~ Autumn Carpet ~
I love autumn, the time of year when changes are evident in colorful array. Even as a child, my siblings and I looked forward to the start of another school year. Our children also loved school. Tommy, as a preschooler, would go to each window and watch as his three older siblings went off to school and then wait expectantly for their return. We would play homeschool (before I knew of such), and every activity, even making the bed, became a school assignment.
At Asbury College where Bill taught, we looked forward to students returning, and they looked younger each year. In church, the programs revved up for the fall. At home a more structured routine kept activities in line, connecting members better. In nature, the colors of autumn always delight us with the changes from green to golden hues.
One autumn while driving through town with two young grandsons, I tried to teach them their colors, calling out the various shades. I asked them to look for the yellow, orange, red, and purple leaves. Wes asked me why I did not say brown. “Brown is a color too,” he taught me.
I love autumn, thankful for God’s wisdom in creation. Autumn is necessary between summer and winter, turning the freshness and heat of one season and preparing for the eventual hibernation and cold of the next. Autumn is the chapter before the last one in the cycle.
Ann Coker 