Autumn's Irresistible Anodyne

 

"All at once summer collapsed into fall." Oscar Wilde

Autumn, the dying of leaves, the colors, the crunching, the change, the floating and drifting, the drama, the inwardness.

While many find fall invigorating and lively and beautiful, I find autumn sad. Yes, it is all those marvelous other things, but the soup that contains the loveliness is melancholy, for me. Sadness. 

(Hold on. Be brave. There is a happy ending.)

Summer delights me. Swimming, sunning, gardening, playing, long days, room to freely move, arms outspread, face to the sun, its warmth on the skin. Expansiveness, energy, exotic vacations. Adventure!

Then, fall creeps in - almost undetectably - snatching away summer's serendipity. Realizing that long months of cold and darkness must be endured before the landscape is reborn on spring's wings, my mind weeps.

For my loved ones' sake, I force myself to buck up, pursuing gratitude. My wardrobe is scanned for earth tones and oranges, reds, golds. Some items present themselves. Harvest decor is pulled from my seasonal decorations box. I buy a few pumpkins, set them here and there in an artful way. My spirits lift. Creativity breeds jollity. Maybe fall is not so bad after all.

Leaves dance from above, gracefully floating from their deathbeds to the ground, piling into crunchy heaps which must be raked and composted. Work. Sometimes very soggy work. Still, it is hard to resent this ballet of leaves, each one a prima donna.

The color orange is spunky. I like it. Crimson, elegance. Yellow and gold hobnobbing with green, playfulness. Once a year an orchestral masterpiece on display, colors, movement, surprise. Undeniably breathtaking, no matter how gloomy my outlook, ever-changing scenery brilliantly beckons.

Unshelled nuts tightly packed in bulging plastic bags at the local farm entice my attention as do knobby gourds in whimsical shapes. Then, there are the apples! An abundant variety of crisp freshness. My hand reaches to pick one smooth fruit after another. Into the white plastic bucket they go. The quaint outdoor store, lined with produce, sparkling bottles of syrups, jams, jellies, savories, offers explosive sensory delights of sights, scents, tastes. I can't help but purchase more than I should, grinning in exuberance all the way back to my car.

As I navigate the farm yard's unrestrained mounds of pumpkins, I chuckle at children rhapsodizing over their pumpkin selections.

"Look at mine! It is bigger than my head!" 

Memories of my own pumpkin hunts as a child come to mind at the funny blurts and excited movement of kids as they weave their way amidst the goofy orbs, until their Eureka! moment when the perfect one is befriended. Laser focused and determined, filled with childhood wonder and utter joy.

In spite of myself, amusement at the children, the farm, the beauty of fall nudges melancholy to periphery. No time for brooding while this blazing drama plays out, this quickly fading marker of year's end. The sun is still warm on my shoulders and face, summer's staleness is blown away, replaced by crisp fresh air. The soil absorbs long-needed rain. Late harvest yields a few tasty surprises from my gardens. Pleasant. These are good things. These are not nothing. This season is something.

Autumn coaxes me. "Participate. Participate. Participate in the glory of the shedding of the old and the promise of the new."

I will. 

I do.

And in my participation, melancholy offers its balance to the poetry of fall.

"Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." George Eliot (Letter to Miss Lewis, October 1, 1841)

Before We Know There is a Question, God Knows the Answer

As the sun set golden in a clear blue sky, God distinctly answered a question my mind had not asked, let alone knew how to form.

In its special way, my heart understood the answer a moment before it put together that which the question addressed.

Mind followed heart in quick step, illuminated, for both struggled with something - something - which they could not reconcile, a longing, a discontent, something to which a finger could not point, deeper than the cares of this world, broader than experience, seemingly unknowable and yet, persistently beckoning. For months. 

Suddenly, in the words of C.S. Lewis, there it was: understanding, pieces put together, an answer, a reason.

I have been to this place before, and here I was knowing it again for the first time. From a struggle fiercer, a burden heavier, the answer came clearer for the vibrancy of the ache and the years of my life. Clarity. Recognition of a truth fully understood.

Weeping overtook me, both from awe and relief, as the last rays of the sun washed over teardrops, warming my face with their cleansing, end-of-day brilliance.

"Thank you, Lord. So much. Just thank you. Now I understand the yearning and the discontent. Now I understand the why. The answer, Lord. The answer. The answer . . . is beautiful."

I am made for a different world.

Crise existentielle

Okay, the title of this post is a little dramatic. I'm not really having an existential crisis.

My mind played tricks on me today. I stupidly allowed the 'overwhelm' games to be played until I'd worked myself into quite a pitiful state.

Not to be conquered by the imaginary, I let the rational part of my brain take the lead. Finally.

A nice shower. Cute gray and white striped shorts and chic, soft black tank top. Made the bed. Drank some water. Listed ten gratitudes right off the top of my head. 

Out to the garden - my friendly terrazza - to water my fruit  and evergreen trees, dainty new flowers, spring herbs pushing up and blooming, hearty strawberries, and steady onions. Tiny weeds pulled up. Concrete and cobblestones sprayed off.  

I coil the hose, set the pretty black wrought iron chair in the sunshine, gently ease into it and turn my face to the sunshine, glorious sunshine.

My reward for all this effort? The scent of freshly watered, sun-warmed foliage and cobblestones enters my sunny family room. The French doors are wide open as is the window. Lavender! Sage! Thyme! All of these perfume the air. Yes, aromatics coupled with deep satisfaction for overcoming, once again.

Crisis averted.

The mind is the thing.

