Fall begins this week.  I feel it. I have fallen.  I've just left Harvester Island after four months. I have leaped from outhouses and banyas and wilderness to land back in Kodiak, to roads, Walmart and flushing toilets. I didn't want to leave. Especially as the colors blazed orange and pink, the skies blue, yellow and black. Even the tideline kelp bloomed red under Autumn's burnished light.

Leaves are falling, school schedules are filling and falling. So much falls during the Fall. Even animals fall.

Last year I watched as a squirrel fell from a tree and landed on a raspberry bush right in front of me. 

As Fall begins, as I leave one island for another, one life for another, I want to began again. Is it possible for any of us to start over? Trevin Wax, who wrote the words below, is right: This is what we are missing, dear friends, readers, and anyone confused, hungry, weary with themselves. We need a Start-Over,  a Do-Over. And here's how to begin: with Repentance.

Re-what?? We are not a repentant people. We run from guilt. We don't want to forgive. We don't want to submit to anyone. We fear all of this will rob us of our power. But here is our greatest power: the power of smallness, the power of humility, the power of weakness, the power of falling.  

Are you ready? Take this short ride with me, and I promise clarity, catharsis and arms to catch you!

(Words by Trevin Wax, images by God as seen by my camera)

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Christians, We Are Repenters---------

We repent of all the good things we have failed to do, and so we ask God to open our eyes to the opportunities for us to shine His light in a dark world.

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We are repenters.

We repent of serving ourselves and our own interests, and so we ask God to empower us to serve others in the name of His Son.

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We are repenters.

We repent of making God out to be more like us, and so we ask God to change our hearts and make us more like Him.

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We are repenters.

We repent of our silly attempts to justify ourselves before God and make ourselves pleasing to Him through our own efforts, and so we ask Him to save and sustain us in His unwavering grace and help us rest in Christ’s work on our behalf.

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We are repenters.  

  We repent of our hypocrisy and self-righteousness, and so we ask God to deliver us from doublemindedness and help us seek His righteousness above all.

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We are repenters.    

We repent of valuing most what other people think, and so we ask God to help us value most what He thinks.

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We are repenters.

We repent of withholding areas of our life from God’s command, and so we ask God to invade and overcome every part of us – our hopes, our desires, our dreams, our thoughts, our actions – and show us how to love Him and love others from a whole heart.

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We are repenters.

We repent of seeking a life of ease and comfort, and so we ask God for the courage to pick up our crosses and follow Christ no matter the cost.

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We are repenters.

We repent of taking pride in our own repentance, and so we ask God to remind us that salvation is all of grace and to humble us before the cross.

This Fall, my life is about to change. (More on this next week.)  Maybe yours will too?

And it begins here.

Not until you let go        and

         (finally)        fall

will you be caught

 by the Everlasting Arms.

"Then shall the fall further the flight in me. "

                                   ---George Herbert