Starting Down the Rabbit Hole....

I wrote this for my church newsletter - and should have posted it here a couple of weeks ago. However, I think my thoughts hold true even a couple of weeks into the month.....

I’ve always thought of November as an empty, in between sort of month - at least until Thanksgiving. I always have this sense of stillness when I take the dogs out first thing in the morning on November 1st, All-Saints Day. All is quiet. The earth seems to be taking a long and deep breath.

Early November seems like it is the end of something and not quite the beginning of something else. There are always a few stray candy wrappers on the lawn, which has been mowed for the last time until next Spring - perhaps the small remnant of a costume, more likely that crazy spray neon-colored stringy stuff in the road. The jack-o-lantern is beginning to mold on its inside and will soon be headed for the compost heap where it will winter over and maybe even be gone by June. The trees are mostly bare of leaves, their empty branches silhouetted against the sky. The wind brings only cold thoughts of winter and snow.

The first part of November is like a no man’s land. You can’t go back to summer - even Indian summer. And you are really not sure that you are ready to go forward to what will come next.

The world seldom stops but it does in November at least for a little while until the stubby candles in the shape of Pilgrims come out of hiding and the kitchen begins to smell of molasses and cinnamon, of fruitcakes and plum puddings, until the guests arrive with their pumpkin pies and oyster casseroles, until the candles are in the windows and the carols begin to play and Santa Claus arrives on a fire truck and the children go crazy with excitement and anticipation and we remember the joys and sorrows of holidays past and we decorate the tree in the living room and we bake and we wrap and we mail and we search the malls until we find the perfect gift for everyone including the guinea pig and the dogs and we lament over spending too much money for yet another year and we fall like Alice down something like a rabbit hole that doesn't let us out until Christmas.

In early November, take a breath like the earth does. When life gets too frazzled and you can’t find God or a reason for the craziness, go outside, and let the cold winds of winter chill your face. Look at the barren branches on the trees. Breath and remember the quiet and stillness of that long ago first day in November, of that even longer ago family in a stable in Bethlehem. Then smile and say a prayer of gratitude for life with all its glitz and glitter, for all its holiday hoopla, for all that Thanksgiving and Christmas are meant to be.