A few November thoughts.

November proudly shows itself on the calender today, bringing with it thoughts of colder, and invariably wetter, weather. It's a time for walking through the forest, places like Delamere Forest in Cheshire, a corner of which is pictured above. a time for scuffing through pile of autumn leaves, red, gold and brown, and of walks in the early morning mists. A time for reflection as the year continues to ready itself for a period of rest whilst it prepares for the renewal that Spring will bring with it in a few months time.


But there are many other thoughts which spring to mind with the onset of this month, not least of all are the thoughts about Thanksgiving Day in the USA, with wonderful meals and a time for families to gather together, often with family members travelling hundreds of miles to attend the annual gathering.


Having shared in Thanksgiving Day myself a few years back, when visiting with family in Virginia, I have often thought that it is a tradition that we would do well to emulate here in the UK. One good reason is that it's good to have real family get-togethers, sharing what would be regarded in the UK as a 'Christmas Meal', exchanging Thanksgiving gifts, and enjoying a Public Holiday, but it goes beyond that as well.


If you put all of this effort into celebrating Thanksgiving, then it leaves you free to celebrate Christmas for the right reason rather than using it as an excuse to have too much to eat and drink. So much of the Christmas celebration is pagan in origin, and so little reflects the real reason for the celebration, which is the opportunity to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.


If we celebrated Thanksgiving Day then it would be a day for all to celebrate, regardless of their faith or lack of it. Christmas could then be celebrated by those of the Christian Faith who want to celebrate the Festival with reverence, reflection and hope. 

I love the harvest!

I've often said how much I love the autumn with all the rich colours that it displays, and what better example could we have than the rich colours of the autumn harvest that will be displayed in so many churches at their Harvest Festival services.

Autumnal Beauty: God paints the colours for His creation

 Scroll through these pictures and marvel at God's creation, all of which calls us to worship and praise Him!

October sunshine and all that . . .

Today, for the third day in a row, the sun is shining, making everyone feel better than they did when the skies were leaden with rain clouds. There's something magical about the countryside and open spaces on a sunny autumn day with the sun shining down and yet still an autumnal nip in the air; not so much cold as fresh.  


This is the weather to go  walking, whether along country lanes or up in the mountains, on your own or in a group. My own preference is to either be on my own or with one companion, as I like to soak up the beauty of my surroundings, perhaps later using all that I've seen and experienced in my writing.


Of course, I've often mentioned before that the Autumn is perhaps my favourite time of the year, especially with the amazing colours that assault the senses wherever your eyes happen to light upon. The golds and browns that are so rich and so varied, and also the amazing range of reds that have the ability to enrich your soul. 


Autumn is an in-between time. A time when the labours of summer --- the crops from garden and field --- are brought into churches to give thanks at the Harvest Festival Services that abound, particularly in the early part of October. The displays have a pungent beauty of their own, the delicious odour of apples mingling with the heady floral scents, all combining to create an overall autumnal perfume that has the evocative power to bring back memorable moments from years ago. 

As Autumn turns to Winter

The last few days have seen a slight change in the weather, with colder days and nights. In fact we've had to have the heating on low for a few hours on several occasions, and this serves to remind me that the Autumn, which I probably love the best, is slowly petering out in order to make way for Winter. 

Winter is rather a bully I think, in the manner in which it blusters and forces its way in to our lives, crushing the warmer days of Autumn, with the reds and golds being consigned to the scrap heap as the starkness of Winter takes over. Yet, despite this bullying attitude, there is something quite majestic about all that Winter brings with it. Cold days, yes, but then the cold clears away the many bugs and germs that would otherwise lay us low in our beds for days at a time, and so the cold  ---  which after all, we can wrap up against --- should perhaps be welcomed rather than shunned.


