The old adage that beauty is in the eye of the beholder is true in the garden, too. This day lily is one of my favorites. It just keeps blooming in the fall and next year it will come back to grace my yard with it’s beauty.

Day lilies are actually not native to the North America but we see them all over. Day lily is the common name. The real name is hemerocallis, which is Greek for “day” and “lily”. Whatever it’s name it is beautiful.

Beauty is really in the eye of the beholder when we are with our grand children. I remember a specific time going to a restaurant with the grand kids. One was so into his vegetables and rice. He was covered. There was rice everywhere. I thought it was a beautiful picture. The waiters/waitresses did not agree. The mess made them mad. Hmmmm… what is beautiful to one may not be beautiful to another.

Who cares? When it comes to grand kids throw away the cultural mold and believe that they are beautiful. We see grand kids all over- it’s a common site. But their “real name” is beauty-at least in the eyes of this beholder!

This may look like a bunch of dead “stuff” to you, but to me, it is sacred ground. This is our vegetable garden patch at the end of harvest. There are a few green pumpkins, red cabbage, beets and spinach left. Some pea plants came up three weeks ago, but frost will get them before they bloom and make more peas.

This year, this sacred ground, grew sugar peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, garlic, turnips, corn, green beans, yellow beans, shelled peas, carrots, potatoes, 2 kinds of squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, red cabbage, green cabbage, spinach and string beans. And that is just the seeds we planted. There are also perennials like strawberries, asparagus, blueberries, red currants and black raspberries.

The canning is finished and the vegetables are stored and frozen. The jelly is made. All of the food scraps from our last year are in the compost. The pile of grass is for next between rows next year. This helps with weed control and soil. We live in sandy soil so the water and nutrients tend to wash right through the garden.

All the work my husband and I did and NONE of it would happen without God. We need that sacred cycle of the seed to get started. We need the total affirmation that growth will happen because that is God’s plan. We need faith every year when my husband plants seeds. God is present in sacred ground.

Home school families are moving forward with learning everyday. The learners set the pace not the calendar. This rose is blooming in mid October well after the frost. The calendar can’t convince this rose not to bloom and show its stuff. Home schools are just like this rose. The calendar doesn’t rule.

No matter what the time of year, home school has the ability to allow each child to step outside the date on the calendar. Rather than reviewing for most of the fall, home school children tend to retain more over the summer and are ready to jump right into new material. Rather than the normal “review, learn new material, test” pattern there are new possibilities.

Let your home school situation open kids minds to new possibilities for their learning. Spend a few days having the kids discuss what they would like to learn next. What seems to be the next best topic for them? Involving kids in their own learning helps them to connect better to the materials.

Isn’t that what home schooling is about? Let’s all be the rose in the late fall.

My grandkids just left. There is consumer evidence all over my house. Straws from drink boxes under the table, an apple core in the bathroom and a half eaten cottage cheese container with no lid in the refrigerator, tell me that the visitors were here. I understand the implications that consumers were here and left. They ate and left remains.

Imagine my surprise to find these little acorns on a rock in my garden. Consumer evidence? One is eaten and the others are sitting ready for future consumption. Just like the cottage cheese container in the refrigerator without a lid. Consumers eat now and plan for the future.

What’s interesting is that I do not have oak trees in my yard or garden. The closest oak tree is about a ¼ mile away. Then on a trip around the yard, I saw a bit of red in a different place. There was a brand new little oak tree coming up in a completely unexpected place. Just a few leaves from purple to red tell me that a critter has been there and planted an acorn for the future.

My grandkids bring leave me reminders that they have been present. Some reminders tell me they ate snacks. But most of the evidence of their presence is in my heart and on my face. I smile lots the next day. My heart sings with melodies of how they have grown. We have new lasting memories of planting bulbs in the garden and jumping on the tramp.

When you see consumer evidence, take a moment to stop and enjoy what came before. Even if you do not know exactly what happened, you can imagine. That imagining will connect you to God and the world where we live.

I’ve talked about the common milkweed before. I love the smell. I try to control where it grows. I keep it out of the vegetables if possible and leave it in the back row of the faith garden flower gardens. Every year I collect and spread gallons of the fluffy white stuff and the seeds all over the native prairie.

Then comes fall and I lose control. If I collect the seeds too soon, they won’t germinate and if I wait… Here’s the result. A stiff wind and they blow all over. I keep wondering about why I try to control it at all. I think it’s human to try and control and I think it’s God’s wish for us to let go of our need to control.

