Nearly every morning, I take a hike with my dog Bernie.  It’s a time for me to connect to God through the natural world. It’s a chance each day for me to remember that I am loved by the Creator and that all of creation is loved as well. It is a time of blessing and helps me get ready for my busy day. 

In the last week, the fall colors have been magnificent! Now, however, the scarlet and yellow leaves are falling, and the woods express a different shape and tone. The trunks of trees once again take on a lead role, the one they will retain for the remainder of winter. With each descending leaf, the shape of the hills and valleys slowly comes into view once again. 

Autumn, for me, is both a time of resignation and gentle joy. Certainly, I am sad to see the vibrancy of the forest depart, but without the exit of the leaves, the undergirding themes of the forest could never be known. Woven in these themes are thin but resilient strands of beauty and joy and love.

I wonder whether our lives are a bit like that. The years of our lives, like the autumn leaves, persistently fall away, revealing the more fundamental aspects of our identities. Along with the years, whole chapters of our lives seem to fall away. Both our greatest successes and our most devastating failures take on less prominence, and the greater, more primary structures of our lives, like the trunks of the trees, take shape. And all of this happens before the beauteous backdrop of the elemental structure of all life, that is, God’s love.  

Yes, it is sad to see the leaves fall, but as they do, the nearly unimaginable elegance of the hills and valleys is revealed.  And yes, it is difficult to bid farewell to many parts of our lives that have brought such delight. If we focus our energy only on what has diminished or departed, however, we risk failing to see the new life that is emerging and the love beneath it all. 

Antoine de Lavoisier, the great mathematician and chemist, said: “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.” Autumn teaches us the same. Life transformed into life, and God’s love… above, beneath, and coursing through it all.

~Art