Ode to Fall

I decided to write a few haiku verses related to this extraordinary Fall we are having here in Tennessee and from the observation of others also experiencing a beautiful Fall.

Leaf of God

Sitting at my desk
Music played from my CD
Something caught my eye.

Bright colored leaves danced
To the tune of the music
God was in each leaf.

Blue Skies

A fall blue sky can
Turn many shades all day long
Drawing me upwards.

Deep turquoise sparkles
Like gemstones in the ocean
And the blue was God.

The Last Flower

A pink rose stands tall
As the last flower to bloom
On my patio table.

It is very cold
And yet the flower speaks
Saying I am one with God.

Eternal Day

Life is one Eternal Day. Grasping this concept has not been easy and I must confess I work on it time and again. Basically there are two ways to measure time, chronological- using numbers to count the days or Kairos which literally means the “right or opportune moment,” or Divine time.

We have heard that even Albert Einstein concurred late in life that the past, present and future all exist simultaneously. He had already proven that time was relative not absolute like Newton believed. Later scientist Richard Feynman developed an interpretation of the quantum mechanics describing time as simply a direction in space. Professor Stephen Hawking has sense developed a theory, entitled “Imaginary Time” in which time has no boundary. “It would just BE.”

For me the question is not when does time begin and end but the challenge of living in the divine present moment. I know a man who just learned that he has at least two aneurisms that could explode at any time. A prestigious university hospital has told him to go home and live his life as usual; come back in six months and they will rethink surgery. Has this man been given a gift that is a blessing or a curse? Every day he will wake now knowing that something inside his body could at any instant stop time as he sees it ending his life. But then, the aneurisms were there before he knew of them. Why is it different; because he now knows about them? I wonder can he live each day as both the last day of his life and at the same time the first day of the rest of his life. But isn’t that we are all called to do every day? -To live each day fully and completely.

So if life is one Eternal Day with no beginning and no end; no past, no present; no future then what is life? It is timeless. And when we put down the burden of time, live in the present moment then we are making room for grace. Grace is living in a timeless trust in God in the here and now – the moment – this one Eternal Day. And the real challenge for me is am I strong enough to wake each day and not only say, “This is a good day to live!” but also say, “This is a good day to die.”

"Go Live"

Yesterday, I met with the board of the Chattanooga Writers Guild in a workshop/planning session to start the new year. It was a successful meeting and we accomplished a lot. There are four new members on the board this year. So we spent part of the session getting to know one another.

One new member could not be at the meeting because his company rolled over a new product and it was “Going Live.” Someone asked what that meant and so another member explained saying that when a new product is worked on some times for months and other times as much as a year and is ready to go into production or made public for the first time, the term is “going live.”

Having heard this term before from my son and two daughter-in-laws who have at one time or another “gone live” in their own line of work, I was familiar with the term. But the explanation this member used was like the goalie in a hockey match. When he fails to block the puck and the other team scores, bells and whistles go off telling all in the arena that this goalie just messed up big time. And so it is when a company goes live, every department or person is exposed and if something fails bells and whistles don’t go off, but everyone knows who caused the failure.

I made the comment after the explanation that I go live every day of my life. And as soon as I said it I realized the truth in that statement. Everything I do in my life, I am accountable for – no one else. And when I fail at doing what I’m supposed to do there are repercussions. I won’t hear bells and whistles, but I will know that I didn’t do justice to what I said I’d do. Or I didn’t make good on the promise I made. And why would anyone want to live like that?

I don’t. So that is why I live each day with purpose so that it will be a Perfect Day. I wake to a bright new dawn and “Go Live” living my life as God intends me to live it.