Covid has stolen much from us this year: jobs, health, safety, financial and physical security, hugs, life as we knew it and expected it to be. And this fall it’s taking long-cherished customs: the start of school, high school football, fall TV shows, and more.
But there are some things Covid cannot touch: fall scents and sights, the feel of autumn breezes, the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, apple cider, pumpkin spice anything, and God’s promise that,
“As long as the earth lasts,
there will always be a time to plant and a time to gather the crops.
As long as the earth lasts, there will always be cold and heat.
There will always be summer and winter, day and night.”
Genesis 8:22 New International Reader’s Version
So let’s celebrate this season as the gift it is.
“It’s the first day of autumn!
A time of hot chocolatey mornings,
and toasty marshmallow evenings,
and, best of all, leaping into leaves!”
Winnie the Pooh
“Another fall, another turned page:
there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning,
as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer”
Wallace Stegner
“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor,
summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.”
Stanley Horowitz
“I loved autumn, the one season of the year
that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it.”
Lee Maynard
“Even if something is left undone,
everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.”
Elizabeth Lawrence
Notice how the trees do not cling to their leaves.
Fall is about releasing the old to make way for the new.
(unknown)
The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go. (unknown)