The onset of cold, darker evenings also brings to mind so many things and occasions from past years as well. Things like the way in which the neon lighting of the shops reflects on wet roads and pavements, and the manner in which your breath seems to hang in the air as you hurry about, much quicker than you did in the balmy days of Summer and Autumn, as though spurred on by the remembered thought of roaring fires in the hearth and a plate of hot soup on the table.


Do you remember, dear reader, (at least, those of you who live in Western climes), the way that ice would form on the inside of bedroom windows during the Winter months, back in the days before central heating. And what about travelling on the top of a double-decker bus when the heating either didn't work or was distinctly inadequate, allowing ice to form on the inside of the windows and causing you to shiver throughout your journey homeward. Jumping out of bed on a Winter's morning usually meant that you got cold feet on the linoleum, unless you were fortunate enough to enjoy the luxury of a rectangular rug alongside your bed. 


Even if the fire had been lit in the dining room and lounge it was unlikely that any heat from that would have travelled upward, and so bathing meant standing in a freezing cold bathroom, and certainly no lingering under a hot shower when we were children. Breakfast was more substantial as a child than it tends to be today, with many people now hurrying down a slice or two of toast and a cup of tea or coffee, before rushing to get to school or work in time. As a child, breakfast in the Winter was a steaming plate of hot porridge which would, so our mother informed us, put a good lining on our stomachs which would "set us up against the cold." Nor was that all, for it would be followed by a fried breakfast according to your taste, which included bacon, eggs, sausage, tomato and, on special occasions, perhaps a few mushrooms. 


Mushrooms! I recall many an Autumnal morning as a boy, spent walking across the nearby fields, paper bag in hand, looking for mushrooms, the clinging morning mist swirling around me and making my clothing damp. The dew was heavy on the grass which guaranteed cold hands as you reached down to pick the white buttons that promised such delight to your taste-buds in another hour. Once I got home and they were prepared and served up on a slice of toast, the experience of collecting them was one to be savoured for the joy it ultimately gave rather than remembered for the cold and the damp that accompanied the experience.


There was something very special about being out on the land in the early hours, at a time when often even the birds, after their jubilant dawn chorus, seemed to fall silent, perhaps cowed by the mist that enveloped everything. The feeling that you got as you walked across the fields was one of isolation from the world, and yet fearlessly at one with your surroundings. No longer were you an alien traveller, more just another integral part of the changing landscape, and that made you appreciate the world a little more.


What is it that makes us turn our thoughts back to our youth as we get older? Is it that, in retrospect, our youth often seems to be a more secure place to be, particularly nowadays, the way that the world has become a more violent place to be. Many folk now become part-time prisoners in their own homes as a result of the fear of venturing out at night, whether the fear is a necessary reality or an imagined one. Perhaps it's just that time tints our memories to rose-coloured so that we filter out the bad and recall only the good times, places and events. Whatever the reason, I guess that stored memories that can be recalled and that have the ability to allow us to relive times past for a few moments once again, are a valuable asset, bringing with them the feelings of love and warmth from early childhood once again. They allow you to recall, with comparative ease, parents and siblings, schoolteachers and shopkeepers, and the friends who helped to build you into the person you became by the influences that they had on your life.


Yes, it's true that I love the Autumn the best, with its ornate display of finery and flashes of Autumnal sunshine, but I guess that every other season is pretty close on Autumn's heels, because each season has something special to give to us. Learning how to find it and appreciate it is one of the greatest and yet simplest joys of living.

A Walk in Delamere Forest

I love the Autumn! There is something about wandering through Delamere Forest on an Autumn day that feeds the soul. The sights, sounds and smells are unique to the time of the year and take me back to times spent wandering through other woods and by other stretches of water years ago in my boyhood.

Below is a picture of what I think of as 'The endless path'. Of course, there is a beginning and an end to it, yet when you are wandering along this pathway it seemingly can go on for ever. Oh, to never lose the imagination of childhood, when the world was seen through innocent eyes and nature provided so much fuel for the developing mind.

Glorious Autumn!

