What hath God wrought Numbers:23,23

I took a walk after dinner along the road cresting our subdivision. The air is refreshingly cooler than it has been. I walked a little farther than usual, looping away from the clubhouse toward an older area where the trees are denser and the houses snuggle into swales and small clearings. It is quiet and still. An invisible   robin calls from the thickets, announcing that evening time has come. A few voices drift from neighbors gathered on their deck and a dog barks as I walk past his domain.  Suddenly, a doe and her twins bound ahead of me on the roadway, turn   and bounce out of view. Otherwise I am the only one about.

Summer is waning. I’ve noticed signs of fall for several weeks as the snowberries have come on even in late July. Overnight the underbrush has turned orange and yellow. Thick clusters of blue-black elderberries overhang the roadway  while here and there a maple is starting to show off its colors. Grasses have dried out, their seed heads blown everywhere by the wind. But it is the air which smells different, light which falls more obliquely that is a sure sign of the changing season.

I stop at one of my favorite spots, a clearing which opens up like an exposed window onto the winding road below. From here I can see all the way across the valley toward the eastern slopes of the mountains still bathed pale rose in lingering sunlight. Over the years I’ve stopped here many times. The view never changes and at the same time is never the same. That is the wonder that gives me pause. There are always minute changes in what seems to be unchanging. No matter how often I stop in the same place something is different. A tree grows taller. A tree falls. Clouds drift by in marvelous unique formations. Deer appear out of nowhere. The wonder and grandeur of what God has wrought never ceases to amaze and humble.

O Lord how manifold are your works

In wisdom you have made them all. Psalm 104:24

It is easy to pray tonight as I walk, to remember that God is near. It is easy to thank God for blessing my life with safety and beauty. All I have to do is look around. All I have to do is walk and listen to the evening unfolding. Here in the darkening stillness I find the peace which has eluded me all day.