At the moment one of the joys I encounter daily is my walk through the Botanic Gardens on my way to church.  Although the crispness has given way to sogginess, the late autumn colours of the trees are stunning and I love the way they carpet the paths as they fall (though I'm sure the gardeners don't!).  The change of the clocks back to GMT means that it is now, for a while, light again after a couple of weeks of sunrise strolls, and I miss the stillness of the early darkness.

A week or so back at church we sang 'Colours of Day' which is, I finally spotted (duh!), an urban hymn not a rural one.

'Go through the park on in to the town' is exactly what I do each morning, and I love it!

'Go down in the city, into the street, and let's give the message to the people we meet'

In the red-gold-brown soggyifed-former-crispness of leaves in the park the song lifts my spirits and I almost skip along to work each day.

In a world where sad and bad news abounds, it is good to recall one of my favourite portrayals of God, in the film Dogma (which is pretty grim overall): God is a young woman turning cartwheels in a garden.  A God who delights in colour and brings hope amidst the 'stidegeon gloom' - this is Good News indeed.