AlbneroAutunno
This is the first letter I have the privilege to write as Team Rector of the Otter Vale Team after Cate’s
retirement. And, looking out of my window as I write, there are so many tasks in the garden on my “to-do” list as the seasons change from autumn to winter. I love the autumnal jobs – from tidying and bulb-planting to leaf-gathering, cutting back, composting and lighting bonfires.
The Bible seems to be full of gardening words – words like grow, prune, cut back, plant, dig, seed, branches, soil, manure, fertilise, burning dead wood, gardener, harvest, fruit, ripe, sower, reaping, uprooted, ground, sift, weeds, roots, lilies, tree, thorns, scattering seed, garden plants. And the patterns and rhythms of creation seem to mirror some of the patterns of faith – the mortality and decay of autumn, the death of winter, followed by springtime resurrection and the glory of summer; or to take another example, the burial of seemingly dead, lifeless seeds in the ground with faith and in the hope that they will respond to the light of God and rise with new life.
As we cut back the dying plants, prune the shrubs and clear away and burn leaves and foliage that have decayed, autumn seems to me to remind us that all of us are caught up in the mortality and death of creation. We get old and feel increasingly the effects of mortality. We know that eventually our bodies will fail and die. The book of Genesis explains why this is so, through the story of Adam and Eve; they rebelled against God so that they could follow “the devices and desires of their own hearts”, and as a result, pain, suffering, mortality and death entered the perfect world God had made. In faith, we wait for God to complete his new creation through Jesus – but in the meantime, autumn reminds us that we share the mortality of creation. Perhaps that’s why, in America, autumn is known as “the Fall”.
Rev Steve Weston
