Autumnal Thoughts

I have finally put everything else aside.  The power outages of last week seem to be under control, although I hear what I think may be the power company working at the neighbor’s house to the north of us.  My wife has gone with her parents on a daytrip.  I went to church but I couldn’t stay…I needed to think, to be in quiet place this morning.

So here I am on the back porch with a cup of strong black coffee, listening to the gentle sounds of the woods and the not so gentle sounds of humankind further in the distance.  In the stillness a single leaf falls from a tree, spinning as it falls slowly to the ground.  Over the next few weeks it will be joined by millions more.

I hear the insects, a few bird calls.  These sounds are not as pleasing as the spring sounds of birds and amphibians but they are natural sounds of the season and I love to hear them this time of year.

As I look down into the woods I think about the progression of the seasons and of the years.  Old trees fall to the wind or to ice.  Young trees rise to take their place.  The shedding of leaves each fall and the regrowth the next spring.  Of birds, preparing for the fall migration or already gone.

Against that mental backdrop, I think about the shallow, artificial world we live in.  So dependent on electricity and machinery.  Upon email and cellphones.  Televison and commentary.  Talk radio.  Baseball games and movies.  I think about investment bankers, CEOs, politicians (even the moose hunting ones), and movie stars.  Of people driven by money, power, and fame.

I wonder if they ever sit down on their back porch, look out into the woods, and think about how they really fit into this world.

For some reason I doubt it.  But maybe they should…

(Written a couple of weeks ago…)

Fireball !

As the season changes and darkness pushes back the dawn we have been walking again in the morning.  This morning we were rewarded by a beautiful bright fireball in the western sky at about 6:25 local time.  Large and bright, it made a gentle arc from north to south and persisted long enough for me, in my speechlessness, to point it out to my wife.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Many years ago when we would visit my grandparents in southern Ohio, one of the highlights was bedtime.  My Grandmother would tuck us into bed and then tell us a story.  Because she was blind she couldn’t read us a story from a book.  Her stories came from her own childhood and from the stories she learned in school.  One of my favorites was “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, one of the Aesop’s Fables.

The shepherd boy was lonesome and bored.  He wanted some attention, some excitement so he cried wolf and all of the townspeople came with their pitchforks and clubs to help him.  There was no wolf.  The next day the boy cried wolf again.  Again the townspeople came to help him but there was no wolf.  The third day the wolf came.  The boy cried “Wolf! Wolf!” but nobody believed him and all of his sheep were killed.