Greg's Weekly Word: "autumn"
Updated: Sep 16, 2021
It's the fall!
Not this:
This:
(Then again, I guess both involve leaves...?)
We are finally getting into the season of autumn (a.k.a. "fall") - crisp mornings and warm sweaters and college football and pumpkins and pumpkin-spice everything! And I, for one, am really excited. Fall is my favorite season.
And yet it's also a paradoxical time. It is traditionally the time of harvest, celebrating the growth that has occurred, but also a time of changing colors and weather growing colder...at least in the Northern Hemisphere. The word autumn comes from a Latin word that may have an origin meaning "increase" or "drying up season." And in truth, it may be both!
It is a season (the season) of transition and change. The autumnal equinox is next week, literally halfway between the longest day of the year and the shortest day of the year, when the night and day are almost exactly equal. It is the transition point as we move from longer days to longer nights.
And so perhaps autumn is a good season for us to consider the changes happening around us and within us. (And especially this fall, as we are reimagining our church's facilities and how they can better facilities ministry.)
What might be changing like the color of leaves, bringing beauty and color into the world?
What do we need to let go of, like trees that seem to release their leaves to the ground?
What may be entering a period of dormancy, quietly waiting to emerge and grow?
What has grown in us or among us that we could we celebrate, or reap the results of, as we would a harvest?
How might this season of life lead us toward a deeper connection with God - even in times of transition, as fields go fallow and trees become bare - in anticipation of new life?
- GJD