This week Pat Thompson and I put together the fall vases and changed our decorating colors.

This is the one season which I call our “non-liturgical color scheme.” The church is still in Ordinary Time and so Fr. Garry will continue to wear green vestments. However, to reflect the beauty of the nature we see around us, we use fall colors to decorate our church with. I don’t know where the kinte cloth altar cloth came from, but I am very glad that St. James has it. Kinte cloth is an African fabric that beautifully complements the décor of this season. The cloth on the ambo (lectern) is similar and so are the cloths which will be on the Table of Remembrances and the stand for the Book of the Dead during November.

The three stone looking vases have been at St. James for a long time. The wooden/leathery vase is a recent gift to us from a parishioner. We fill these with corn stalks, cattails, sun flowers, black-eyed susan stems, artificial bittersweet, and artificial leaves. We also use artificial pumpkins (I learned long ago that real pumpkins tend to start rotting when left in warm places for a long time.) gourds, and small bales of straw to complete the decorating.

These decorations will stay up through the feast of Christ the King (Nov. 22nd).

– Bob Anderson