September 2020 :: Pandemic Blues

• Most of the world has gotten caught up in a serious case of existential blues from social isolation and other COVID-19 related realities; doubtless circumstances have led to many cases of clinical depression. Friend who pastors Church on the HIll in Previous City calls the current season Covidtide.

• I've now completed seven months of Reflections on Scripture During a Worldwide Pandemic, once known as early the following week Sunday School notes on my Urban Wilderness blog; here are my four for September.



• Again this year I designed for the Four Sundays plus One of Season of Creation. The past two years I updated old designs and had planned to again, but the organizers changed themes and scripture readings. Nevertheless, despite pandemic blues, I created a group with Facebook cover photo dimensions and even got a major shoutout on the judicatory's FB page and on their website, giving me another pin on the map. Jubilee for the Earth is the overall theme for 2020.



• Only very rarely (almost never) do I blog a monthly summary without berries when they're in season. Although blacks and blues have been around, for September it's red strawberries.



• Best guess is this was the last moon flower this year. Noticing one on the way and watching it unfold is such a pleasure.



• This general area is so good for succulents and other desert flora.



• Sooooo… I got invited to real life indoors church! On the last Sunday of September, and only a few of us, very well distanced—and masked, of course. The outside window boxes have new flowers; I don't know if or when milkweed for monarchs will be back. I also don't know when more people will be back inside church and what on earth will all of us be doing for Thanksgiving Day?



• After I announced I wanted to design a new autumn-themed header for my twitter and crowd sourced a quote to add, someone suggested "The Season of Soul." Despite late spring through mid-summer being my fave time of year, I love the full, ripe feeling of early fall days. I truly love how they remind me of the year-round magic of late afternoon's visual and psychological glow (yes, that's a photographic golden hour), of a day that has reached a certain stage so we need to rest and sleep into the next one's sunrise. Autumn makes souls and voices sing differently from any other season, and the overall style of autumn soul relates well to pandemic blues. They make a nice pair that travels well together!

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