Every year the brilliant greenery of creation explodes into a myriad of colors highlighting the glory of God’s artistry. Shortly after the climax of the stunning display the bright and cheery leaves quickly breathe their last fading to brown and then falling onto chilled grounds of graying grass. The welcomed warmth of early fall days and cool nights tumbles into chilly daylight and brisk darkness that merit extra blankets. What can we learn from the seasonal melody of God’s creation? If we choose to ignore the change in tempo we do so at our own spiritual risk. The writer of Ecclesiastes was a wise man when he penned the famous verse, “There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.” (Ecc. 3:1) One of the disadvantages of contemporary living is our isolation from the powers of nature. While tragic and overwhelming to behold the recent disasters in America and Asia have reminded us as human beings that we are apart of God’s creation, not separated from it by some privilege of intelligence and human superiority. Jesus and His disciples walked the fields, the streams, and plains of ancient Israel. Jesus constantly called on the book of God’s creation to teach His followers, whether He spoke of a tree and it’s fruit (Matthew 7:15), a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31), or a vine (John 15:1). The royal colors of autumn’s leaves point to the Royal King of the Universe but we must slow down enough to read their message. God provides us in the seasons a visible reminder of His constant work of creating, re-creating, of death, and resurrection. The very processes we see in nature reminds us of the process of transformation we pray that the Spirit will work in us. If we ignore the turning of the leaves we run the risk of believing that we can live spirituality without seasons in our lives. We will buy into the lie that we can live at 100 mph with no risk to our salvation or our souls. We would be quite mistaken if we took such a path. Father Kevin Goodrich O.P. is an Anglican Dominican Priest who travels as a teacher of Christian spirituality and living. He is the author of the book, “Cell Phone Spirituality: What your cell phone can teach you about Life and God.” You can visit Father Kevin's blog at http://dailyspirituality.com/
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