For me September is always a time of reflection on time. This is especially true now that I am older. Some things wither and fade, while others are just coming into their glory. The strawberries and the cherries are long gone, but the apples and pears are just beginning to bear. The flowers that blossomed in spring have put down their seeds and spread out their roots, already prepared to winter over and grace us again next year. The zinnias and golden rod are dressed in their finest while the mums are just getting ready for their debut.
It is also a time when squirrel gather and geese fly. “A time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silent and a time to speak” (Eccles 3:6-7) all in a single day.
What do you see when the shadows begin to lengthen?
I see the meeting place of time and eternity. As the Preacher said, “He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Eccles 3:11). There is no time that I hear the echo of eternity more clearly than in the passing of a brief autumn day.
September has slipped away.
Journey Down a Moonlit Path 