Autumn in the Hands of God
I once fancied myself a summer man. My most formative times were the summers between sixth grade and before going to college, when my family had a house on Fire Island. The sounds of the ocean waves crashing against the shore aided my sleep, and the salt air wasn’t just a scent but something visceral that carried me. Summer was the season when the rule of law seemed suspended and gave space for a lot of law-bending firsts. I learned to surf during those years, and to this day I’ve never felt the peace I did when even on calm days I could just paddle out into the water and tune out everything on shore. Summer felt limitless and endless—and in that, it felt like heaven. But as I’ve grown older and left those enchanted summers behind, I’ve come to realize that summer is hell.
Analogies are tricky—especially analogies concerning heaven and hell— because while I wouldn’t trade those summers for anything in the world, I firmly believe that summer itself is only slightly better than winter. Oppressive heat, marauding mosquitoes, and not just a lack of law—but a lack of any rhythm—wears out fast. I was aided in this realization by a favorite writer and theologian, Robert Farrar Capon. In his musings on the seasons from the perspective of Shelter Island, NY, Capon concludes that summer is hell and autumn is nothing short of heaven.
“We expect confidently and correctly that fall will bring us, if not a greater quantity of light, nonetheless a quality of it that is absolutely great for living in: low, long light — and reflected everywhere in burnished reds and golds. Likewise, we cannot properly be said to expect increasing cold: that is winter’s outlook. What we in fact look forward to in fall is decreasing heat: balmy coolness made all the more welcome by the knowledge that with each additional day the likelihood of our escaping the fire of hell steadily increases.” (Robert Farrar Capon, The Youngest Day)
“Autumn is the promise that the hands of God will not go out against us. Instead, these are the hands that lift up the poor, bind up the wounded, and bless the brokenhearted.”
The low, long light Capon describes is the light that you walk towards in the autumn, having done everything possible to avoid it all summer. This is the light that colors the trees and your home with warmth and comfort. Autumn seems like the beginning of the end, but Capon eloquently describes it as a season that holds the future. In autumn, the buds of mature plants are in full bloom so that they can begin anew in spring. In fact, autumn is the time for planting many kinds of bulbs and seeds. And in autumn, the animals born in spring are ready to leave their own mark on creation. We are not quite right to look at autumn as the beginning of winter (and the beginning of the end of life), but rather we look to the fall as a season that holds securely the future of all life.
In firmly clasped hands, God holds all life—and in autumn, he celebrates the life he holds in his hands. Capon is right to point us in the direction of fall’s kaleidoscopic spree. Your mileage on this may vary, and we can respectfully agree to disagree, but in what other season are we inundated with such a combination of colors and festal joys? The Lord God gave Moses not only Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur but especially Sukkot—the crowning pilgrimage festival. It’s common enough to speak of getting older as the autumn of one’s life—which understates that one's time is coming closer to an end—but God has none of it. The autumn of life is not the beginning of the end but a beginning again. A new year, a new lease gifted by forgiveness, and a new heaven and new earth. By the end of summer, you can’t bear it anymore, but by the end of autumn, you want more and more forever and ever. Amen.
“This full-of-life fall does not leave us empty-handed because it’s not our hands on which everything depends.”
Recently, a few of us joined some neighbors in Brooklyn who were facing unjust fines from the city. The particular neighborhood we walked with a city commissioner on an autumn evening is a place that has historically been forgotten. When community organizers first started visiting, it was because the folks didn’t have street signs on their own streets. Forgotten? No street signs signaled that this was no place at all. Over time, the seeds of the street signs led to whole neighborhoods being built, and this time, the formerly forgotten moved into their own homes. These Nehemiah Homes—as they are known locally—received the first million dollars of funding in the 1980s from a religious outfit called The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. So with the seeds sown over decades, we went back to remind the people that they are not forgotten. The work of the church in the 1980s was a promise, and what good are Lutherans if we don’t hold to promises? Ultimately, these are promises that flow from God, and if we don’t forget, then God especially doesn’t forget.
The promise of God gives life to neighborhood actions, and the promise of God gives its life for autumn. The old children’s song has it right: “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” This world and all its seasons are in the hands of God. Autumn is God’s promise that the whole creation is teeming with life. This full-of-life fall does not leave us empty-handed because it’s not our hands on which everything depends. Autumn is the promise that the hands of God will not go out against us. Instead, these are the hands that lift up the poor, bind up the wounded, and bless the brokenhearted. These are the hands that wave the Spirit to release us from oppression, both seasonal and spiritual. These hands lead us from the fires of hell to the glow of the evangelist’s light (John 1:4–5). He’s got the whole world in these hands. And what good are we if we don’t cling to these hands?
We can approach autumn and all seasons with a sense of awe and hope because the future is not in our hands—it rests in God’s hands. And not only that, but the very present season in which we find ourselves is the time and season to which God has called us. The future God has in store is already here in Jesus. We can expect confidently that Jesus brings us not just a quantity of new life, but the quality of his own life. The glow from his face refreshes and renews us in his grace. And in him we are neither forsaken nor forgotten.