I love this time of the year! I love the colours of hedgerow and woodland especially, with the array of rich golds, reds and chocolate browns. Here's a few pictures to inspire you for today, and hopefully let you marvel at the beauty of God's creation.

'Winter Blues' : Some Thoughts about Dark Mornings

I really hate the dark mornings! After all, it's more natural to be in bed when it's dark than it is to be getting out of bed. I guess that goes back to our caveman ancestry when, just like the bears, we retire into the safety of our cave once it gets dark and stay there until it's daylight. Getting up in the dark means that it takes longer to be properly awake, and that means that it's easy to be a little bit grumpy --- a bit bear-headed.

Give me the summer mornings any day. In fact, give them to me every day if you can! On those mornings I'm happy to be up more-or-less at sunrise, and I'm usually to be found in the most cheerful of moods to boot. Even if it's raining I'm still cheerful. I think it has everything to do with the amount of light that streams into my consciousness.

I remember listening to a discussion on the radio one afternoon when I ran a candle factory in Newtown, Mid Wales. I suppose that I was sort of half-listening, as you do, when suddenly I started to take note of the discussion. It was about something called 'Seasonally Affected Disorder' or SAD for short, and as I listened, now more intently, I recognised the description of the feelings that many of us often have in the winter on dark mornings. Ever since, as a result of that programme, if I feel a little depressed because of the dark morning, instead of thinking that I should be crawling back into my cave I turn the brightest lights on and soon the feeling of 'being down' is gone.

Mind you, I often get a feeling of 'being down' when I look at the night sky as well, for the stars are so well hidden by the glow of the light pollution that fills the atmosphere around our towns and even many villages. Gone are the days when you could just look up at the sky and see the carpet of stars laid out in all their glory on a crisp winter night. When I lived in Africa we had no such problem, even living on the city outskirts, and I could look up into the heavens night after night and see the glory that God has placed there. It was the most awesome sight!

One day, we are told in Scripture, when we are in Heaven, we'll not need light from the sun or the moon or any sort of artificial light, for we'll have all the light we need shining from the Glory of God Himself. How wonderful that will be! There'll be no more 'Winter Blues' then.

An Autumn Trip to Delamere Forest

Yesterday afternoon we took Sam for a walk in Delamere Forest, which is a beauty spot just a few miles from where we live with lots of trees, lots of water and lots of walks.

Sam loves a walk in the forest as much as we do.

He enjoyed rooting amongst the leaves and discovering lots of new smells!

Plenty of water as well as trees helps to make this forest even more of a special place to experience.

There were so many great walks to choose from.

Waterfowl abound on the great expanses of the mere.

All in all a great place to go for a walk or just to wander and think, all the time appreciating the beauty of the surroundings and praising God for His wonderful creation. These are a few pictures that I took whilst we were there. Hope you like them!

Pure Gold!

I love the colours of Autumn or, as some of you would say, the Fall. I guess it's partly because I'm a Leo, and that's supposed to mean that I'm attracted to all the golden range of colours. Somehow there's something special about going for a walk on an Autumn day with the carpet of leaves under your feet and the richness of the trees that almost dazzles your eyes. WOW! How often have you wished you had your camera with you to capture the moment forever!

Then there is the fun of it all at this time of year; the sort of thing that stirs your childhood memories into screen once again. There is something about falling backwards into a pile of leaves, or simply rushing at them and taking a kick that sends them scattering to and fro, that makes you laugh with happiness. Children do these things naturally, but when you grow up you become reticent about such actions and hold back from them. Yet when you give in to the urge occasionally then the fun of the occasion comes to the fore!

I guess that one of the lessons that we can learn from this is that it's good to be like little children sometimes. Jesus recognised this when He said "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me." (NAS Matthew 18:3).

Perhaps the next time you see a pile of Autumn leaves, as you give it a hearty kick you'll think of our Lord's words and be happy that you've found the secret of eternal childhood!