October 30, 2017

1 John 1:5

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.

October light

Golden warmth embraces tree tops in the woods as the sun sinks low on a Sunday afternoon, painting yellow leaves deeper gold as tree trunks and low branches go dark in the fading day.

And I laugh in delight, chanting ‘thank you’ to the Beyond I come here to meet.

Laughter is sweet praise of nature’s artist, as light lifts my eyes to higher limbs of oak and maple still illumined as daylight marches steadily westward.

The day will soon be done. Forest stillness blankets the woods as human intruders flee the darkness, a quiet punctuated by a wedge of geese honking their way toward evening’s repose.

In gray-light shadows gentle fawns step warily onto the cinder path where bikes whizzed by minutes ago. I am a curiosity to them. They step toward my frozen form still in the road, likely wondering if I am friend or fear.

There is something I want them to know.

I want them to know what the Maker of the Light sings to me in October light, so I whisper to the deer as they watch and seem to hear: ‘Have no fear. I am no threat to you. You are beautiful to me. The world is so much more beautiful for your presence.’

‘Thank you,’ I say to the fawns and their Maker, the Light of October afternoons.

Pr. David L. Miller