Clarity: The Fifth Season

Clarity is often called for, but so is the dog.  And like the dog, once she is outside and roaming, does not necessarily come when beckoned.  My blog group summoned its members to write on the theme of Clarity back on October 10th, and while it seems to have come to most members by now, clarity never comes to me  in Wisconsin until the last week of October!

Winter is beautiful for its bright crisp days when the world is covered in white reflectivity, and nothing can hide from the sun.  With a full moon searchlight overhead enlightening the snow draped world, even the depths of night fail to hide a gopher's meager trail or the owl's furtive flight path from view.  But the glaring brightness of Winter is blinding, and the eye is forced to retreat behind dark shades or to peek out only through narrow slits.

The spring time works like mad to screen and hide the world from view.  We note, and marvel at each new bud stem, and stretching leaf; yet few realize how their vision is being slowly stifled, and every long view abated by another shade of green.

Summer invades to finish the task and every corner is occupied.  Trees spread out and crowd the very sky.  Branches plunder every vista until only leaf and berry and branch and vine are visible.  The low slung corn plants only dotting the black earth of spring become sheafy towers impenetrable to even the mind's eye.

Now the corn is being punished for its obstructionism.  Harvested and contained away for assimilation, the forested acres behind the fields are no longer hidden.  But the trees themselves have reached beyond their supply lines and their shield of leaves is perishing in the dirt and waiting to be entombed by the coming snow.  Berries are gone and vines have withered.  The decorative flowers formerly abiding with the now browning grass no longer distract the eye.

Do not mourn the passing of Spring's green, Summer's sensation, or Fall's peak color.  But get ready for the pre-Winter blooming of Clarity!  It struck this writer suddenly on Thursday the 27th.  Going down the steps of the back deck, and without looking up, the realization that the sky was somehow larger, came to me! The yards and streets of town are wider than before, The woods along the highway actually have trees inside the outer edge.  And some of those mysterious driveways lead to homes now visible through a peninsula of bare trees.

Along with this new vision of my physical world, the season of Clarity has brought other more important insights to mind.

8 months!

While I love and adore my sprouting 8 month old Grandson (because he is so very special!), I suddenly realized that everybody I know is somebody's Grandchild!  In the history of the world there have been only two generations that were not Grandchildren to somebody; Adam and Eve had their own generation all to themselves, and their many children comprised the other.  While these lost the joy of having loving Grandparents, they probably found the greater satisfaction of being Grandparents at some time.

Yes, I've always known that even the darker souls among us are born from a seed that, though corrupted by sin, was originally created in the very image of God.  With clarity, I can now look around and see nothing but lovable Grandkids everywhere I go!