. Anger comes, too, when I consider behaviors and actions that lead to hurt. And I must lift myself up, broken, too, in need of grace.

5.  Big girl and little girls. Our eldest with her Little Miss S and cousin Miss A alongside, enjoying strawberries yesterday's sunshine. We went to the strawberry patch one last time and then home to play in the little wading pool. Splashing, pouring, squirting - oh the delight! 

Today is drippy and overcast. Good for the gardens and grass. Good for staying indoors and getting the house shipshape. Good for preparing for overnight guests. A puttery sort of day. And you? How is your day shaping up?