I love autumn. I love it because of the changing trees. Yellows, oranges, reds, burgundy’s, tans and browns dot the countryside. This vibrant palette of color causes an excitement in me, the realization that life is changing all around me and I need to take notice.
Autumn has always been a time of personal reflection, a turning inward. I think it’s because trees tell me so much about the inner season of life. Each year as I notice the trees “turning” I take note of my own turnings: a turning toward God; a turning toward self-knowledge; a turning toward growth; a turning toward maturity.
I marvel at how the trees give themselves over so freely to the turning, much more freely than I. Trees allow autumn to have their summer leaves. They allow the frost to touch them and the wind to toss them. They allow the season to make it appear that all is lost and there is no green growth left. But they also know from a deeper more rooter place that another season is on the horizon and out of the terminal buds a new leafing is hidden within. New life is close at hand.
When we are rooted deeply in God, we too can live with the assurance that although the winds may blow and the leaves fall and the frost come, something new and hidden will soon be revealed. Faith, hope and love sustain us through the frost of loss, through the winds of life, rooting us deeply in the sustenance of all life, our Creator. When we are rooted deeply in God, we have trust that whatever assails us, whether famine or war or loss of income or loss of family…God will be with us.
Yet none of us really wants to be as vulnerable as the autumn tree. None of us wants to surrender so fully. None of us wants to be as vulnerable to the winter of life. We like the warmth and security of summer. Change is not easy. Yet whether we want it or not, in order to experience the new growth of life, we must be willing to let go of the old to make room for the new.
New growth means changes. The trees tell us this. Life tells us this. Jesus tells us this. One of the most beautiful aspects of the Incarnation is that the Christ allowed himself to be vulnerable. He became one of us and he opened himself up in love to the possibility of failure, being wounded, misunderstood, and rejected, all those things we know are “daily dyings” to the self….like those autumn leaves fast falling from the trees.
Every time Jesus opened himself to others, every time he reached out or spoke up, every time he touched or received from others he allowed himself to be vulnerable. Jesus referred to this when he said, “Only if you lose your life for my sake will you find it.” I wonder how vulnerable we might become in this new season. I wonder what fruit we shall come to bear. I wonder what new life remains hidden yet to be revealed. In the meantime, let us root ourselves deep in Him who is the Source of life.
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