This is the day that the Lord has made.

’14 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs and tokens of God’s provident care, and to mark seasons, days, and years,’

Markers of God’s passages, the sentinel seasons carry our lives inside their gowns of time — swinging picture lanterns through our days, ever drawing the lifeline of humanity forward — glowing paths that star-dot God’s direction to our final future — past time, past space, inside light and being — Heaven inner-lit and home.

Our blue sky, timeless and tireless, finds a slanted ray and this New England edges onward, with infinitesimal purpose towards transition — from rose-red to burnt umber, from tiger-lily yellow to cinnamon orange. These are the colors and days of utter fullness, the cornucopia prefigured —  green stalks high and cornsilk tassels, reaching for the clouds — before the gathering, before bringing in the sheaves.

This August Monday is yesterday’s spring, singing its freedom song to the mountains, throwing  its untamed voice to the wind through miles of Kankamagus evergreens, our land and heritage — remembering itself in age old values, as in the very dust of the Old Man — complete in its very granite self: Eagle and moose come together to guard the free north country while the loons undulate inside memories of Golden Pond. Our land. New Hampshire. God’s country.

We are given this full bounty as good stewards to watch, to sense, to assimilate –husbanding  into ourselves its vital health, its pure beauty, its strong and lithesome grace — our gift — understanding providence at this turn-of-days made summer long — the shorter tracery of sunlight tenderly visible in its leaving:

Look around!! Day lilies yawn a tiger’s tale and honey suckle vines tendril their primrose yellow, sweet and high, vining their honeyed path straight into our tomorrows.

Butterfles and dragonflies laze, suckling swaddled nectar. Vigor fills the night air as mums think about awakening, their brisk — bounty unfurling. A soft haze falls into our summer’s day; sky-lit gold shimmers into gloaming as man’s plans roll forward toward the thoughts of sweet mown hay.

Eventually the bands will play last hurrahs at Hopkinton Fair. The pumpkin vines, filled, will surround the sounds of sheep and hawkers. Labor Day will show its face and school will start. Wood will be stacked for the burning. Brass kettles will be polished and ready. New England waits for crisp crimson edges as in complete peace and according to God’s will, summer leaves: Turn.

5 Therefore I tell you, stop being perpetually uneasy (anxious and worried) about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink; or about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life greater [in quality] than food, and the body [far above and more excellent] than clothing?

26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they?

27 And who of you by worrying and being anxious can add one unit of measure (cubit) to his stature or to the [w]span of his life?

28 And why should you be anxious about clothes? Consider the lilies of the field and learn thoroughly how they grow; they neither toil nor spin.

29 Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his magnificence (excellence, dignity, and grace) was not arrayed like one of these.

Psalm 118:24 (ESV)

24 This is the day that the Lord has made;
    let us rejoice and be glad in it.

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