Dearly Beloved,
What amazing artwork we have collected in the narthex and sanctuary -- from artwork created by our youngest children to elaborate quilts, sketches and a pastel, pottery, stitchery, woodwork and photographs. I hope you will take some time over the next few weeks to look over these pieces that capture, for the creator, something about "growing in God's love." If you have art that you would like to add, please feel free to bring it in during office hours or on Sunday morning and find a good spot for it.
This coming Sunday, we are celebrating and blessing all those heading back to school. We will hand out backpack tags and bless our students, educators and school workers, and the family members of those heading back to school. I hope you will join us for that.
As we move slowly but surely out of summer's long lazy days and into autumn, I wanted to share this excerpt from a poem written by 13-year old Helen Keller:
Oh, what a glory doth the world put on
These peerless, perfect autumn days
There is a beautiful spirit of gladness everywhere.
The wooded waysides are luminous with brightly painted leaves;
The forest-trees with royal grace have donned
Their gorgeous autumn tapestries;
And even the rocks and fences are broidered
With ferns, sumachs and brilliantly tinted ivies.
But so exquisitely blended are the lights and shades,
The golds, scarlets and purples, that no sense is wearied;
For God himself hath painted the landscape.
The hillsides gleam with golden corn;
Apple and peach-trees bend beneath their burdens of golden fruit.
The golden-rods, too, are here, whole armies of them,
With waving plumes, resplendent with gold;
And about the wild grapes, purple and fair and full of sunshine,
The little birds southward going
Linger, like travelers at an Inn,
And sip the perfumed wine.
And far away the mountains against the blue sky stand
Calm and mysterious, like prophets of God,
Wrapped in purple mist.
May that beautiful spirit of gladness be with you and those whom you love as children head back to college and school, as many of us return to school work and the routines of the school year. I look forward to being with you on Sunday!
With peace and much love,
Thandiwe
