On to September

Join me, won’t you, as we begin our journey through the month of September.

This is a month of transition, don’t you think?

Summer is gone, after all. Oh, the temperature is still on the high side, but the season is wrapped up. Vacations are done and the kids are back in school. I write this on Labor Day, which marked the traditional end of summer activities back in my day. I suppose that’s still true.

But we have not yet reached the onset of autumn and its highlights. Still to come are the World Series, falling leaves, and Halloween. Out in the distance are Thanksgiving Day and the seasonal madness of materialism as attention turns to Christmas shopping.

Let us not spend much time looking so far ahead. Soon enough we will break out sweaters and jackets to protect against cooler mornings. Soon enough we will put away shorts and swimsuits for scarves and warm gloves. Soon enough the year will wind down.

It is fine to plan ahead for all that, but our attention is needed on the here and now. Today brings its own agenda, its own challenges, its own opportunities for us to be the hands, feet, eyes and ears of Christ as we walk the earth.

Let us use these days well, making a difference when and where we can, and leaving the world better at the end of the day than we found it that morning.

We all have one life to live in our one world. Let us remember as September rolls on that we are stronger if we stand as one and journey together.