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FROM THE HEART It is harvest time. Lord, it is harvest time. The ripe fields are being cut, their full grains carried away by conveyors into waiting trucks, then driven off to storage bins. Huge wagons loaded with baled grasses move like awkward prehistoric animals through the country roads, groaning with the weight of their burden. Apples and pears, sweet and full, are sorted into wooden crates to be the central joy of craft festivals. Root vegetables are being dug and hidden in dark cellars against the threat of winter. Everywhere the reaping of fruit and grains and grasses celebrate the faithful work of spring planting and hot summer cultivation. This, Lord, is the season to rejoice, the season to enjoy, the season to rest from labor and to dance in streets and county roads- around warm bonfires. I feel it in my bones, Lord. I, too, am entering the season of harvest. For so long I have wondered what I would be when I grew up. For so long I have done, as faithfully as I knew, just what the day demanded of me: daily tasks, tending children, meeting deadlines, passing out love, finishing routines. All of the while I felt as if one day I would “turn out”- to do something special- be something when I grew up. Now, half a century of my days have passed doing “regular” things the best I knew. I smell the smoke of autumn fires, and feel the days shortening. I hear the rustle of “gathering in.” I can see now, that the daily being was what I was to do. Even now, my days are so “regular,” my chores so unspectacular. Yet I feel a festival in the air. My grandchildren dance in the leaves on the hillside. My husband hurries home to be warmed by hot soup and a fire in the kitchen hearth and by our well-rested love. My work has, on wings of its own, found its way into places I will never go, but joy has returned on the wind to sing at the festival. Yes, this is harvest time. The fruit is ripe and sweet. Help me, Lord, to see the life You’ve given me in a new and joyful perspective. Help me to embrace the process of seasons. May the harvest bonfires be a sweet incense to Your nostrils, too. Because He Lives,
Taken from Simple Book of Prayers
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