Home“Autumn is one of many new starts to the year. It is a colorful time of new beginnings, but first there are the endings that lead to rebirth. May we celebrate both the changes in our lives and the lives that are coming into being.”
Autumn is a time of paradox.
In our part of the globe, ferns and underbrush have begun to die back. Many of the flowers in our gardens are long gone, either trimmed away or leaving brown stalks where bright colors once held sway.
The leaves of the trees have begun their slow process of dying. They will burst forth in an astonishing array of colors before that happens, a bold, beautiful last declaration of presence before the coming of winter barrenness. For many of us the question that pops into our minds is “so soon? Is it really that time so soon?”
All of this passing away surrounding us, this presence of death and dying; that is what autumn represents, and yet it is now that so many new years begin. Rosh Hashanah and the ten days of awe recognize this, but so, too, do the schedules of our schools and of our congregations.
Of course they, too, while clearly new beginnings, can also be moments of loss and passing.
School begins and some of our families experience the odd change of shrinking while staying the same. Shrinking because some children, now grown into a new stage of life, leave our homes to head for school or to establish their own homes. And parents ask themselves, “Is it really that time so soon?”.
We rarely begin something new, no matter how exciting it may be, without first going through a sense of loss for what was. Whether a new job or a new marriage or a new home, there are often wistful moments of longing for what was, moments of doubt or fear based upon what will be or has been lost in this new venture.
I do believe that fear, fear of the unknown, is to some extent an expression of that sadness about loss.
For many young people this is the time of year when they graduate from high school or college, or leave home to begin their own lives. Each of these is a wonderful moment in life, but it is also true that in each case something is left behind, and that is scary. Like the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, like the so-called “Fall” of humanity and being cast out of the garden, moving out on one’s own encompasses a loss of protection, a loss of innocence.
Even leaving a terrible circumstance can bring up that kind of fear. One man, having been released from prison after serving twenty years for a crime he did not commit, expressed joy at his release, but also admitted to being confused and scared about what would come next. However horrible prison was, and however much he had wanted to leave it and had worked to leave it, it was what he had become accustomed to. It was what he was used to. In a strange way, some people miss some of the pattern of life that prison imposes.
And so whenever we begin something new, we may want to pause for a moment to acknowledge and sometimes appreciate what was. This is a form of mourning.
Mourning is important. If we suppress, repress or deny our feelings, they
are still there. We can do that, of course, but the healthy approach is to acknowledge the loss, grieve it, and move slowly towards acceptance.
Some of us come from other faith traditions. There is a loss in leaving behind belief and old truths, in being cast out by our own doubt or reason and understanding that caused us to reject old dogmas—precisely the image of the Fall in the Garden.
Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge and so lost the safety and security of old beliefs.
This is not meant as a criticism of others’ religious paths. Some have had the same experience traveling in the opposite direction, from Unitarian Universalism to other traditions.
This happens within traditions as well. This congregation has been through a period of growth and change (to grow means to change). There is the wise saying, “if you find the perfect congregation, join it; but recognize when you do that it is no longer perfect”. One meaning of that is that in joining it you have changed it.
In the past twenty years or so, we have moved from being a Family sized congregation to being a Pastoral sized congregation and now from being Pastoral sized to being Program sized. There are more people, more events greater opportunities for growth and service. But this requires different ways of doing, different ways of being a congregation. And that brings feelings of loss. Even people who have been here for only two years will have seen great change.
Simply having more people present means that one can feel lost in the crowd. “I no longer know everyone” is a statement that also means, “everyone no longer knows me”.
Changes in structure and process are necessary to provide all of the good things we now have and will have in the future. But it is also natural and necessary to acknowledge and mourn the loss of what was; else it will arise as anger or resentment, barring our appreciation of the wealth and abundance that the change brings. So I pause for just a moment to praise what was, to give thanks for the special-ness and uniqueness of the congregation that was. To recognize that it still is, but now in new and different ways.
Autumn also represents the passing and loss of our time and our lives. The season clicks off yet another year of our existence, shortening the time left to us. Each year is the passing of opportunity, and the fading into the distance of paths not chosen.
And yet, it is also the forward path of decisions made, of opportunities seized, of the path we DID take.
I still remember the evening before my first day of kindergarten. I sat on the floor of our apartment with all of my school supplies laid out in front of me. I had my pencils, my erasers, my pencil case, my paper, all of the different things I would be using. There was an excitement to it, to this new venture. There was a sense that things would be different. The question was, in what ways shall I be different this year?
The next year, I sat on the same floor, had all of my new school supplies laid out in front of me, and went through the same process. In what ways shall I be different this year? Each autumn throughout our lives, that is the wonderful question we get to ask ourselves. In what ways shall I be different this year?
Autumn has come, and so I mourn the passing of summer and all it represents: warm, lazy afternoons; beaches and pools; open windows; the smell of new mown grass.
But I also welcome this new season, a time of regathering, a time of growth and activity, a time of color and a healthy nip in the air; a time of fires in the fireplace, of hot cider, of autumn foods, of autumn festivals.
The earth has turned once again, and my heart is full of the harvest of life. May we appreciate what is past, may we celebrate what is now and is yet to come. So let it be.
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