The season is upon us, this time of the year we know as autumn. In the Midwestern portion of the country, we have had the annual glory of awesome colors blessing our eyes, blended with the warmth of the sun that shines and makes all those colors dance.
My focus is on the beauty and it is everywhere I look. 
It doesn’t stop the agony of our life experience from happening; people continue to fight, to become ill, to feel suffering, to die, to grieve. However, we have choices with each breath we take about where we want to avert our attention and where we want to invest our heart. Stress is everywhere but it is how we cope with it that makes the difference for us, for our health and our happiness. To be resilient, we need to believe that in every single thing we experience there is grace, lessons to be learned, blessings to know.
I went to a concert yesterday–the St Louis Women’s Hope Chorale. It was the beauty of women singing in an old Episcopal Church. The theme was Angels Among Us. The approach to their concert was to look within the community and find the angels who are present. They may look like ordinary people but when when you allow yourself to really see, they are indeed more beautiful than the average person. It was a rich experience and one that brought the audience to tears because it was so emotionally inspiring.
In the midst of the day, within all this glory, the sky was full of an energy that brought rains and winds and turbulence. There were parts of town where it is rumored that tornado winds touched down and wreaked their havoc. However, the sun shined throughout most of it. It was strange. It was also just simply life. Tragedy happens, joy is everywhere, people are crying, someone else is laughing hard. No matter what we find ourselves immersed in this very moment, this too shall pass as the storms did yesterday. Life goes on, we are invited to embrace it.
