Fall and "The Fall”

It has taken a day or two to reorient myself to “being at home” and getting back into a routine after 35 days and 6,985 miles on the road.    I’m getting there slowly but surely.

Fall has come—I could smell it in the air, as I sat on the deck yesterday morning.  I could see it in the way the grass and flowers are beginning  to fade from green to brown and the yellowed leaves were falling from the trees.  The bees still hover over the Hosta blooms and butterflies still flit through the air.  A hummingbird came searching for the sweet nectar of the “feeder” yesterday, but alas I haven’t refilled it since my return.  I am probably the only gardener in the area who has a goldenrod growing in my flower bed—and I can’t bear to pull it up. It is the harbinger of this new season called “Fall.”

“Fall” has biblical and theological ramifications.  According to the Judeo-Christian faith, the first  “Fall” was a disaster, whether fact or myth.  The story is told in the book of Genesis—the eating of the forbidden fruit.  This story attempts to explain why our world is so broken.  Eve blames the serpent, Adam blames Eve, and all blame God!  The epitome of sin is separation from God, from our neighbors, and from ourselves.   The story (fact, fiction, or myth) continues,  we are still terribly divided and our world is broken still.

I have Hope in the Inner Light in the midst of the Fall

Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.”   In the “Fall” we never have enough light—an Inner Light is needed

.