Autumn Color

I love the colors of autumn.

Driving through the mountains of West
Virginia in October affords a gorgeous view around every bend. We normally drive through that area in September of December, so recently when we made our trip in October, we were taken aback. It was breathtaking, like an expansive plush, textured carpet of reds, oranges, yellows, greens, and browns stretching across each valley. Gorgeous!

There are certain maple trees­—and I’m not sure what kind they are—that, rather than having all their leaves change color at the same time, make their transformation from green to red one section at a time. It’s so interesting to me that each fall, the same area of the tree begins the shift. Fascinating!


 But my very favorite color of the fall is that of the vibrant, red leaves of the euonymus bush, the “fire bush.” Wikipedia describes the euonymus bush as “exhibiting very bright autumnal colors.” But, in my opinion, “red” or “bright” are not enough for this exquisite and very distinctive color. A Sherwin Williams color paint color comes close: “cerise.” To be honest, I’d never heard of cerise before. Have you? “Cerise” is a French word meaning cherry. According to “the 1930 book A Dictionary of Color, it is pointed out that the color cerise has always been depicted as a somewhat bluer color than the actual color of a fresh uncooked cherry, which is denoted by a different redder color called cherry red. Basically, the color cerise is a depiction of the somewhat bluer color of a cooked cherry, such as the cherries in a cherry pie.” Apparently, Crayola has a crayon this color. Even these descriptions don’t do the color justice. Dazzling!

What a wonderful God we have to have designed this passage of the trees from their green vivacity in summer to their quiet dormancy in winter. Could it be that all these colors are merely for our enjoyment? I, for one, believe it to be so.

Ponderings about Trash

Trash!

Today is trash day.

Well, actually, day before yesterday was trash day. But day before yesterday was New Year’s Day, a holiday... no pickup that day. Yesterday, the roads and snow were so bad that the poor garbage man didn’t get to our house. (Maybe it would be more polictically correct to call him a “Solid Waste Removal Service Provider.”) So since he missed yesterday, he came today... early... with another guy to help (two SWRSPs!) ... doing both sides of the street at the same time. So the trash is gone now. It wasn’t a lot, but I’m glad it’s gone.

I usually pride myself on how little trash we put out. Since I (not we) recycle the basics: glass, #1 and #2 plastics, and cardboard and I don’t do a lot of cooking from packages, usually we don’t have much trash. I used to say that I didn’t want Al Gore to drive by my house and say, after looking the amount of trash on the “tree lawn” (Yes, I’m from NE Ohio!), “You should not have been allowed to have six children because you create too much trash! Al Gore never came to our door, by the way!

But sometimes it feels really good to put out a whole lot of trash. In the fall we cleaned out the basement. We had so much trash that we put it out over two weeks for the sake of the SWRSP! I couldn’t help but watch as he picked it all up and threw it in the truck. I felt free and clean, and I’m sure the basement did, too.
I feel that way at the beginning of a new year, too. Last year’s failings, for the most part, remain in last year, and I can start over with new goals. To be honest, I often set mostly the same goals for a new year, but at least I have a new chance to be successful at the old ones!
And, in day-to-day life, I’m so thankful for God’s forgiveness. When I confess my sin, He is faithful to wash it away. It’s already paid for. I can start new and clean any moment of the day... no spots or stains or garbage.
And those are my ponderings about trash today.

Addenda:

The computer did not like the nominalization of "pondering."

According to the quiz that shows in which part of the country people use certain speech patterns, the only place where people call the area between the sidewalk and the street a "tree lawn" is Northeast Ohio.