harvest time

One of my favorite writers, Sarah Clarkson, had some wonderful thoughts on her blog, thoroughlyalive.com, this week.  Needless to say, I agree wholeheartedly.

“I’m having a harvest time of soul this year. It’s funny, on this road trip, in the quiet of my driving hours I have found the freedom to step back and take stock of my life. The ruts of worry and emotion in which I had become mired at home were left behind, and I found myself able to see what is good and sweet in my life, even as I still wait for some prayers to come true. I have been counting up the harvest of books read, of friendships strengthened by walking hard roads, of knowledge gained in lonely hours, of family loved in quiet evenings. I have found the harvest of this year to be more than I thought.

An indrawing, October of the soul – perhaps we all need it. Maybe we all need a space of quiet, even a couple of hours in which to pull up sharp from the rush of living and count up all that has grown. An hour in which to sit, aware of the minute in which we sit, be it dappled by light on a front porch, or woven with the flicker of a fireside evening, and count in slow cadence the number of graces that lighten our days. It’s an exercise to bring joy, to gladden the heart, that’s for sure. But I also think we need it because, well, winter is coming. Days of cold, days when the summer sun cannot break through will come to us, perhaps already have. The noticing of the goodness that persists, daily, in our lives, will bring us through the cold. We can be hale and hearty even in the winter of spirit if we gathered well and stocked up grace in the harvest time.”