i love autumn

here are some pics from our house this halloween.  my lovely wife has an amazing eye for decorating, and so you never know what kind of fun stuff you'll see adorning shelves and mantles during the various seasons of the years.  for this halloween, she asked me if i could take some of the black and white photos from my collection and make it look like the portraits on the walls in those old scooby-doo cartoons, where it looks like the eye holes have been cut out of them and someone (some masked ghost, of course) is peering through the holes.  so you'll see those, as well as an assortment of other festive decorations. 

autumn is my favorite season.  i mean, i love all the seasons for different reasons, especially when the time is ripe for the next one to arrive, but if i had to choose one that i wouldn't mind getting perpetually stuck in some groundhog day repeat mode, i would choose autumn. 
with the fresh blue skies set in contrast to the surrendering summer leaves, flushed with color at the embarrassment of their downfall;
with the crisp air ushered in, as if the migrating birds have pulled it in like a window blind as they head south; with the sound of referee whistles and tea kettle whistles and train whistles rattling through the barren cracking limbs of naked trees;
with the smell of cinnamon and pumpkin and wood smoke wafting through the air like some holy incense meant to remind us that there is more to this than what meets the eye;
with the impending winter crouched and threatening, waiting until its time to strike;
with the melancholy memories that all things die in their time;
and with the hopeful sense that even after death there is life again,
autumn falls. 

i hope your home and heart is as festive and faith-filled as can be in these days, and that you are as happy to be alive as i am.  grace and peace.