Autumn Knocks at the Door and Yes, We Must Answer

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves. We have had our summer eves, now for October eves!”             --“Autumnal Resignation” by Humbert Wolfe, 1926

“I’m going to need that back now that you’re done with it. Can I have it? Please?” she politely asked me.

"No!” I protested.  “I don’t want to give it back.  It’s too soon. Can’t I just keep it for a few more weeks. Just a little longer. Maybe even for another day or two? PLEASE!!!!!!” I said, my voice rising in protest.

I gave Mother Nature my best toothy grin, hoping that somehow, I could hold on to summer, and I might be able to convince her to not begin autumn on the 22^nd of September, as the plan goes for God’s creation this year. The fall equinox is officially on the fourth Thursday of the ninth month in 2022. That day the sun shines directly on the equator and both the northern and the southern hemispheres enjoy the exact same amount of daylight.  It happens at 9:04 pm for those of us in the east.

But like many other years, I had so much fun this summer and I just do not want it to end.  Not yet. Not now. Every September is the same. I’m reluctant to hand back summer to Mother Nature. After all, I won’t get to enjoy it again for another 273 days! That’s when summer solstice happens next, on the 21^st of June 2023.

This longing to make summer stretch out as long as possible has been a part of my make up as long as I can remember. As a kid, come September, I didn’t want to give up my summer freedom and return to the regimented pace of school. Long afternoons of playing wiffleball in the back yard. Long days at the beach, dodging the occasional jellyfish and eating sand covered peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the warm sun, then getting wrapped up in a towel by Mom as the long shadows of dusk came out. 

Almost no better feeling in the world, those last few precious minutes of a perfect summer day.  

Now in my life as an adult, it’s not school that beckons to me come the end of summer. It’s the siren song of work, of going from zero to 60 overnight, of returning to the frenetic pace of life in these parts of the world.  Coming back to town and getting back to the “normal” pace of activities. It’s like being shot out of a cannon. Until on or around Labor Day all is calm and all is bright.

But then on Labor Tuesday the traffic returns and the school busses fill up and kids are jam packed with stuff to do from dawn until dusk and the highways are stacked up again and the Red Sox wind down their season, and the church I serve begins all of its committees and programs again. If only we could slow down ourselves come September and then October but instead it is most often….

Off to the races!

There really is no way to move from one season to the next, elegantly, or smoothly. Embracing autumn can be hard because we have really enjoyed our summers. This seasonal transition is just as jarring in December when the first snow starts to fly. It is miraculous in the spring when the flowers begin to bud. Then it is so graceful come June when the breaking of the waves on the beach and the staying power of long days, herald summer’s return.

Granted, there are autumnal blessings I absolutely love.

The technicolor God show of leaves that turn so bright and bold in their colors, that cling to the trees and then fall to the earth in a beautiful dance of demise.  I love a chilly evening when I build my first fire in the firepit, hang out with friends for a fun fall Friday night, maybe even make ‘smores. I love the way the earth itself seems to begin to settle down and settle in come autumn, as plants die back and green gives ways to bare trees and the brown earth. I love the swishing sound of downed leaves caught up in a brisk autumn wind. I love the night of Halloween when my neighborhood is jam packed with costumed trick or treaters who laugh and celebrate as they make their way up my long driveway, open bags in hand. I love the excitement of October baseball, though this year the Sox are stumbling to a last place finish.

Wait ‘til next year!

That could be the melancholy cry of the fall. Wait ‘til next year! Wait ‘til next summer! But for now, since none of us can do anything about the march of days and the turning of the calendar, let us enjoy autumn as much as we can.  It is here after all. It is official. 

Bring it on. As the poet Humbert Wolfe concludes in his poem “Autumn Resignation” ….

“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.”

Amen.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.