SEPTEMBER
And September sneaks in disguised as a day of labor and gently kisses us upon our unsuspecting lips. We respond with the awe of college football and the promise of pig skin action every Sunday through February 8th. High humidity reminds us of it's presence every time we step from an air conditioned vehicle or building as our glasses fog over while as on cue, those late summer heat cells drop an inch or more of rain in just an hour. School has started and those of us that drive through school zones are careful to hide our cell phones for fear of being caught, while the Fall solstice steadfastly approaches as scheduled. So as I try to collect my thoughts, "Cows On The Hill" by Jay Ungar & Molly Mason from the album Waltzing With You - Music From Brother's Keeper plays comfortably through my head as Pandora entertains me in the background. You see, I know and you know that Fall is just around the corner. The sultry heat and humidity of Summer will fall victim to the shortened day as maybe an unexpected early frost will put her accent on our Fall color display. I pray I will enjoy the transition that I so look forward to every year, as I try to put to sleep unfavorable experiences of storms past. Yes! We do learn from them. Absolutely. May this Fall bring forth her magnificent glory while those of Faith hold tight to the Promise as the world continues to crumble around us. With each free moment, acknowledge what you have and breath! Isn't it wonderful?
Posted September 2 from my afternoon home.
A friend from my high school days extending back into the last millennium, commented on a post I made in reference the coming fall equinox. He called it St. Rodney day? I could not help by smile and sorta set the record straight with the following reply. Oh my gosh!!! I swear there is an asteroid the size of our moon destined to strike earth if that were true. However, because of a rather serious horticulture background, I must admit that I do exist from one solstice to the equalizing equinox in predictable, continuous circle all the while giving thanks to my Creator for letting me experience yet one more season of his marvelous handiwork. In my pre-dawn moments sitting here beside my black glass reflective river, the moon in its fullness dusts every visible thing my eyes can see with its soft dull glow which majestically orbits 250° off my port side window. Like a heavy dew, her casting light seems to miss nothing except for the long shadows that are cast across the black mirrored rivers surface. As my attention follows the existing path of this body of water, in the center of her claimed real estate, a flickering light! My commercial fisherman must be hand pulling his john boat from hook to hook checking the bounty for what may have preyed upon his baited line(s) as it lay suspended across her depths. The fall equinox cometh as the days have begun that gradual decline of daily light. Harvest time awakens across the heartlands of America to reveal Your blessings the farmer requested as he sowed his seed right after the last equal day/night cycle. Does he take this maybe long forgot prayer for granted or does he fully give thanks to You for Your countless bounty? I wonder the same of my fisherman? My world is awake now as my favorite passerine lifts his voice in praise. Now. What difference will I make in the life of someone today? I must lift my prayers to You, precious Father, for those I know from yesterday's tragedy.
Posted September 9 from my River
And as my eyes awaken on this morning's start, my cat walks across me and sticks her face into mine welcoming me to another day. I greet my Lord with my Thank You for life as I stare with one eye closed into the glare of my iPhone. I know today is 9-11. I remember 13 years ago like it was yesterday. I am aware of the heads-up given the spawns of Satan in the Middle East by our popularly elected president and the time given them to prepare for whatever softball he decides to toss at them. I know what time it really is in my now, my anticipated now, and my spiritual now! Why today, is my mind fixated on the past, present and so near future? Let us see what our complacency teaches us today as each hour unfolds before us...
Not many friends responded to my thoughts, but a few did. Thought I might include their musings as I felt their hearts. I wanted them to feel the depths of my feelings. I am sure there were a few more that thought of engaging, but let it rest. And that is ok, too...
Kent Arrant: I could not have said it any better. You have a way with words
Sue Hollis: I well remember where I was and what I was doing that morning. Unreal
Melody Cook Von Einem: Amen.
Carolyn W. Gresham: I pray for peace in our souls, for I fear that is the only place it can exist.
Pamela Nations: There is no word other than Jesus, so delightfully powerful as the word, WAIT, to the enemy. Because with it comes feeling of anticipation....then the feeling of "well, yes it's coming".....then the words of "well perhaps we were wrong, nothing is actually going to happen"...then complacency and a feeling of false security.
Yes my dear friend, it is coming. The WORD says the thief comes when no one is watching or waiting. Yes, he's coming.
But my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ and HIS righteousness. I run to Him and am safe. He keeps me in the shadow of His wings. For me to die is gain. I will fear no evil for thy rod and thy staff is with me.
I pray America wakes up and realizes their only hope. Stay safe my friend and watch and wait.
Rod Ferguson: Could not agree with you more, Pammie. I know what time it really is. I understand fully the times we are living in. Yes, death is gain, no doubt, but I strongly feel my demise will find my remains with a sword in my hand as I will not go easy into that good night!
Lydia H. Blades: Ready or not, Jesus is coming.
