Tag Archives: autumn

Collegeville Photo Journal

Tomorrow morning it is time to lock the door to Apartment 3 at the Collegville Institute, my home away from home for the past month, and start the drive home to New Jersey. This time as a short term resident scholar has been filled with many graces, not the least of which have been rest, reflection, reading and writing. I finished a small reflection book on St. Joseph and have an outline, a good bit of reasearch and a large reading list for a larger writing project on sowing peace in chaotic times.

Our pandemic reality has made this month a mostly solitary experience, but I have had company … the trees, the fields, the lakes, sun, clouds, and even snow! In the midst of everything, seasons continue to change, a reminder that crazy as things might seem, the rhythm of life continues and invites us to pay attention.

Coffee, prayer and a very busy squirrel

This morning
I luxuriated in the day
Cool autumn breeze
Sunlight illuminating everything
And the leaves and the lake
I sit and watch with my coffee
to keep me
company

What better way
to be
to pray
to sit with the wonder of it
all

From time to time
I spy
with my little eye
a very busy
squirrel

The first sighting
he or she
I see has a mouthful of
leaves

The squirrel freezes
perfectly still
looking at me
-nothing to see here-
but then apparently decides
I am not
dangerous

Next squirrel sighting
is high up in the branches
of a tall
evergreen

Then jumping back to the
mostly barren
branches of the next door
tree

Then the ground
for more leaves
Bunches and bunches
Mouthful upon mouthful of
leaves

Jumping
climbing
building a nest
actually called a
drey

(No the squirrel did not tell me,
that would be the internet)

Busy squirrel
Not so busy me
On a sunny autumn
morning

Amen