Nature has so much to teach us about life. The changing of the seasons, the turning of leaves, shorter days and longer nights. Autumn especially reminds us of life's ever-changing movements. The ebb and flow and the beautiful continuity of the cycle of living and dying, hope and renewal, and suffering amidst joy. 

Living in the shadow of death reminds us of the impermanence of life on this earthly realm. The blessing in this reality is that we discover a new reverence for the love that colors our lives in Beauty.   

When someone dies, our perception shifts, at least for a time, and we awaken to what really matters.  Humbled, we remember who we are in Love’s embrace.

I offer the following as prayer.

“And who does not want to be treated with Love?” Mary Southard CSJ

Help me remember today that I am holy; that I have been called to be a vessel of grace.  Let me spend my time and energy as a holy person would, whether in great deeds or humble drudgery.  Let every act and every encounter be sacred, ever moment be a flowing of good gifts.  May light be born in me.   

-Steve Garnaas-holmes     

Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes—
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.

Except form poem by Jan Richardson

May you come to see your life as a quiet sacrament of service,

which awakens around you a rhythm where doubt gives way to the grace of wonder,

where what is awkward and strained can find elegance

and where crippled hope can find wings, and torment enter at last unto the grace of serenity.

May Divine Beauty bless you.

John O’ Donohue, excerpt from Beauty -The Invisible Embrace

 Liz Sorensen Wessel
Artwork by ~liz