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Connections&
September 9 -- 23rd Sunday of the Year
The parables of the tower and the king preparing for war: "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple... Anyone who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:25-33
'Six weeks till frost'
This weekend we pretty much say goodbye to summer. Despite the still sunny skies and warm days, we know by the rhythm of our busy lives at work and school that the summer of 2001 is over.
"There is no word for end-of-summer sadness," wrote E.B. White, "but the human spirit picks up the first of its approach." We see it in the slant of the sunlight, the autumnal blue of the lake waters. We hear it in the drone of the cricket chorus from the salt meadows: "Six weeks till frost, six weeks till frost."
Footballs fly through the air; the first colors of autumn appear; the bulbs that will bloom in the spring beg to be planted in the still soft earth.
But still& there is time for an evening ball game, for an afternoon at the beach, for a backyard barbecue.
Each last warm day becomes precious, something to be hoarded like candy in a child's pocket.
[Adapted from Golden Days by Arthur Vanderbilt.]
CONNECTION: Each September, nature teaches us the preciousness of every summer day. The Gospel of Jesus instructs our souls and spirits of the same reality - that every day of our lives is to be prized as we await the eternal summer of God's dwelling place. As the tower builder and the king preparing for war discover, our days are precious, too precious to squander on obsessing about meaningless and trivial things at the expense of our relationships with family and friends. Jesus challenges us to live every moment of our lives as if it were the last day of summer: to seek out and embrace the greater, infinitely more important and lasting things of God..
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