Fall begins a new season, the trees burst into a colorful cacophony of brilliant scarlet, crimsons, mustard, and vibrant oranges. It is one of my favorite times of the year. This year though I was wondering how it would be. There are so many memories tied up in the fall months, births and birthdays, surgeries and hospital stays, engagements and weddings, holidays and hospice. That is quite a mix of wonderful and lousy memories. Everyday Facebook delivers this mixture of good and bad recollections.

I have been enjoying listening to  Josh Garrels lately, his music speaks to my poetic soul. Today on my walk I heard one that I haven’t heard before, Desert Father.

He’s singing
Follow my road to sorrow and joy
Be intertwined
And find
All things are under my wings
And rise
Given time

So poignant. Follow the road to(ward)  sorrow AND joy. They are intertwined. they are laced so tightly together that often they cannot be separated and it can be a truly beautiful thing.

I woke up to fog today, literal fog, and I went for a walk in it. Gray and dreary to some, I find fog to be mysterious and beautiful. I drove home from Tennessee a couple of weeks ago in the fog, down a mountain where I could see only the lights of the car in front of me. Every so often the fog would clear enough to reveal the many cars and trucks surrounding me. I thought it would only take one wrong move on someone’s part and there could be a horrible accident. I just kept my eyes ahead and followed the lights.

As I was walking today there was the gray fog with brilliant yellow, orange, and reds superimposed upon one another. The gray makes the vivid colors even more dazzling. I felt God telling me to just look up, look ahead. Gray and bright do belong together just like sorrow and joy. This also goes back to the idea of open-handed living. Accepting from  God the circumstances of our life and holding everything loosely. Living with the expectation of the beauty in both the good and bad, joy and sorrow, tears and laughter.

So this Fall as we begin to walk toward the holidays, birthdays, through remembrances of hospice,  surgeries, and illness, toward the last moments we had with Sonny, I choose to live with expectation. Expecting to be sad. Expecting for birthdays and holidays to be difficult. BUT  expecting joy and laughter in new and beautiful moments and memories to be made.

But we run free
And weep gracefully
In a world
Dark and cold
Hold on
All you
Who wait by the blue shores
For Him

Josh Garrels, Desert Father