Summer has been hanging on with beautiful weather these last few weeks, but signs of fall are in the air. Evenings are cooling off. Foliage is beginning to turn to autumn colors of orange, yellow, red, and brown. Flowering plants are beginning to shut down. And perhaps the most telling sign of all–the sun is setting closer to dinner time each day.
I find this to be a reflective time of year. The activities of summer are a distant memory, and assigned tasks at work take up the day. For one who works at a school, fall is definitely a reminder that there is still much work to do for God’s Kingdom.
There is beauty in this time of year. The foliage of trees and shrubs can put on a spectacular display, but I find that beauty is also to be found on smaller scales, if I look for it: the sunlight at end of day backlighting a patch of plants by the roadside, flowers commonly called weeds transforming into constricted and skeletal shapes, grasses putting up inflorescenses that catch the light and seem to glow.
Fall is a reminder that all of God’s creation is in transition, and that there is beauty to be found in this, even in the transition of returning to the earth to await the coming spring.
“All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.” (Isaiah 52:10)
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