On the surface I have two degrees in education.. I read books, quote poetry, and can lose my attention to a whole lecture or sermon if the deliverer doesn’t use a possessive pronoun in front of a gerund. Others in the audience don’t even know that was a requirement. I am proud of a tee shirt that says I Am Silently Correcting Your Grammar. Scratch the surface and another strata appears. I have a minor in Geography.
I can’t always share my knowledge at a dinner table, yet all that pertains to earth, both physical and political, sets off a frisson of excitement. I cherish names of land masses and how they have changed over eons. That left over lava bed slowly inching down western Colorado deserves a detour on the way elsewhere. I may be at my best explaining latitude and longitude and earth tilt. I have a picture of me on the Prime Meridian at Greenwich and astride the Equator in Ecuador. I know the importance of the Doldrums in exploration, and why there are Horse Latitudes. Two of my favorite multisyllabic words are Vernal and Autumnal Equinox.
Which brings us to where we are now. A few days ago day and night were equal at the equator Imperceptibly until that moment of the Winter Solstice, changes will happen as the sun retreats to the Southern Hemisphere. Darkness arrives earlier and stays longer at the start of a new day. The iffy part is hopefully waiting for what the weather men call a cold front, and we in Texas designate as a “blue norther.” Weather from now on is conjecture. Children have shed masks at Halloween to cool off and have also hidden the costume under coat and scarf to survive biting cold. Yet, this is a change for us, a season that varies our year. Months ago we left the deadness of winter and moved to cherish the lushness of spring and on through the hot stickiness that cries summer. The advertised brilliance of oaks in full color may appear only in magazines. Piles of leaves waiting to be raked serve as our reminder of a circle of a year. We welcome the changes however they come and cling to the dependability that undergirds them.
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest. Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, mercy, and love.
Let Me Tell Ya 