falling into autumn

I’m willing to admit, finally, that summer is really over. I say this as I gaze out my window at trees on fire with orange and read leaves, at the crisp colours that only seem to exist in the fall. The mountains tower in the distance, sharper and darker than they were all summer, and now is when I begin the watch for the first dusting of snow atop the mountains to be revealed one rain clouds part.

It’s the beginning of a long season of deep faithfulness. For me, part of what makes me who I am is the geography of Vancouver. Strange, I know, but the mountains and hills and inlets and river hold me and hold the land in a way that I always know where I am, and I have a sense of the scale of myself in the face of the scale of grandeur around me. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way.

I find that the mountains (and the thick opaque rain clouds that block the view) are a good reminder that there is something much bigger and more powerful than I at work in the world, of which I am only a small piece. I like the grace that is implicit in this idea - it means that I don’t have to do or be everything to everyone, I don’t have to try and fix everyone and everything, it means I can find my small place, my small piece, and do that well. I want to practise more and more vulnerably falling into the arms of grace, the mountains, much stronger than I, and let them hold me.