The Rhythms of the World
Author: Stan Guthrie
November 02, 2023
I have a love-hate relationship with autumn—at least as we experience it here in the Midwest.
On the one hand, I love the early fall colors: the reds, oranges, pinks, yellows, and greens. I love apple-picking, pumpkin patches, cooler temperatures, low humidity, open windows, back yard firepits and toasted marshmallows, long walks through quiet forest preserves, the sound of blown leaves scuttling down the sidewalks, and the chatter of children heading back to school. I even love my red and black plaid shirt-jacket.
On the other, I hate autumn here because it is the all-too-short gateway to an all-too-long winter. Right after Halloween, sometimes even before, early fall’s gentle days and nights give way to bitter gloom and lashing rain. Clocks are cruelly turned back. As the inexorable solstice approaches, the sun goes into hiding, and you drive home in the dark—and rise the next morning in the same murk. Your sleep cycle goes haywire. Your dry skin itches, especially at night. The maples, Bradford pears, and flame bushes shed their glorious raiment onto the cold, unyielding ground, leaving behind embarrassed and shivering twigs and branches.
What comes next is inevitable—a five-month skein of meteorological misery. Yes, the holidays ease the transition, but they soon give way to storms, slick driveways, ice that covers windshields and door locks, towering piles of dirty snow, slate skies, influenza, and cold that cuts through bulky layers to turn your fingers and toes a cadaverous white.
The ancients also faced the onset of winter, but with none of our modern technologies designed to lessen the misery. They frequently marked the winter solstice—the day with the least amount of sunlight—with rituals related to light and darkness, death and rebirth, as they earnestly looked forward to the return of spring.
Not surprisingly, some of our forebears’ most compelling myths sprang from this longing for light and rebirth, which is reflected in the very rhythms of the world, and in the gospel itself. Truly, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).
C.S. Lewis, the Oxford don and Christian apologist nonpareil, pointed out that we shouldn’t be surprised that the story of salvation proclaims a Savior who lived, died, and rose again, echoing the ancient stories. He called the gospel “Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact.”
“The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history,” Lewis noted. “It happens—at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate.”
While some on this earth are habitually blessed with gentle rain, cool breezes, and T-shirt weather, every year those of us in the Midwest are called to glorify God by zipping up our boots, clamping on our ear muffs, and grasping our snow shovels. Similarly, Jonathan Edwards said, “The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.” Even when it’s raw and gray.
The Midwest’s fleeting autumn, like much of life, both blesses and curses us, reminding us that our true, lasting destination is elsewhere. So whether you love autumn, hate it, or fall somewhere in between, never lose sight of a glorious truth:
Spring will come again. Wait for it.
Stan Guthrie is NCC’s minister of communications.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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