Posted September 11 while still in bed
Facebook! My reality check with the entire world. Not the Drudge Report or USA today. Not even CNN or Fox News. It is Facebook. And as I slide through post after post to enlighten my fading weekend, it begins to register in my primitive mind. Well, here is EVERYTHING, I have conditioned myself, that I ever wanted to see and know. Another ISIS beheading, a picture of Barry with one of his sleezy smirks on some damn golf course. Then I gaze upon a close-up picture of "toss my medals" aka as "The Lurch," himself trying hard not to look stupid despite his ignorant self. Whew, I'm thinking, what enlightenment I have stumbled across! I MUST CONTINUE!! Up pops a picture of a snarling "dis-bared Moochelle," obviously irritated because 1st graders hate boiled squid for lunch as another round of common core reasoning proves too difficult without the guidance of a strong government. Please. Let us NOT stop here... I surf on as my fingertips help glide yet another Facebook update of none other than "the queen" herself. Lady Benhuzzie Hillary Rodham Hubble-Foster. I'm incensed. It just does not stop! All I have to do is realize that if I continue my Facebook update, I am going to encounter, without doubt, more updates on the remarkable accomplishments of or some intelligent observations made by either holder, pelosi, reed or God forbid, sharp al himself. I can hardly stand it! It is very similar to "I have to take a fast trip" to paradise itself for absolutely no reason at all. And then my friends pile on. Rod, there is an arrow at the top to Delete stuff you don't want to see, as to comfort me into deciding if I want to see or not see what is grating my charming personality. Maybe it is time I go away... Or time for "my friends" to make me go away as my cynicism and anger grows as this bull feces is continuously fed to me via "social media!" Why are we always fed a lie as the truth when we know it is a lie! And even more, why do we try to believe the lie just to sustain equilibrium into another day? I always thought of myself as having above average intelligence. Not much above average now, mind you, but still a little above average. Yet here I am, time after time after time seeking the truth in the things I am told, in what I know is a lie. Thanks Facebook!
Posted September 14 from my late afternoon home.
58 degree start on the first morning of this year's Fall season. I did not visit my river this morning, but as I walked to my automobile, I audibly noticed that my gray passerine was entertaining me after what seemed to be another long, late summer silence. The accent of another cloudless, red tinted sunrise highlighted the eastern sky as the visual promise of a new day was accompanied with the cooled promise of the coming season. This made me smile. Our Fall equinox or the "harvest season!" On my return home from a visit to Monroe this past weekend, I noticed the lights of working combines engulfed by the swirling dust clouds of their task in progress as they rake every square foot of yielding grains from the yielding fields. Next will be the cotton fields as the white boles of product peek from underneath the green, yet defoliated leaves of the mature plants. It was just yesterday I smiled as a fox squirrel scurried across the road in front of me! "Hurry little fella, you only have a couple of more weekends before an entire season is dedicated for the collection of your kind!" He too, is an item of harvest as mankind prepares for the sleep of the winter's solstice just three months away...
Posted September 23, on the first day of the fall equinox
Folkses, my favorite virus drone! I call her Gabby Gazelle Gazoo! You really can't appreciate this picture until you bring it up close and carefully observe around her sweet mouth and all down her precious little chest! A life long friend of mine, Pam Nations, asked me in my original facebook post, "What is all over her face and down her belly?" I died laughing! How could I even answer that question without an explanation? You see, I wrote about this kind of situation in my short story Attention Deficit, What in January of this year. So you see, I couldn't answer her question without vivid recall of this same interaction with my own mother when I was around 6 to 7 years of age. My answer to my friend was this, "That Pammie, is sugar! In its sweetest form! That irresistible elixir is exactly what is going to kill me in my old age! My wife has sense enough to clean "that stuff" you are inquiring about off!" With me, however, it takes me back years into my early life when I asked my mother if she ever kissed me on my butt? Her response was, "It was the only clean spot on you, boy!" Sometimes it takes a simple picture and an entire lifetime for things to become perfectly clear and focused! By the way, that is her older brother, Ashton, peering through the other side of the window!Posted September 24 from my afternoon home.
Upon the rippled disturbances of my ancient river's surface, urban life begins to stir all around me through reflective fragments. Across her depths I can hear as well as the reminding sound of a large vehicle's back up warning system alerts others of potential danger of that movement. My American flag is motionless upon its perch as the predawn insects' audible "chirps" still mingle with the sounds of man along my river's accompanying stretch. What drew me out so early this last morning of September's fade, I cannot address specifically. Yet in my mind, I am visualizing the beauty of what I know to be the tree of life and death, standing most beautiful among the trees of my habited gardens. There are no written warnings or signs to ward my approach. I did not need them! I knew to stay away. But like the majestic peaks of Denali that were visible as I gazed 300 miles to her south from Anchorage on a clear day, I knew this tree existed. I well knew the temptation of the fruit as I matured through time and was acutely aware that it was constantly present and within my reach. I first was attracted to the comfort of shade as the hot winds of summer were distilled by her leaves comforting my pause. Then the beauty of her colors became enticing as she shed fall leaves I readily collected to soften my rest as I slept among them piled. How many times did her shed branches warm my chilled body and heat my food as winters passed? I managed well to abstain from her fruit as what I found in the remarkable existence, in the forest of my world, was the necessary blocks that social interaction with something so generous and beautiful offers. And the season did come that encouraged my destiny of civil disobedience. It was not the serpent that encouraged my resolve but only my arrogant rejection of that inner guidance that allows a blind hog to find a discarded acorn. My River sighed and reminded me of the bounty within her belly had I not been so distracted by the beauty of majestic peaks so far away to the north, northwest of Anchorage. The deep croaking noise of a White Egret pauses my thoughts as in the harshness of the tone itself, I am encouraged to continue on. I will always wonder had I abstained from the fruit of that beautiful tree, what kind of man I could have become? What kind of friend my company would have made to those in need of friendship and council? What, I often wonder, could I have been? As my Mockingbird awakens and says, Good Morning, I am reminded of the price that has already been paid for my transgressions. The last day of another September may never come again in my lifetime, so let me live it to the best of my ability. So too, I ask this of you as well.
Posted from my River September 30 at the breaking of Dawn
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