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In the past few days I feel I have been plunged into autumn. Driving home yesterday, I noticed haphazard trees taking on a orange or red or yellow tint. My mumsy and I sipped pumpkin spice lattes. I scoured the basement and the far recesses of my closet in search of sweaters, scarfs, flannel pajamas, and coats. There is a glass of apple cider beside me. Cornfields are now a yellow-brown with a gray-blue sky as a backdrop.
In the midst of the death and decay that is fall, beauty is made: in cornstalks that dry up to create a homey tan color, in leaves that turn a stunning orange as they fall to the ground. Right before a brown or white or gray winter, there is a burst of vividness and color.
Perhaps this is why I take such delight in autumn. Even in the midst of decay, there is great beauty. It makes me wonder how much more beautiful heaven will be? As I drove along the turnpike yesterday, I was overcome by the way the sunlight glistened off red leaves, the way fields seem to reach into the horizon, the richness of a clear, blue sky. And I found myself wondering about the beauty of the Creator, the source of all the temporal, material beauty surrounding me, and anticipating the time when I will not simply see as if through a veil, but face to face.
Struck with deep joy... as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense ; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily ; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.
(from "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge).
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