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The Artist’s Almanac
November 2009
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No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
- John Donne
November puts an end
to October, the wettest one in eighty years, according to the
National Weather Service. Yesterday I watched a robin feast on
earthworms which had crawled onto the paved driveway to avoid
drowning in the super-saturated soil. The cool, wet summer has
turned into a New England autumn, and no one needs drive to
Gatlinburg to see brilliant color.
Early November
gives us a few precious days of the finest distillation of hues,
and this year is no exception. The maples are resplendent
against the backdrop of cedars. The hackberries have long since
frittered away their tiny leaves, like teenage girls on a
shopping spree, while the mighty oaks, like wise old men, hold
on to their green for a change to dignified auburn later this
month.
When first I moved
to the farm forty some years ago I was fascinated when a friend
discovered some Civil War era letters of an East Tennessee Union
soldier bivouacked here to keep Morgan’s Confederate cavalry
from crossing the river and raiding into Kentucky. The private
told of camping in “a big sugar orchard below the house of a
rich old rebel’. I puzzled over this for years, trying to
picture tents in a field of sorghum, until I remembered that the
common name of Acer saccharum is ‘sugar maple’. We
think of maple sugar as a product of New England, when in fact
it was made here, until Louisiana cane sugar became plentiful
and cheap.
Scouting the maple
grove beneath the site of the old plantation house I selected the
showiest saplings and dug and replanted them in my yard. Now, forty
years on, they have lived perhaps a quarter of their natural life
and today reward a young man’s sweat by filling an old man’s studio
with reflected golden light this early November.
November is a time
for summing up and taking stock. Later its dark, dank days with
the golden maple leaves moldering underfoot will bring us face
to face with reality. The inconvenient truth of global warming
is now turning inconvenient for its prophets, as the weather is
entering a cool phase and the ice caps are beginning to reform,
just as they always have. The earth is round and rolls through
very long weather cycles, contrary to the dogmatic predictions
of the alarmists, who may one day be remembered with the disdain
now reserved for the flat earth theorists.
Thanksgiving is a
uniquely American holiday. One son likes it more than Christmas
because he prefers giving thanks to giving gifts. Giving thanks
costs us nothing - nothing save the most jealously guarded thing
we hold – our pride. Satan’s sin was pride and he manifested it
in ingratitude. In the words of poet Anthony Esolen … We are
taught by the world that we must heap burdens of work, self
regard, and ambition upon our backs, to be what is called
“independent”. Imagine instead the light yoke of gratitude, free
and noble and Godlike, acknowledging that were it not for love
of God at every moment we might wink out of existence, as a mote
in a sunbeam passing into darkness. At every moment we are made
by God to depend upon his creation and upon our fellow men for
all that we need to live. Imagine the freedom of a thankful
heart.
The harder we work
and the more we heap up for ourselves the more we, like the evil
one, are tempted to believe we did it all ourselves and scorn
those who serve us. Is not the thankful heart the most beautiful
thing in creation? May we recollect ourselves this season and be
thankful for …
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The parents who bore and
nurtured us.
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For the love of God, for
faith, family, and friends.
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For our jobs, for those who
support us, for our education, and for the chance to serve.
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For those who labor at all
hours to provide us food, warmth, light, clean water, and
safety, often at great personal risk, including linemen,
fireman, policemen, who are out at all hours and in all
weathers.
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For our teachers and mentors
who sacrificed themselves and their time to educate us,
sometimes against our will, and to discipline us.
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For priests, pastors and
rabbis, who keep the windows of heaven open for us.
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For ambulance drivers, nurses,
surgeons, doctors and medical technicians who risk disease
and work all shifts to care for us tenderly when we can not
care for ourselves.
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For our nation, for freedom
and peace. For the members of our military who serve at
grave personal risk in faraway hostile lands to protect our
security.
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For musicians who transport us
into realms of glory.
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For our hobbies and pets, for
happy memories, for our favorite things, for leisure and
relaxation.
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For our gifts, talents, and
abilities, for honors, for strength and energy.
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For struggles, sorrows,
trials, and sufferings, For failures and rejection, for all
the ways we have grown up and become better people.
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For kindness, goodness, joy,
and laughter, for the times we have helped others or made
them happy.
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For all the wonders of
creation, for beauty, music, sports, and art, for new
opportunities and second chances.
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For renewed hope and fulfilled
dreams, for the providence and protection of heaven.
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For the gift of life.
Thankfulness for
all things is the one sure recipe for contentment, for with it
comes the comfort of recognizing we are loved – loved by the One
who gives everything to us. May we each of us this season enjoy
the freedom of a thankful heart.
Upcoming Events
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Listen to
my interview with John Seigenthaler on Word
on Words - Founding of the Cumberland Settlements
at
www.wnpt.org/productions/wow (turn off your pop-up blocker
and allow time for the file to load). The book is available at
615-330-913 or at
www.cumberlandpioneers.com.
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Art In
Bloom – March 12-13, 2010, Annual show of Gallatin
Junior League at Bluegrass Country Club, Hendersonville,
Tennessee. Watch for program news on Tennessee Crossroads
on WNPT.
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