The Problem is Sin

Another school shooting. We've all heard the news. Children killed and teachers, too. Young children, all from one Texas classroom. Shocking. Horrific. Brutal. Savage. Not human . . . 

. . . wait a minute. Not human?

No, no it really is quite human. Why? Because of a problem inherent to every single human who has or does or ever will exist: sin.

Sure, it sounds like a relic, sin, a religious term that isn't relevant anymore. However, nothing could be less of a relic, less irrelevant than the notion of sin.

Romans 12 describes sin entering the world and death as the result, an eternal separation from God and all that is Holy and Good. The chapter goes on to describe the provision of reconciliation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is good news!

The bad news is that as long as this old world keep turning, as it has since God set it all in motion, as long as sin exists here, there will be one single problem which mankind cannot eradicate, hard as it may try through politics, philosophy, psychiatry, eastern religion, and humanism. Within the heart of every human is darkness, a foulness which rots the soul. Its name is sin. Enmity against God, who is the source of goodness and love.

But there is that good news, remember? There is hope for each and every one whom God calls to Himself. God will work in our hearts to soften them - the Bible refers to this as changing a heart of stone to a heart of flesh, metaphorically, of course. Ezekiel 36:26 says, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

Isn't that marvelous and beautiful! Generous is the love that moves the  Heavenly Father to offer a sort of heart transplant to His children. He has an answer to the problem. The answer is Jesus. You have probably heard this verse, well-known to Sunday school children: "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." (Yes, I memorized it in King James, back in the 1960's.  It's been with me a long, long time.)

Now, back to the school shooting.

A recoiling reaction reverberates throughout the world, as well it should. Things like this ought not to happen. Ever.

But they do. Why? The problem.

During His Beatitudes talk with the crowds in Matthew 5, Jesus said, "'You have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT MURDER,' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be answerable to the court.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court.'" The passage goes from there to describe other sins and Jesus' idea of justice concerning them. Suffice to say, He makes it quite clear that obvious wrong-doings are only the tip of the iceberg. It's the garbage in our hearts that needs attention, for that garbage - sin - is the root cause of evil in all its degrees. Heart garbage must be evaluated. It must be addressed if a person has any chance of coming to grips with the dichotomy of his or her human heart. 

School shootings and other loathsome behavior and events are stark reminders to anyone with eyes to see that something is terribly wrong. In heinous events, evil is not hidden, it presents itself unfiltered. We are horrified, as we should be. But constant sin in our hearts ought to horrify us as well. It is just as bad. 

I know. I know, it doesn't seem as bad. What's a little anger, a lustful glance, a white lie. I'll tell you what it is. Within every evil thought, every evil impulse, every evil deed, hidden or not, there exists complete sinfulness. One virus from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, China, replicated and infected the entire world, or most of it, probably all of it by the time it finishes running its course. One little virus had the power to grow and mutate and survive and harm and kill millions of human beings for two and a half years and counting. It began in a small vial. It exploded over the entire Earth.

Sin behaves in the same way. One evil thought uncaptured, can harm many, infect many, mutate and grow. Take envy. One thought of envy. "I envy the car she drives." Capture it and that is that, it is killed. "I shouldn't envy her for her car. I have a perfectly good car. I am not her. She is not me. I can work to acquire a car like hers if I really want. She is a nice lady, and I don't want to feel anything negative about her." Captured. 

Uncaptured? "I envy the car she drives. Man, is she haughty, full of pride. Got to have a fancy car! Drives it around like she's a celebrity or something. She can't possibly be a good woman. A person who is so attached to material things like that shouldn't be a Sunday school teacher. She is an awful person." Pass around that she is an awful person who shouldn't be a Sunday School teacher and her reputation is maligned. She may never get it back. The cat's out of the bag and running around the city spreading disease. Uncaptured envy results in the disease of sin left to itself to replicate and infect.

How did the school shooter come to carry out his odious act? Evil took root in his heart, infected him. He didn't notice, therefore he didn't evaluate. It grew. It altered his thinking. He lost touch with whatever morals or goodness he may have possessed. Evil conquered him, compelled him to act. Multiple murders occurred. Of tiny children and caring teachers. 

As heartbreaking - unimaginable! - as it is to think of little children dying in pools of their precious, young blood, how heartbreaking is it to realize that all over the world sin infects human hearts and carries out evil every single day. Every. Single. Day.

Sex slavery. Kidnapping. Fentanyl trafficking. Cartel murders. Pedophylia. Political corruption. 

Now take it down a notch, seemingly: lust, greed, anger, hatred, perversion. Those don't seem as bad, right? But they are each the one virus that infects the world, you see? Left unchecked, they become the sins that shock us. Those sins begin with thoughts, small thoughts, small potent nefarious thoughts, left unnoticed and unchecked until they grow, quietly at first, then tantalizingly until they take over the heart and mind of a human being.

From looking evil right in its repulsive face, we can learn to evaluate our own hearts, to check them, to create antibodies against evil, if you will. No, we can't kill it entirely. Sin is here to stay, until the next age in Heaven. But we certainly can stop much of what we currently allow to live and grow and change us for the worst.

As Jakob Dylan's song lyrics say, evil is alive and well. But Jesus is alive and well and everlasting. And He is Good. He has conquered eternal death, given us new life after our mortal bodies cease. It's up to us to live those lives with conviction, determination, and to persevere in our battle against the sin that so easily besets us. (Hebrews 12:1)

If we will allow evil events to push us into self-evaluation, into calling evil in our hearts by its name - sin - into curbing some of the darkness in the world by crushing it within ourselves, well, then something good can be born from the foulness. 

Those little children and their teachers deserve at least that from us, don't you think?