As a young girl growing up in Olympia, it wasn't unusual to experience Indian Summers, those warm days that would linger into September and October. The autumns of my childhood hold precious memories—hot cocoa with marshmallows, harvest moons, migrating birds in the yard, my dad building a fire in the fireplace, hayrides at the Mima Mounds with the church youth group. Life was fairly simple then, at least that is how it seemed for this tomboy who much preferred a baseball mitt to a Barbie doll.   And now Craig has taught me that Fall means FOOTBALL!

During those extended times of seasonal warm temperatures, you could usually find me perched high in the top of the large cherry tree that was in our backyard. My mom always complained that the cherries were "wormy", but I thought they were delicious as I sat high in the tree and ate till my stomach ached. ​

The beginning thoughts are from one of the Rev. Dr. Dale Turner's Seattle Times writings, "Denial and Action are Keys to Finding Grace During Lent". Rev. Dale
Turner was a minister at University Congregational Church in Seattle from 1958 to 1982.

   For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
   prepared beforehand to be our way of life. - Ephesians 2:10


Philip Yancey, editor-at-large for Christianity Today, travels a lot. He writes in his book What's So Amazing About Grace that for awhile he began asking the strangers he encountered what they thought of when they heard the term "Christian". He heard in reply mostly political descriptions, responses having to do with theological struggles taking place in the public eye, but not once a description that spoke of grace.

Yancey's book chronicles his own struggle with a tradition of legalism and a gospel that speaks of God's loving acceptance and pursuit of even the most unlovely. I'm sure we all have our own personal stories of church encounters that spoke or intimated the language of shame, guilt, and rejection much more fluently than grace. Mark Twain used to talk about people who were "good in the worst sense of the word."

More importantly though, I have been struck recently not by the damage done by un-grace as much as by the sheer power of grace to transform us and overcome and overwhelm so many hurtful experiences. Some conversations may be dominated by those moments of abuse or dismay, but we stick around because we've had, perhaps, just a glimpse or even more of that true grace we know lies at the very heart of our Creator and deep within the rhythms of life. We've seen the way that things can change when we'd given up hope - resurrection!

Grace breeds grace. We experience gifts and love from others, absolutely undeserved and our natural response is to offer it to others. Grace, like love, is never hoarded, but returns ten-fold. This, after all, is what we are built for.

   Some day,
   after mastering 
   the winds, the waves
   the tides and gravity,
   we shall harness for God
   the energies of love.
   And then,
   for the second time
   in the history of the world,
   man will discover fire.
                                                                                              - Teilhard de Chardin