the bench – Skelton Sketches

But first the bluffs…

where a last flower blooms before frost comes…

and berries are ramping up for Christmas…

Then on down the trail, to the ocean…

…where we sit a while, my mate and I,

We haven’t been in a while, but what better place to sit a bit on a Sunday’s afternoon,

as the sun falls from the sky to the sound of wind-whipped surf..

God’s works are awesome.

–LS

O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. Ps.104:24,25

Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul. Ps.103:22

I haven’t done much hiking this last while since the demise of my hiking companion. And I stopped rambling the trails over across the highway even before that. They seemed to be overrun with bears and I decided to leave them to it. But now that winter’s coming, the bears are slowing down and disappearing and I decided to take the risk. You can be the judge of whether it was worth it…

This area was clear-cut a few years back and has become host to Trailing Blackberry—a cousin to the great thorny variety I suppose, but smaller and more fragrant and more exquisite in essence. I didn’t realize how richly colored their leaves could turn.

But here we are at the long-missed destination—‘The Bench’

And all I could think besides Thank-you God; it’s BEAUTIFUL! …
was, “It’s been too long!” Sooo good to get back here and sit a bit and gaze…
It wasn’t as dark as my camera portrays. It was as though there was a stage and the stage light was shining down through the curtain of cloud…

The shimmer of light on water was glorious. And I thought, how fitting that both light and water are symbolic of the Lord—the light of the world by His Spirit flowing from us in streams of living water water…

Now for a look around to see the little glories…

Refreshed, I headed home pausing along the path as colors caught my eye.

We’ve had a particularly colorful and extended Fall season this year. A delight to the eye. And somehow food for the soul…

This was the most peculiar little wonder of all, a sort of Huckleberry Hoodie. Have never seen anything like it, don’t quite know what ‘happened’ but here these berries are way beyond their season, all huddled together under a vagrant leaf…curious.

One never knows what one will find when traipsing about in God’s creation….No sign of bears, only God’s fingerprints were everywhere!
–LS
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. Habakkuk 2:14

Tag: the bench

I Must go down to the sea…

It’s been too long