A few moments from the North Shore

 

At dawn's first blush, the world is magical. Fall colors create a cartoon world that slowly becomes even more showy, more outlandish with every passing minute. The plains have an earthiness that's wondrous, maybe especially at dawn. But "up north," as they say, during the gaudy days of late fall, there's barely any room on the palette for the wide and amazing spectrum of bright color. 

So, once you get back your balance, you start to take aim rather than simply firing away. 

Takes some time. For a while you're punch drunk amid the glory all around, but once you regain footing, you don't just look, you see. We're "up north," on Minnesota's glorious North Shore, and while--or so people say--the oaks and maples have already been undressed for the season, bright yellows take over the stage.

Everywhere you look there's something glorious.

Soon enough, even though dawn's Midas touch has lifted, absolutely everything says "praise." 

"Abide with Me" is partly a lament. But fall colors like these give a whole new meaning to "change and decay in all around I see," because change and decay colors the world around. 

Moses was in the desert when he determined God would accept alternatives. So rather than speak to the rock to produce water, he hit it. I'm guessing that if he'd been here instead, he wouldn't have doubted at all. 

"The bedrock was created during the Midcontinent Rift," the science says, "a failed rift which occurred some 1.1 billion years ago. As the continent sundered, magma and lava flowed upward, which cooled into the present-day rock of the Duluth Complex and North Shore Volcanic Group." 

That's the textbook answer. Not for a moment would I doubt that "the continent sundered." 

But what I know is the hands that created this immense bouquet of fall color--even though so much of the extravagance was gone just a day or two later--those hands clearly fashion artistry that can't be assumed to be anything but divine.