All Saints

The Beauty of Autumn Glory

 

In Western Michigan, the leaves at this time of year are usually beautiful. On the relatively few sunny days we’ve had, some of the leaves have been striking. But even against a foggy or rainy sky, the bright leaves provide a lovely metaphor. Like a choral concert featuring many voices, the leaves show their individual colors together in a stunning overall performance. I always love the deep reds of the maples. But the brilliant yellows and oranges of the birches, cottonwoods and hickories provide strong complementary support. Since these lively colors among the leaves are less common down south, we always put some in the mail to our kids in Louisiana.

As I think about this fall display, I remember something I heard years ago. We think of the bright colors as suddenly appearing in the autumn. But, apparently, those bright colors in the leaves have been there all along! It’s just that, at this time of year, the predominant green color fades away. When it does, it reveals the other brilliant colors latent in the body of the leaves. Either way, we don’t see the bright colors until autumn. And from the leaves’ first emergence as buds in the spring, we see only suggestions of what will come later. Sometimes the buds show hints of red and yellow. But soon, most of them bear variations of green, some light and pale, and others dark and rich-looking.

We can find a further extension of this metaphor in the form of a reflective contrast. On one hand, we appreciate the leaves at the end of their growing season. Yet, we often have a less-than-poetic view of ourselves as we approach the end of our own ‘growing season.’ Regarding the autumn display of color, people of faith rightly echo words from the Psalms, when we speak of fall leaves as ‘singing out praise’ to the creator. The leaves are doing what they were made to do. They are true to their own nature in each of the four seasons. And they come into their full glory in the fall.

And yet, when we think about ‘the autumn’ of our physically embodied lives, we consider it to be a time of decline and loss rather than one of gain, or as a time for giving glory. Suppose someone asks us to think about examples of people who give glory to God just by being who they are. We are likely to think of young folks in the ‘springtime’ of life, physically fit, professionally accomplished, with lots of time for achievement ahead. But why don’t we perceive the fullness of age as the time when we grow into wholeness, into the beauty of maturity, and when we embody received wisdom and grace? Why is autumn no longer a ready metaphor for when we as human beings come into our own glory?

The gloriously colored leaves falling from the trees at this time of year do not attain their beauty through anything they do. They come into their glory as a result of what happens to them. This follows from how God has made them, and from what God has put into them. This is perhaps the most significant meaning we can find in these leaves coming into their glory at the end of their lives. It gives us a different way to think about how we move into and through the ‘autumn season’ of our lives. For we now share in the beauty of the Communion of Saints not through anything we have done, nor by our strength, but through God’s graceful embrace of our weakness.

This past Sunday -All Saints Sunday- many people across the Church received a new birth through being joined with our Lord’s death and resurrection. They became new buds grafted onto the Tree of Life. In the youngest ones, we can only imagine how —some day— they will reflect Christ’s glory in their maturity. For we don’t yet see how they will become like the brightly colored leaves on autumn trees. But on All Saints, all the newly baptized emerge as flowering buds on the Tree of Life. May we join them in glorifying God through every season of our lives.

 

The image above is of an untitled Coco Treppendahl painting portraying the beauty of autumn leaves. This post is based on my homily for All Saints Sunday, November 3, 2019, which can be accessed by clicking here. Other homilies of mine may be accessed by clicking here. The Revised Common Lectionary, which specifies the readings for Sundays and other Holy Days, can be accessed by clicking here.

The Beauty of Holy Imagination

Photos_Einblick_Panorama_Pantheon_Rom

One of the most beautiful buildings in the world has survived twenty centuries since its construction during the great age of Rome. Replacing two earlier buildings lost to fire, this third one was built for the ages. After two thousand years, its coffered concrete ceiling remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, and it still evokes awe and wonder among architects. The building is, of course, the Pantheon. Unlike some buildings of equal stature and antiquity, the Pantheon has survived because it was, in effect, ‘baptized.’ Having been a temple whose practices were anchored in pagan religious cults, its original Greek name suggests the building was dedicated to a multitude of Roman God’s. Indeed, many modern visitors know the building only by its classical name rather than by its later Christian one, even though the transition between the two occurred fourteen-hundred years ago!

Think about that for a moment. A pagan temple, apparently dedicated to a panoply of Roman deities, was consecrated as a church, and renamed to commemorate Christian saints. The building’s earlier purpose and meaning was not seen as dangerous to it being used for holy Christian worship! For many of us, that is unimaginable! A more likely outcome would have been for the building to have been razed, and its materials perhaps reused to build an entirely new building for Christ-inspired liturgies. This represents courage, the courage of holy imagination, turned loose to see what is good, positive and hopeful, even amidst a decaying or already dead civilization.

On Good Friday and at the Easter Vigil, we pray these words: “O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Who among us has not ever felt cast down, prematurely old, or just not worth much? Do we have courage, the courage to see that we are among all the things that are being brought to their perfection? Sometimes, among all the things God has made, it can be hardest to imagine ourselves as the objects of God’s unbounded creative and redemptive possibilities. Yet, because of our Baptism, we are among the saints who have already passed beyond death into new life. God’s redemptive possibilities are all about new life, and for us! We come to see this as we practice the virtue of holy imagination.

A photo of the interior of the Pantheon in Rome (creative commons license). This is adapted from my homily for All Saints Sunday, which can be accessed by clicking here.