Benedicamus Domino!
Autumn has come upon us once again here in Canada. Yesterday on a walk with my dog, I felt the leaves crunching underfoot and inhaled their peculiar dead but vital fragrance. There is something about the scent of dry leaves which underscores what Autumn has always meant to me. It is, in fact, my very favourite season of the year, and I have often asked myself why this should be. I have discovered that it is my favourite season, because it feels the most real to me. It assails me with scents and sensations, magic and mystery, blazing sun and cooling air. It is what our world truly is: a thing of transitory brilliance, beautiful in its perpetually-changing being.
When I truly began to reverence Autumn for its own sake, I was a practicing Pagan and Witch. I looked forward every year to the festival of Samhane (sow-wen,) when the end of the harvest would be honoured along with the dead who had gone before us. This is the root-festival for what has become known in our modern culture as Halloween, and whether you approve of the current customs associated with October 31 or not, for Witches (or the Wicca) and other Pagans, it is a time when the dead are honoured and remembered, and when the death of the year is acknowledged. For me, this festival brought meaning and pathos to an already meaning-filled time of the year, and it brought Autumn into focus in a way that no other faith had done for me before. I had always felt Autumn to be somehow holy, somehow sacred, but with the festival of Samhane, there was something more to it, something liturgical about the season, I suppose. The death of nature in Winter led to new life in the spring, and Autumn was nature's last revel, her last dance, as it were.
Yet, though my time for celebrating Samhane is long over, Autumn still has a deeply mystical quality for me, and I think I can now say why. In Autumn's blaze and burn, the world is giving of itself. The fields give up their harvest and the sun lends us its heat. Creation sacrifices itself to allow us to have new life again in the spring. Autumn is a very sacrificial time. I once believed this in a Pagan way, and in a sense, I haven't stopped believing it, or rather, my heart hasn't stopped believing it. Autumn is joyful for me, precisely because it is fleeting, precisely because it will end. Spring is redolent of new beginnings. Summer is luxuriant, almost epicurian in its delights! Winter is hard, but joy abounds amid the hardships because of the new hope of the spring. Autumn alone is unapologetic. It is honest about its direction. It is our world spending itself, consuming itself and preparing for rest. Autumn can show us how to be.
Autumn is like the glory of the sunset. Why is it that we see this glory only at the end of things? It is written in the Bible that all the world is vanity, meaning that everything in this life here is fleeting. Anyone who has lived a few years on this earth and has looked at their lives honestly can agree with this statement. I've seen many posts on Facebook and in other places lamenting the oncoming of Autumn. Whether it heralds the end of summer vacations or the coming of winter, people have tended to view Autumn this year as a negative. This is because we do not want to admit to ourselves that things here on earth change. We seek eternity, but, being fallen people, we seek it in the wrong places.
How many times have you said to yourself: "I wish this hour, day, season, would last forever?" We are averse to change, especially to change which seems to herald death or hardship. We buck against the transient nature of our existence, while all the while knowing that we can't do anything about it. The other extreme in dealing with the notion that all life is fleeting is to live fast and die hard. Is this valid? On the surface, it may seem that Autumn takes this approach, but I see Autumn, as I stated before, as giving of itself to feed the new spring, and it is this giving, this bringing to fruition that we need to look at. Yes, our life here is fleeting. Yes, we will all die! Death is a part of human life in this fallen world, and to deny it is simply to be dishonest with ourselves. So, what of it? What should we do?
Well, just as Autumn shows us that winter is not the end but only the dorrway to another spring, it is the fleeting beauties of this world which show us the doorway to the immortal beauty of Christ. There is a reason that we seek to keep things forever. There is a reason that we do not like to think of death, and that is, simply put, that we were never meant to be weak and mortal creatures. We were meant for eternity, so we desire it. However, because we have fallen, our egos twist that desire, and if we're not careful, we'll seek to make an eternity of a world which is fundamentally transitory, and we will forever be disappointed.
So, I say: take Autumn as a guide! Look to the hope of Christ and of eternity, but realize that life here is fleeting, and make the most of it. Give of yourself, ask God to bring your life to fruition. Harvest the fruits of the Spirit, and truly believe in the eternal joy that is Christ's triumph over death! Die to yourself a little every day, and let Christ live in you! Let changes come and try to meet them with God-given equinimity! Know that change is a necessary part of life, but look to the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever to carry you through it! Oh, and while you can, get out and enjoy the beautiful Autumn that we're having! Feel those crunching leaves and smell their fragrance! Remember your childhood, and be comforted that you are still a child of God! That's what I intend to do!
Deo Gratias!
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