Time Turns

Hi, Monday.

After a weekend of homeric proportions, this is one Monday I am not quite ready for. But it is ready for me. Time turns, the sun runs ahead, and we have to follow even if we are looking back over a shoulder at some moments that we would rather see again.

You open your eyes from a dream that is half remembering and half wishing, and as you lie there, backing it up and replaying it, and sanctifying it all with the grace of prayer, the digital numbers on the nightstand blink from 6:58 to 6:59 to 7:00. New numbers. A new minute. A new day, a new week, a new space for you to work in. And so you must work.

The wind is pulling at the trees and dragging all toward autumn. Do not resist the pull of time, but follow it with the steps of the faithful who knows what power sends the seasons. See this too as gift. Let go the slow, golden, heady air of summer, the almost drunken warmth under the sun gaze as he rolls around the sky. Feel the air snap at your sleeve, and open your arms wide to this season of sweaters and sneakers, of spiced cider and flannel and long-handled rakes. Run with the wind, not against it.

Grateful
#87. for stiff calf muscles in the morning, compliments of a night of dancing, making me walk around the house like a grandmother when I first get up
88. for library books - Terry Pratchet, at the moment
89. for books I'm borrowing from Jordan - poetry from Edmund Spenser and Billy Collins
90. for books I bought at the conference - G. K. Chesterton's delightful Manalive, and The Ball and the Cross, which I've not yet read
91. for the surprise of receiving The Dragon's Tooth (N. D. Wilson) in the mail. Whoever ordered that for me, thank you! I am already enjoying it.
92. for new friends from faraway places, the first face-to-face conversation with them, and things like cell phones and facebook to hopefully help it continue
93. for canned tomato soup, even when I'd rather have something hefty and homemade and healthy, and better-tasting.
94. for an open afternoon in which I can rest and then tackle some of my self-inflicted chores
95. for weather that makes a hoodie your favorite piece of clothing
96. for sunshine on the brown grass of my front yard, and on the constantly undulating leaves on this little maple tree just outside my window
97. for peanut butter