Counting the Gifts {Multitudes on Mondays}

How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days. ~John Burroughs

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in.

~Leonard Cohen

We went hiking with some dear friends today...a true Indian Summer day.  We all walked with a kind of knowing...that this day was a precious gift of warmth and color and stillness. They say the wind is coming tomorrow and it will blow in change so today was an opportunity to just hang there in the balance. 

And in that magical place, where the light and colors danced and bobbed and sang, the gifts were obvious:

-the joy of friends with whom you can walk and talk and revel in all that is around you, all at the same time

-the lingering warmth of a full October sun that gently whispers, "remember me come January..."

-crunchy leaves and laughing voices

-an amazing creation that sings "Glory" at every turn.  Days like today leave me reeling in the richness of God's creativity and the unleashing of what can only be described as JOY on the day He set the world spinning

-sweet and gentle walkingsticks that scurry across arms and necks and faces and then, just as quickly, disappear among the cedars

-the way sunlight on the river can dance and play "like diamonds"

-the kind of weariness that comes from moving and playing and looking...really looking...and causes you to sink deep under the covers