The turning of the season almost kept us from going outside today, but the air was crisp with the scent of that autumnal promise in the air that only comes once a season. Leaves covered the table, the chairs, the bench, the table, everything in site. A faint, sickly sweet smell signalling their decomposition had already begun to cling to the air. We hesitated and then smiled in unison, remembering that the holiness of life is found in this: death preceding birth, the end of a thing to make way for something new. Christ in the quiet. Christ in the leaves. Christ with us here, “where two” but no more were gathered in the quiet, in His presence.