A strong November wind has finally stripped our trees. My woods finally look like Robert Frost’s poem My November Guest. “My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; . . . She’s glad the birds are gone away, she’s glad her simple worsted gray is silver now with clinging mist. . . Not yesterday I learned to know the love of bare November days before the coming of the snow, . . .”
I am thankful our earth is tilted on its axis. Should it not be we would have no seasons. Depending where one lived on earth would determine a sameness to everyday. There would be 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night at the equator. There would be eternal evening on the poles. But as it is I rejoice in the coming of the snow and after a white feast I thrill at the bursting of spring with all its daffodils and crocuses.
It is Thanksgiving week and time to revel in the richness of life, which has little or nothing to do with one’s bank account. It is about life. It is about love and friends. It is about the thrill of learning something new each day. Even though we have our aches, pains, and worse for some – it is about the hope that Jesus has promised us – an eternity of life without those aches and pains, without the separation from loved ones.
And so I look out my window and pull my sweater just a bit more snug. I hope somewhere in heaven there will be snow – lots of snow. Somewhere there will be gray worsted days.
Written by Roger Bothwell on November 21, 2016
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