The Change of Seasons

O Master,
holy and incomprehensible God,
You bid light to shine out of darkness.
After giving us rest in the sleep of night,
you have raised us up to glorify You
and petition Your goodness.
Receive us who now worship You
and reneder You what thanks we can.
Grant all our requests
that will advance our salvation.
Make us children of light and day
and heirs of Your eternal good things.

O Lord,
in Your great mercy,
be mindful of all here present
praying with us
as well as all our brothers and sisters
in need of Your love and help
on land,
at sea,
or in any place of Your dominion,
and grant them Your great mercy.
Thus, saved in soul and body,
we may use the free speech of friends
to glorify forever Your wondrous and blessed name.
Byzantine Liturgy


I noticed this morning on the weather map that people all across the nation are feeling the cool of Autumn. It is good after such heat and dryness we have had through the late Summer months to have a change and feel the hope of the next year on the horizon.
Yesterday we recieved our first Autumn rain. I know it isn't Fall yet on the calendar, but you certainly can feel it in the air. We recieved an inch of rain out of the storm yesterday and when you are in an area that normally gets only 11 inches or so a year it seems like a lot of rain. Usually, rainstorms here amount to a few drops that are about 2 inches apart on the ground. We call that a two-inch rain here.
My son Kade has been sick with a sinus infection and he was debating whether to go to football practice or not during the rainstorm. It was quite cool, only 50 degrees and raining hard when we saw a bright flash on the mountainside out the south window. It, of course, was lightning. Soon, there was a deep peal of thunder that rolled for nearly a minute and at the last, one final boom that shook our windows and the dishes in the cupboard. That must have been one mighty bolt of lightning!
Kade, needless to say, went to practice anyhow and the coach was good enough to realize that there were a lot of kids sick with colds and didn't make them practice too hard or get very wet. THANK GOODNESS!
I took the photo above after the storm went through and the sun was setting. It is to the South-East of our home. I loved the way the clouds hung low over the mountain and turned a soft pink in the sky.
The field you see in the foreground is a sileage corn field that has just been chopped. They worked right on through the storm because the corn had dried so much because of the late summer heat that it was short of moisture and won't cook in the pit when they pack it in like it should. The rain helped them out.
It helped me out with my allergies as well.
God, I believe, knew that we all needed a little help right now.