A Day in Autumn

By R.S. Thomas

It will not always be like this,

The air windless, a few last

Leaves adding their decoration

To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs

Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening

In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up

From the day’s chores, pause a minute,

Let the mind take its photograph

Of the bright scene, something to wear

Against the heart in the long cold.

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I am now in the habit of paying 50 cents each morning for a copy of the North County Times somewhere along the (ghetto) streets of Vista on my way to work. Today I flagged down a middle aged hispanic guy with kind eyes and a soft smile. In exchanging how-are-you-this-morning's, he responded with such sweet sincerity, "I'm blessed." And I was so caught off guard, because unlike the "I'm great" I responded with, his words are the kind that cannot be said casually. I imagine that they can only come from the deepest part of the heart, which (I could not think of a more poetic way to say this) made me feel like shit because I am so overwhelmingly blessed, and yet I can rarely bring myself to utter those words.

“No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too, but then the times get to them, and they wear out their brains learning what folks expect, and spend their strength trying to rise over those same folks.” - Annie Dillard