Lift Up Your Hearts!

Autumn came gently this year. Yes, we have notable seasons in Florida, just not the ones taught to preschool children.

(Well I remember, when our children were that age, looking through a kindergarten workbook from a well-known publisher, and recognizing in a lesson on the seasons the same old spring, summer, winter, and fall that I knew from my childhood—especially the mounds of snow in winter. Good for a child in more northern climes, I noted, but certainly confusing for those growing up in Florida. That would not have been so remarkable except that I looked at the beginning of the book and discovered that the publisher was based in Pensacola, Florida. I have viewed that publisher with suspicion ever since, though the city's record-obliterating 9-inch snowfall in January of 2025 might allow them to claim they were merely being prophetic.)

Autumn can be a scary time in our part of the world, as it arrives in the middle of peak hurricane season. But sometimes it is gentle, and makes itself known first in the early morning, when the soft breeze on my cheek is suddenly cool, and the very air announces that pleasant temperatures have not forgotten us. It is much like the early signs of spring in my youth, when drops of water formed on the icicles in the afternoon sunshine, and the sound of trickling streams of snow-melt promised that warmth was returning. (The music of snow-melt is still one of my favorite memories.)

There will still be days of blistering heat, just as there will be late snows in the spring. "One swallow does not a summer make." But Noah has been keeping track of the temperatures outside my office window (blue line), and you can see clearly that fall is creeping in on little cat feet.