Now, I will come clean by telling you that I have always
been a person moved by the onset of Spring. Where I grew up Fall was the signal of a coming winter that was, by and
large, grey and rainy with the temperature generally hovering around 34
degrees. The damp cut you like a
knife. When I moved to the Chicago area
for seminary there came an annual autumn trip to our rival seminary in the
Wisconsin woods for a football game. Now,
I grew up with the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains in full Fall foliage, but
never before these games had I walked knee-deep in brilliant yellow leaves the
size of Frisbees. Plus, it got dark so
much earlier in these more northern latitudes. It was a siren’s song, of
course, because it meant that the dark grey of winter would onset in early
November and it would not relent to a warming sun and clearing sky until late
April or early May. I would be deprived
of blue sky and green grass until long after the calendar and the planets
proclaimed it Spring. Ah, it was, for
me, one more lesson of “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”
Despite these things, I was, and admit that I still am,
charmed by that crispness and the earlier arrival each day of the vesper light
(no thanks to daylight savings time).
There is a sense of boundaries, not hard and harsh but persistent while
being gentle. Schools return to session
and that means to me there is a renewal of learning. Choirs return and that means there is a
renewal of singing. People return and
that harkens a renewal of community.
The late strains of Fall will bring the candle-glow of
Advent. Winter gifts us with the
Incarnation and the Epiphany and, despite its name ushers us the challenges of
Lent. Easter breaks forth in all ways of
the Resurrection and floods us with new life.
Those tender pale greens and running waters of Spring deepen into the
full bloom and expansive daylight of summers.
God tells time by the movement of planets and the ebb and
flow of tides. Never is there the need
for a “leap” to correct or insert, and you never have to roll the date on your
wristwatch to because of a twenty-eight or thirty day month. I love this rhythm. It is natural. It is liturgical. It is God’s time.
The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, *
and you give them their food in due season.
You open wide your hand *
and satisfy the needs of every living creature.
The Lord is righteous in all his ways *
and loving in all his works. Psalm
145:16-18
May you find God’s rhythm in your days, in your seasons, in your
prayers, in your breath and in your life.
Grace and peace,
Scott+