Day 5 (8/30 - Sun)

This year I'm trying very hard to be intentional about keeping Sunday as a real Sabbath, a day of rest. For me, that means mental rest as opposed to physical rest, so I traded the textbooks for recreation (in the truest sense of the word) and a beautiful bike ride with a friend along the Prairie Path. Most people don't actually stop to consider the root idea at the center of the word "recreation" -- it is an activity that re-creates us, that is, build us up. The word is really about transformation. The colder temperatures these past few days (the nice man on the news gave dire warnings of possible record lows in the 40s tonight) have got me thinking about fall, and the inherent transformation that will bring. Just down the path from my front door is this leaf, whose picture I took today:



Right now it is green. It looks completely healthy, and if I didn't know better, I could assume it would always stay that way. But a few weeks from now, I will walk outside and notice that it's suddenly changed, taking on a reddish-brown hue. At least, the transformation will seem sudden, but it's really not. That's the thing about processes, that you almost never see the change at the moment it takes place, but later on you can step back and see that change has come. A lot of people are afraid of change, but the fact of the matter is that change is essential for...well... anything. Without change, nothing would ever happen. This is something we talked about a good deal in our Wheaton Passage group a couple weeks ago: processes take time, and that's okay. Sometimes it seems like nothing is happening in our lives, but that's not true. Fall sets up winter sets up spring. But transformation is coming: our lives won't look the same a year from now, because we continue to grow, continue to re-create. A college setting is a wonderful place to see that happen on a daily basis. I'm excited to see what this year will bring.

And I think my leaf will start to change around October 4th. Post your guesses in the comments, and the winner who guesses closest will win a little prize. :-)