Hello November

Like someone had planned it, the weather swept in cool and damp the day before Halloween providing the local children a calm dark evening to creep along the streets in search of candy. Scenes from an old paperback novel recreated themselves around us as we made our trip. Autumn leaves dancing on the wind, little puddles reflecting the headlights of the car, and a slight scent of burning wood wafting over the world around us as we proceeded past the houses with fires in their fireplaces and bite sized candies by the front door.

Anxiously the world watched as a magically evening made children and adult alike pretend to be something more. Something more playful, or scary, something without bills sitting on their desk or work in their inbox. That is what Halloween has become for me. It used to be a pagan holiday filled with so much fellowship for me that the first year of my Christianity it was like trying to avoid the best drug I'd ever had. Last year I was graced with a newborn and halloween was just a flicker on my radar. But this year, I worried would be the year I longed for what I used to be... what I used to do... what I used to know.

Then it was here and I ensured myself that with a busy schedule and a toddler I wouldn't even notice but I still awoke that morning moarning the magic of what used to be. There was a long and silent prayer to God in my heart. A prayer for peace... I suppose.

I guess I shouldn't have been suprised when I noticed the world around me was still magical. I shouldn't have been suprised when I started to see God where I had once seen a different kind of magic. After all he was always there. He was the wind that lifted the leaves around me, he was the light that reflected in the puddle, he was the warmth that came from the fires glow. I had been looking in the wrong place.

So now it is November and once again, like so many times before I find myself making a hard and conscience effort to see it. To open my eyes and let the season of thanksgiving and the season of hope glitter in the little things around me. The little things that remind me of where I came from, where I am, where I am going and of the faith that was always with me.