The crimson red leaves of the Japanese Maple float to the ground in front of the pine board church, the last week of fall has come to New Skete. I have long been taken by the beauty of Autumn, his valiant colors of ochre, surik and crimson. There is a peaceful stillness. There is an underlying trembling terror of which memory reminds us. Within one weeks time the maple had given up all of it's leaves, taken by the wind and the rain. It stands before a bleak winter's sky.