Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

Dear October,

My letter for you is quite tardy and you are 15 days already gone. When I used my diary to jog my memory, I found you a month of seemingly contradictory qualities and phases. In your paradoxical days you had darkness but even in your darkness there was light, both with starlight and two full moons. So there was less darkness than light.

Rain was recorded. Some of your drops increased our water level and restored parched soil. Others fell on the meadow and came in with mud on the feet of our cows. Some of your rain drummed a sad song on our umbrellas as we clustered around an open grave. Some days were misty and overcast with low, heavy clouds. But there were far less clouds and rain than sun. Most of your days were flooded with the light of that hot ball of gas in your sky. Its distant warmth reached to us earthlings, 93 million miles away and drew us outdoors.

Three times in three different spots I shared a picnic with people I love. The sunshine begged us to do other things outdoors like cleaning out our gardens. There were weeds and dead plants but also edible foods to share. Although I don't like the worn out, spent appearance of gardens in your month, your sunshine on my face turned to happy chatter as I worked with my daughters in their gardens.

Some of your sunshine saw me blow bubbles for Bella, age 2, and play ball in my backyard with three of my grandchildren. It saw me sow lettuce in my garden even as I moved plants into my greenhouse. With my daughter I dug peony roots and planted bulbs while my husband picked corn.

But even your cloudy days were brilliant because you colored your leaves with splendor. I biked through the color on paths with my sister to visit my daughter and the beauty begged us to scale mountain heights with beloved family. Still your radiance lingered on. Still the work to gather the harvest continued. Over our fields on one of your cloudy days a helicopter carried the president of United States of America.

When you began your days, you were only a few days away from the equinox but as you grew old, your days brought us closer to the winter solstice with longer evenings...........to play in the attic with grandchildren, to read good books, to sew, to memorize a song, to write.

Now that I read over your days, I see that I was so blessed even while I live in a cursed world. I saw young souls be baptized in the name of Jesus and so know we have life if we have the Son. (1 John 5:12) even as we faced death and saw that all flesh is as grass (1 Peter 1:24).

I saw health in the clear eyes of my grandchildren and but also took my dad to the doctor. Illness and loss plagued us and I saw that "all the glory of man is as the flower of grass."

On the way to Piney Creek church I read in the last chapter of "Seven Days," a classic by Charles M. Sheldon, these words: "It is astonishing how many good deeds and good men pass through this world unnoticed and unappreciated, while every evil deed is caught up and magnified and criticized by press and people, until it seems as if the world must be a very wicked place indeed and the good people very scarce."

So I beg your pardon, October, if I have pondered more on the evil in your days, the curse, the death, the darkness, the loss, the pain, the sickness, the grief instead of the good, the blessing, the life, the light, the victory, the peace, the health and the joy. Even though there were less songs in your days, they were there in my mind and they are coming back on my lips. After trials and hardships, words in songs have new meaning.

"Sitting at the feet of Jesus, Where I love to kneel and pray, Till His goodness and His glory drive the shadows from my way."

Thank-you for the lessons I have learned in your paradoxical days.

Good-bye.