Often when we feel out of control, fear sets in. The fear makes us want to control more. I know I suffer from this in my life. When we trust God and let go of our need to control, the results are wonderful and strengthen our faith.

Here’s my humble suggestion. What if we do our best faith effort in all that we accomplish and let God control the outcome? I wonder if we can do it. Who knows where the seeds might land?

Home school families are moving forward with learning everyday. The learners set the pace not the calendar. This rose is blooming in mid October well after the frost. The calendar can’t convince this rose not to bloom and show its stuff. Home schools are just like this rose. The calendar doesn’t rule.

No matter what the time of year, home school has the ability to allow each child to step outside the date on the calendar. Rather than reviewing for most of the fall, home school children tend to retain more over the summer and are often ready to jump right into new material. Rather than the normal “review, learn new material, test” pattern there are new possibilities.

Let your home school situation open kids minds to new possibilities for their learning. Spend a few days having the kids discuss what they would like to learn next. What seems to be the next best topic for them? Involving kids in their own learning helps them to connect better to the materials.

Isn’t that what home schooling is about? Let’s all be the rose in the late fall. Bloom out of season.

If you look carefully you’ll see that these are crocuses. Hmmm… these are usually the first flowers of spring. How did they get here in fall?

Once in awhile, I try something unknown. These are crocuses meant to bloom in fall. I was not so sure about that possibility but I needed some fall color so I said, “Why not?” They took forever to bloom and I actually planted them after the first frost. I doubted.

Then one day, there they were. This is sometimes what happens when our faith doubts. The unexpected crops up to prove that while we were unsure, results were unfolding. And the unexpected seems to give a boost of color to our faith life. The unexpected moves us into a place of certainty about our faith again.

Try to take a half hour walk today. Outside, inside or anywhere will work. Look for the unexpected. What does it tell you about your faith? Stay attentive to messages that renew our faith when it becomes weak.

Blessings on the journey.

Frost came to my garden last weekend. A hard frost that makes your footprints kills the grass and immediately freezes everything that has moisture. If you look at this picture, you can see that the frost only hit one part of the morning glories. And yet, where it froze it didn’t matter if there were buds to be or beautiful flowers. Beautiful blooms are zapped by frost, just like half dead blooms. Frost equalizes in the garden.

Hard times are also equalizers for those of us who live a life of faith. Everyone gets hit with hard times. Everyone has death, illness and mayhem in their lives. If you see someone else and think, “they have it so easy”, remember the frost. It comes to every bloom even when they seem beautiful. By sharing our frosty times, we are better able to understand the lives of others.

If you’ll notice one white morning glory is still blooming. It is peaking out from behind leaves unaware that it missed death by such a little bit. Hmmm… how many times do we just miss frost and never know it?

Thank you God, for frost.

Often the pictures I share from my faith garden are blooms or groups of blooms. But today I felt like taking a distant picture. There was a wonderful song that talked about how the earth looked from a distance. No borders, no war no differences, from a distance.

From a distance this photo shows no weeds, no gopher mounds and no dead blooms that haven’t been removed. The reality isn’t any different from far away but sometimes, I just need to look from a distance. By focusing on the whole rather than the individual pieces, I gain a different perspective. I’m more able to celebrate as co creator with God from a distance. I’m less likely to berate myself for unfinished chores or feel anger at details I can’t always control. From a distance I breathe more easily and feel God’s presence.

From a distance is a good way to grandparent, too. Even if the kids live nearby, you can get too involved in the day to day living of your children’s children. Many of us are involved in childcare, picking up kids and other interactions with the grandkids. This is a privilege, but once in awhile we need to stand back and look at the situation from a distance. We are not called to take over parenting but to partner with our kids as they parent. Our kids get to make mistakes in parenting, just like we did!

Have you ever watched a sunflower? It turns it’s head to the sun throughout the day. In the long summer days, it actually tilts it’s head looking for the sun.

It seems that when we think about daily faith, we should choose to tilt our heads to the sun. I think we mean to do that, but sometimes something happens and we cannot find the sun. It rains or clouds cover the sun. We KNOW the sun is there, but it isn’t easy to find.

Faith is like that, too. We know it’s there, but sometimes in the midst of life, it is hard to find. We each need a few techniques for faith hunting when we aren’t feeling too faith filled.

One technique I like to use is photographs that mean lots to me. Sometimes it’s a family photo or a photo of great beauty from my faith garden. I sort of pick a photo to remind me faith is there even when I cannot see it.

What’s your technique? How do you remember that faith is just behind the next cloud? Can you tilt your face toward faith?