What a beautiful day! Fall in North Carolina is simply the best time of the year. I hope that as you move through this week you take a moment to pause and notice the grace that is exploding in the spaces around you. The Holy Spirit is at work in these days; our job is to notice. Perhaps this poem by English poet and priest, Ronald Thomas, will help you attend to the moment and recognize the gift that is contained therein. 

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give up all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

“The Bright Field” by R.S. Thomas

Amanda Atkin
Associate Minister of Faith Formation