“How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.”
~ Annie Dillard

We are being treated to an amazing string of beautiful fall days. The sun and warm temperatures are making Minnesotans, accustomed to complaining about the weather, act a little sheepish. What happened? Why are we being granted such days? Is it only a trick to make us weak for the winter that is to come? No matter the reason, the days have been glorious and it feels like there is a need for perpetual thanksgiving.

After spending yesterday trying to soak in as much of the beauty as possible, I was sitting inside a restaurant with windows all around. I was facing west as the sun began to set for the day. Right before my very eyes, it was as if a painter from the Impressionistic Period hauled out all their watery, pastel colors and began to create something that might be entitled ‘Ending to a Perfect Day’. I watched as the white clouds began to turn pink and then a deep lavender, swirling around the brilliant yellow of the setting sun. It was like being trapped on an easel used by Monet. The watery, feathery edges of the colors faded gently into one another. As the sun moved further below the horizon, the colors became more vibrant. I held my breath with what seemed like a miracle being created right before my eyes.

As I sat, enraptured by this sight, a young father brought his children to stand at the window’s edge. The children, all younger than seven or so, stood spellbound as he knelt beside them, encircling them with his arms. There we were, five people witnessing the stupendous ending to an equally stupendous day.

This morning I had an early meeting which had me on the road for the sunrise. I looked out my rearview mirror at the morning sky. “Here we go again!” I thought. The sky began to shift with these liquid colors yet once more…..yellow, pink, lavender, pale blue…..all swirling in on themselves. I watched as the big ball of yellow made its way above the cityscape. It was held in the luscious colors that ringed its setting the night before as it ushered in another day.

I thought of the words above by Annie Dillard. I had scribbled them on the back of my checkbook a few weeks ago after reading them on a kitchen magnet in an art store I had stopped into. ‘How we spend our days is of course how we spend out lives.’ It is so true, isn’t it?

I have to admit that so many days I allow the way I spend my life to be eaten up by little, mindless details. Things that in the big picture of living are fairly unimportant. Other days I can spend my life fretting or worrying over issues I have little control over. Still other days I can spend my life being torn up by jealousy or gossip or comparing myself to another person or my unrealistic view of who I ‘should’ be. Is this really a way to spend one’s life?

As I reflected on the ending of my yesterday and the beginning of my today, I felt pretty good about how I was spending my life, at least for the last couple of days. I had been bathed in beauty by the great Artist and I had had the good sense to pay attention. I had been privy to one of the greatest shows on Earth, the sunrise and the sunset, of just one of the days of my life and I had noticed.

Please dear God, may it always be so.