Mother Autumn Returns!

Perhaps because I was an October baby and spent my first seven years living in New England, fall has always been my favorite time of year. What Gerard Manley Hopkins termed "hurrahing in harvest" comes naturally to me with the arrival of the autumn equinox. The vibrancy of fall exhilarates me, causing me instinctively to revel in the gift of life.

Autumn is a good and bountiful mother who initially presents this gift of life in spectacular form. She doesn't display her beauty -- she flaunts it, passionately, shamelessly. Day after day she reveals her precious goods, one more glorious than the other. Her manner is somewhat reckless. Such treasures so freely given to any passerby! I am not always so generous in sharing my carefully hoarded riches, and I experience both discomfort and awe as I witness such largess. I am a bit frightened by her generosity for I know that Mother Autumn will give all until seemingly nothing remains -- and then what?

Then, after the surrender comes the stripping, the emptiness. I cringe before such barrenness. This is not, however, a meaningless void. Rather, it is a sacred space, wherein the marvelous cycle of life-through-death continues throughout countless ages. This timeless rhythm must be repeated again and again, both in my own life-span and in that of all creation. It is the rhythm of life burgeoning and regenerating, and it happens most often in fallow moments of stillness and rest.

In this place of darkness and silence, I must live by faith. The external lavish show does not belong here. Neither does the hoarding and miserliness. Mother Autumn bids me to willingly let go, to gladly undergo the deaths of everyday living, both large and small. She demonstrates powerfully that the things I cling to so fondly serve little purpose, lovely and comforting though they may be. Precisely because she knows intrinsically her true inner wealth, this wise woman quietly puts aside her outer finery and lives from deep within. From this vantage point, she is empowered to stand fast, holding firm to the promise of the vision which will neither fail nor disappoint nor deceive, which will surely come and not delay (Hab 2:3).

Mother Autumn both manifests and celebrates the abundant life. She bespeaks of the mysteriously fertile life of the grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies, a secret, hidden life which becomes richer and fuller in the very act of dying. Such a life wondrously transcends the limitations imposed by exterior forces and tenderly begets new life in endless measure.

When I listen to Mother Autumn's harvest hymn of praise, I hear her sing exultingly of the freedom that comes with abandonment to Divine Providence. From her I gratefully learn anew the joy of depending solely upon the Loving Creator. Caught up in her cosmic paean, Mother Autumn and I together proclaim the goodness and majesty of the One who alone is the Lord and Giver of Life.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Phil 1:21