( Art by Chris Lawton)

Dear Reader:

Maybe it is all the retailers that started the scrunched-in feeling between Halloween and Christmas… because this time of the year feels “off” for me. It doesn’t help that Halloween has to share Christmas at department stores, retailers, drug stores, etc…while poor Thanksgiving is lucky to have a pilgrim or two around with maybe a turkey.

Then we throw daylight savings time into the mix and my biological clock is completely off-key. Yesterday as darkness descended a little before six I felt slightly like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland …that I was “late for a very important date.” The problem was there was no date…just an uneasy feeling that I was lagging behind some kind of schedule…but not sure what schedule that was?

It feels like some kind of purgatory Advent season before the official Advent season. (We are actually a month away from the start of this year’s season.) So what is throwing me off?

Yesterday our church had their special All Saints’ Day service. It is always a beautiful service. The theme this year was  ‘Angels’  so I pulled out my favorite angel “Gloria” (the klutzy little angel who never got anything right- but who ended up getting the most important message right as she announces the birth of Jesus.)

…And then a little God Wink for an extra prop this year for the story…Kaitlyn had brought me back an Irish fairy-angel from Dingle, Ireland and with just a little help she became Gloria from the book illustrator’s imagination…it is always a fun story to tell. *And thank you Kevin for allowing our own ‘heavenly’ choir to help tell the story…you are our Gabriel with “Angels We Have Heard on High!”

After church the congregation went outside to the Memorial Garden where Harry and his wife Susan Johnson  donated the most beautiful angel statue in memory of Harry’s sister. So moving.

I think it is the lack of rain that has slowed down the process of the colorful autumn leaves this year…but yesterday, for the first time, it did start to look more like fall. The grandchildren’s Japanese Maples are slowly starting to turn. Eva Cate, Rutledge, Jakie, and Lachlan.

I think sometimes Mother Nature gets confused too with the seasonal transitions…somehow she never gets the ‘office email’ telling her the dates of the upcoming holidays and how each holiday should look outside in her domain.

But the urgent feeling of waiting for something or Someone persists…and I if had to take a guess…I would guess God. I think I need to get Him back on my calendar and then everything else will fall into place. Somehow I think He got scrunched out too….stuck between the pilgrims and the turkey.

I am slowly realizing how important it was on Christmas Day that God “chose to dive into our daily lives with us and not leave us until the end…now that is worth waiting for…”  ( Quinn Caldwell)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh