Autumnal musings

The days are turning cooler here in Northern Virginia. The leaves have begun to change color, and the nights are getting crisp. The smell of burning leaves is already in the air and the school buses gather and discharge their daily loads of chattering children. The sunlight has turned from the bluish white heat of summer to the golden longing of autumn. Soon there will be pumpkin pies and fires in the fireplace and the long nights turning colder. Orion will be visible and the big dipper will drop low in the sky.

This autumn marks seven years since my loving wife and I were married. It also marks her birthday (don't even think I'm going to tell you which one!) This year I will get the Masters degree that I have worked (and spent thousands of dollars) for.

This year we have changed churches, and we are finding some of the same problems at the new one as at the old one. No church is perfect, because no person is perfect.And the leadership at this church seems more open to change. We are still learning people's names, but we are excited with the new fellowship.

My job has continued for now and whether the Mark Foley scandal will be enough to give the Democrats the House remains to be seen. I have worked in Democratic Administrations and Republican Administrations. They are both equally useless.

There have been some internal changes this autumn. God is working on my heart. Old beliefs are giving way to new ones. Old habits are dying and new ones are sprouting.

There have been days when I thought I could barely make it through I was so tired. There have also been days I wanted to bottle and hold and save. I have cried some days and laughed so hard other days I thought I would break open.

The Redskins suck. Again. But people keep hoping that they will be like the teams that won the Super Bowl. Hope springs eternal for some.

One of my good friends from school is in Djibouti. He misses his wife and kids and they miss him. Desperately. Yet his wife seems to have a strength that I admire. Somehow, she makes it through without him, waiting for him to come home.

I still have dialup Internet, which makes loading photos or other big documents slow. I hate it. But I don't want a $100 cable bill to speed things up. So we get through. Slowly.

I wish I could take days like today and absorb them, like the ground does the dew. Then when the world was cold, or cruel, or ugly, I could let out some of the beauty that surrounds me. Then the world would seem better, if only for a little while.