The hope of autumn

Autumn has always been a difficult time for me. In my childhood it usually meant starting over in a new place, as an unknown, filling me with anxiety as a faced uncertainty and a new school, with my nomadic military family.

As so much of the earth goes into hibernation, with leaves falling, and the colder days, the new beginnings seem like a paradox -- new school years, program years in churches kicking off, new budgets in response to stewardship drives. It's almost a death and resurrection scenario. The earth dies and we are called to rise up with so much newness.

A new liturgical year is also within view, as Year C comes to a close and Year A looms in our future, just as all signs of life in nature are muted by the season, and we go from autumn to winter.

The hope I find in this year's transition is a coming back together in corporate worship, the sounds of children's voices, and the patter of little feet as they join us in worship after Children's Chapel. Their excitement, often unbridled, and spontaneity, their hands stretched out with curiosity and joy at the altar rail as they receive a blessing or the sacrament.

Yes, it's another new beginning for St. Andrew's. Let us embrace all of it, the uncertainty, the losses, and fresh new life and new lives to live among us, as we strive to answer God's call to us, the call to be made new, to become more, and perhaps to be made whole.

Kathy