***
Fall is a season of contrasts: it is a journey from the sudden beauty of the rich tapestry of colors in October to the slow decay of leaves and the melancholy charcoal sky of November:
As trees burst into a symphony of flaming colors, an image of the transcendently divine one present with us in the midst of arboreal beauty, so too do our hearts flame with a seasoned and tempered exaltation, a rally of worship before the slow retreat back into ourselves for winter.
As leaves fall and the sky grows dark with the onset of the chill air, so too do our hearts settle into a quiet melancholy of the disrobing process: as the trees are disrobed of their flaming leaves, so are our hearts, spirits and personalities disrobed of their own coverings. In late fall, we become vulnerable as our coverings, our defenses, and even our glories slowly slide away from us, exposing us to that first icy breath of winter.
In both of these moments, the sudden glory and the slow disrobing, we long for something nameless, something mysterious and transcendent. We long for home-- the fire on the hearth, the aromas of the kitchen, the comfort of warm slippers. We long for the safe and secure coverings of our leaves. Yet we realize that “home” has itself become something transcendent, something put off. And we desire that coming home with a hunger that carries us through the long nights of cold winter.
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