I am sitting at the old 18^th century kitchen prep table I found in an antique store that now serves as my desk in my office at home. The air is muggy and the sky is gray and looking out the multi-paned glass window I notice a yard full of leaves that Sofie, my bumbling Bernese mountain dog is running through, making a crunching noise that is music to my ears. Summer was wonderful. But the promise of autumn is better. I sit quietly enjoying this moment that seems as if time is finally standing still. I sit quietly lost in my thoughts and savoring many memories of this special day, this day known as “back to school.”

I think back to the ribbons my mom used to put in my braids and the fun I had getting to wear my new dresses. (Breaking in my new school shoes wasn’t too much fun!) I can remember the wonderful smell of molasses cookies greeting me as I opened my metal lunch box to get out my snack and my little thermos holding my milk, hopefully it would be chocolate, which I always preferred. And I can remember running home from school eager to tell my mom everything that happened during my day.

I don’t ever recall getting sentimental about this day as I do now and I wonder why that is? Why do I feel the same excitement, the same fear and the same butterflies in my stomach that many children are feeling as well? Why do I have this sudden interest in buying new pens and notebooks? What is it about this day that brings adults, who have been out of school for many years, back to being a child again?

Perhaps it is the sense of new beginnings that this day presents to not just children but to adults as well. Perhaps it is a day in which we can wistfully look back and think about all the years that have gone by and realize that we still can learn something new this day. Just because we aren’t in school doesn’t mean we have stopped learning. As Maya Angelou once wrote, “I learned that I still have a lot to learn.”

Perhaps the first day back to school is our time—we, the adults—to embrace the beautiful truth that children have yet to fully understand. That with God, each day is a new day to learn, to live and to love. Scripture holds that beautiful realization that can restore hope when it whispers to us, “See, I am making all things new.”

As I sit here with memories of hair ribbons, metal lunch boxes, new pencils and notebooks going through my mind, I realize the excitement I am feeling is more about all the possibilities God is presenting me right now with this new school year that has begun today. What is it I want to do? What is it that I want to accomplish? How is it that I can continue growing into the person God wants me to be? As I dream and then plan and then make my schedule for this day of learning, I do it knowing that God holds the ultimate lesson plan in his hands.

Instruct me, Lord, and show me your truths and the path you want me on.

Yes, school is back in session. For all of us, no matter what age we are. Today is the day for us all to realize that no matter how much we think we know, there is still so much more to learn.

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks since coming back from some time away at the little old house in Vermont that my husband and I still call home, even though I am now serving as a pastor just a tad bit below the Mason Dixon line.

With Labor Day ushering in the unofficial end of summer and grocery stores confirming summer’s passing with a plethora of pumpkin flavored everything, yes, everything, from pumpkin pasta sauce to pumpkin pancake syrup—get it now because it is, as the label says, for a limited time only—life has gone from a calm “it will all get done” to a frenzied “it needs to get done now.”

Committee meetings at church have taken up most of my nights as plans for worship, missions and church school get underway for this “pumpkin-flavored” season we are in. For the most part these meetings have been energizing, with new ways of serving and reaching others being added into the mix of the good old, tried and true ways of how we do church. But as I sip my pumpkin flavored cappuccino, I can’t shake this feeling that God is asking something more of us. Not in the way of more innovative ideas, creative outreach programs or busy work. Rather more of being present to God in the way of praying rather than planning and listening rather than speaking and being rather than always doing.

The other day at the free lunch my church hosts for those in the community, I was talking with an elderly gentleman who I jokingly deputized as my co-pastor because of his words of wisdom he always brings to me every time we meet. For me it is truly a God moment when we sit down together because his words he shares with me are always in line with what is already on my heart. So imagine my awe when my newly deputized co-pastor got serious in the middle of our laughter and jokes, placed his frail, aged hand on mine, and said, “Don’t ever lose sight of God’s plans for you. Don’t ever forget to listen to God in the noise all around you. For we are here on earth for a limited time only.”

I was taken aback for I knew exactly what he was talking about. In the blessed stillness of my time recently spent in Vermont, where the satellite TV has been disconnected as I am not up there enough to justify the monthly cost, and the wireless Internet service put on hold for the same reason, and where the bars on my cell phone are non-existent, I found my steps getting back in sync with God’s.

The holy rhythm of life gave back an energy that no amount of caffeine could ever give. The silent communion of my heart with God’s that I had while sitting on the top of the hill that makes up our five acres, with the choir of birds singing a choral benediction closing out my prayer time, filled me with ideas and God possibilities. And the brilliance of the starlit sky, not dimmed by man’s need to have artificial light to illumine the darkness, reminded me once again that God’s light is the most beautiful light ever in our lives.

That was then. This is now.

The TV is back on. The Internet is also connected. The cell phone has many bars so that calls can get through. And the brilliance of that starlit sky I marveled at a few weeks ago? After a long meeting last night I came home and paused on the porch before going inside and found what I had expected to find. I looked up at the sky and the stars weren’t as bright as I had hoped. What human ingenuity thought was a good idea had actually washed away the brilliance of God’s creation.

God is asking more of us. Not more in terms of what we can do or produce, but more of our hearts and our trust and our devotion and our love.

For we, too, have a “for a limited time only” label on us, so why don’t we savor the time we have and really get our steps in sync with God’s.