It’s this time of year that the countryside writes in cursive. To be sure, the blocked, cold and all capped letters of winter carry their own grace in their clear, blunt communication, but it’s late summer and fall that swings it’s branches and flowers in loops and criss-crosses and its grass and gardens in all the right, elegant ways–it crosses its T’s and dots its I’s.
And when in time it’s written its letters into words and its words into sentences and built them into paragraphs architecturally akin to perfect pitches in a castle, the piece falls finished into your hand–apples, plums, and berries from blooms.
So with mouths full we ought to marvel at our bursting apple pie from wheat and work and apple and providence. Surely as God created bountifully by his speech it’s fitting that we speak and sing praises to him.
An old puritan prayer anthology, Valley of Vision, fittingly reads,
God Honored
Praise waiteth for thee,
and to render it is my noblest exercise;
This is thy due from all thy creatures,
for all thy works display thy attributes
and fulfil thy designs;
The sea, dry land, winter cold, summer heat,
morning light, evening shade are full of thee,
and thou givest me them richly to enjoy.
Thou art King of kings and Lord of lords;
At thy pleasure empires rise and fall;
All thy works praise thee and thy saints bless thee;
Let me be numbered with thy holy ones,
resemble them in character and condition,
sit with them at Jesus’ feet.
May my religion be always firmly rooted in thy
Word,
my understanding divinely informed,
my affections holy and heavenly,
my motives simple and pure,
and my heart never wrong with thee.
Deliver me from the natural darkness of
my own mind,
from the corruptions of my heart,
from the temptations to which I am exposed,
from the daily snares that attend me.
I am in constant danger while I am in this life;
Let thy watchful eye ever be upon me
for my defence,
Save me from the power of my worldly and
spiritual enemies
and from all painful evils to which I have
exposed myself.
Until the day of life dawns above
let there be unrestrained fellowship with Jesus;
Until fruition comes, may I enjoy the earnest
of my inheritance
and the firstfruits of the Spirit;
Until I finish my course with joy may I pursue
it with diligence,
in every part display the resources of the Christian,
and adorn the doctrine of thee my God
in all things.1
Bennett, A. (1975). The Valley of Vision. (pp. 24-25). Edinburgh: Banner of Truth.
Corduroy Kid 