A change in the weather...

The temperature outside is beginning to feel more like autumn although officially its still summer.

Around here we call it "good sleeping weather" when the evening air is cool and the humidity of the summer has passed. You can keep your windows open as the temperature drops in to the 60's (farenheit) and just a light blanket is all you need for a good night's rest.

September is Minnesota's way of apologizing for weather that always seems to be wrong somehow. Too hot, too cold, too rainy, too snowy, too much of something nearly always and its unpredictability has made TV meteorologists stars and the rest of us gripers. But somehow September is different. Everything is basically steady and pleasant as if nature herself has taken a rest from making war on us and we celebrate the truce.

The colors will appear as well. At first they will be just touches of orange and red in the leaves but by the end of the month and the early part of October the hills will seem to be on fire with the glory of fall. The drive to LaCrosse, through the Mississippi River valleys through the bluff country, is particularly remarkable. Tourists come from literally all over the country to see nature's last show before winter. The locals call them "leaf watchers" and they descend on the area with the whirring sounds of cameras and fill the local registers with cash.

There are tangible benefits to being a traveling Priest and this season reminds me of them. Whether I was on the road through the woods to the prairies of North Dakota or along the river to LaCrosse there are moments of beauty in the quiet of the car that are real but cannot be perfectly explained. You just know. I cherish them and look forward to the drive south even now as I am typing this as part of the last details of work before I head out.

This change in the weather also brings out the best in me. I like it cool and wish that September's weather was the standard for the whole year. With all due respect to the Floridians I do like to visit but would probably turn into a maniacal killer if forced to live there all year round. I even like Fargo, high and wide on the North Dakota plains and driven by winds that come unchecked from the steppes of Canada.

With the change in the weather my pace quickens, the sleepy days of summer pass, and the preparations for the winter come in earnest. The church, diminished by the vacations of summer, returns to life again and the horizon expands even as the daylight shrinks away. All in all it is a good time of the year.

And I must be on my way.