Autumn

Autumn

A few years ago I discovered autumn. I wasn't entirely appreciative of its existence before then. Its nuances and graces remained elusive to me for a time. Autumn had always seemed to be an unnecessary season pretending it was summer until its guise fell revealing that winter was behind, a plot, teasing out the unfulfilable hope of a perpetual season of warmth and life.

As I have become progressively more rotund, summer, with all its fresh colour and charms, has not always seemed an ideal season. Heat can be debilitating and unhelpful in the office and whilst trundling about, mowing weeds. When I consider my ancestors, Prussians and Scots, I am not surprised that I have inherited both a resistance to cold and intolerance of heat. I shan’t complain though, Johannesburg has one of the most temperate climates one could wish for. Sufficient to say, I am strangely more alive in the cold of winter.

I digress, back to autumn.  It all boils down to pictures for me. I remember as a thirteen-year old discovering D H Lawrence (A depraved adolescence waited in the wings) and reading about ‘dappled sunlight'. "What's dappled sunlight?” I would mew aloud with screwed up spotty cheeks. I only truly discovered the answer to this variegated wonder of nature when in the midst of an 'episode' of depression in the autumn 1991. I discovered myself at the side of the road looking at the sunlight sketching and erasing itself on the pavement below a Jacaranda tree, outside the city shelter in Hillbrow. I wasn't sure how I'd got there. In my numbness, my frozen mind thawed-out at the sight of this mysterious invisible artist who could animate her pictures delicately yet haphazardly before me. The Holy Spirit in all Her creativity worked a sketchpad of shadows and light calling me into life. The autumn sun seems carefully adjusted for work such as this.

I'll never forget that day. Since then I have discovered many great joys of autumn. Its delightful colours, a rainbow of promise that the heady pleasures of the new life of spring will come again to feed our senses.

This week a friend of mine passed away after a struggle with a terminal illness. Over the last few months every time I went to see him I felt as if God was wanting me to impress upon him the value of autumn this year. The symbolism of autumn being the season before death may be obvious to some though not something many contemplate willingly. I held out for the hope of a new beginning, that Charles's spring would come, that he would be healed and we would all rejoice at the presence of new life. But death came and Charles has gone on to be held in the bosom of God. Which does sound like a comfy place to snuggle. In essence that is a new beginning for Charles but not necessarily for us, those left peering bewildered into the sky.

I wonder if the severing of the presence of someone we love through death is as painful as the introduction of the presence of another through birth. But just as joy is the fruit of a mothers pain at birth so too can peace be our portion as we consider our loved one's absence from our presence and presence with the Father. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Psalm 116:15

I think autumn is truly a season for contemplation. How can death be so beautiful? Gentle Charles’ cheeks which were always rather rosy, lost their colour in the purging of chemotherapy - became unnaturally rosy the day he died. As the leaves die they have their final, though most captivating bursts of colour. A coronation of existence concluded. As trees loose their foliage, the sun shines through to an otherwise deprived surface below.  Seeds fall to the ground with purpose full of potential for a complete life.

This reminds me of Jesus' words in John 12:24: "I tell you the truth, unless an ear of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." These are things that we are not quick to grasp. Perhaps we need more than one autumn to help us appreciate the reality, inevitability and value of the end of things. I think, as I grow older I am learning that the end is as valuable as the beginning. God seems to value the celebration of a life complete, we may not judge whether a life is complete or not. That’s the job of a creator.

_{Iesus Hominum Salvator}