Autumn will soon be upon us. As the nights start to draw in, we will begin to feel a chill in the air, the leaves on the trees will drop and jumpers and jackets will soon be needed again!

I must confess that as much as I love the summer sun, the beauty and colour of summer flowers, BBQs, alfresco dining and a glass or two of Pimm’s, autumn is actually my favourite season.

In so many ways Autumn is about “endings”. It is a season, as Keats so evocatively expressed, of mists and mellow fruitfulness. If you are a gardener(I am not!) then autumn, marks the time when you begin ‘to put the garden to bed’. Fruit and vegetables are harvested. Flower bushes are dead headed or cut back. Autumn reminds us year after year what we all know but often forget which is that endings mark new beginnings. As we wrap up the old, we prepare for the new. The way in which we end, shapes the way in which we will begin again.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…
– Ecclesiastes 3:1-3

This reading from Ecclesiastes reminds us that God guides the events of our lives, and that there is a gift from God in every season, or time, that we live in. The very temporariness of the time we live and the transitions we undergo are a reminder of the timelessness of God and the longing for the eternal that God has put in our hearts. The seasons of nature can be reflected in our spiritual life. Sometimes, when a great deal is going on in our lives, an “easy in” to reflecting on what is happening interiorly is to look at our spiritual life in this light of what season we are living. Perhaps as you read this—or another time—you can take a few moments to reflect on what spiritual “season” or “moment” from Ecclesiastes 3 you most identify with at this time in your life.

Recently, I was reminded of how helpful that can be by the last few pages of Parker Palmer’s lovely book on vocation, Let Your Life Speak. Palmer talks about failure as an important part of discernment: how failure can be a clear indication from God that we are meant to turn in another direction–or to see what has been in front of us all along. Quoting Thomas Merton about “the hidden wholeness” in all visible things, Palmer speaks of autumn’s metaphor for our spiritual lives:

In the visible world of nature, a great truth is concealed in plain sight: diminishment and beauty, darkness and light, death and life are not opposites. They are held together in the paradox of “hidden wholeness.”
…Autumn constantly reminds me that my daily dyings are necessary precursors to new life.
– Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

Autumn – that season of mists and mellow fruitfulness – is the perfect time to take stock and to ask ourselves what the fruits of our existence are. Mary Oliver in her poem The Summer Day asks poignantly and powerfully ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ Autumn is surely a great time to ask ourselves whether the plans of summer for our wild and precious lives have indeed turned into the fruits of autumn. Whatever answer we give can rest with us through the hibernation of winter and as it rests we can find strength and hope ready to begin the growing process once more.

Rev Joe Moore, St John the Divine, Richmond