c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Harlem Renaissance poet Esther Popel wants to stand before death proud and naked, unashamed and uncaring, asking in her poem “October Prayer,” “Oh God, make me an autumn tree if I must die.”

The Rev. William Surber of Uhrichsville Moravian Church needs only to take a walk outside in his pastoral corner of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, in mid-October and conclude: “This is not an accident. There is a divine hand in it, just the sheer beauty of it.”

When he was alive, former baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti would sit at a baseball game in October, longing for something in this world to last forever, “and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.”

As the leaves turn on another fall, so begins another stage in a lifelong spiritual journey of believers fortunate enough to live in parts of the country with four seasons.

San Diego and Orlando, Fla., might have year-round sunshine, but only in places such as Connecticut, Montana and Ohio can people stay so closely attuned to the rhythms of the natural world. The glory of fall offers particularly meaningful opportunities to reflect on both the beauty and the transitory nature of much of creation, and our own capacity to lead meaningful lives in our limited time on earth, say theologians and a wide range of writers and poets who have turned to autumn for their inspiration.

Unseasonably warm and cold temperatures, bounteous harvests and the vistas of picked-over fields, beautiful bursts of color followed by barren landscapes _ all nature’s way of confronting humanity with change, and the unpredictability and messiness of life before the inevitable onset of literal and symbolic winters in our lives.

“Autumn asks us to grapple with this truth that we in North America are often so eager to avoid: that life is uncertain, and that our quest to find the means to live with that knowledge is, at its deepest, a spiritual quest,” editors Gary Schmidt and Susan Felch wrote in the preface to their new book, “Autumn: A Spiritual Biography of the Season” (Skylight Paths Publishing).

In one of the recurring themes in the book, writers faced up to the inevitability of there being a final autumn in each person’s life, but with vows not to go too gently into the dark night.

Author E.B. White captured the tension in an essay admiring his wife’s passion on the fall day each year when she lays out the spring bulb garden. The passing of years and her own approaching death cannot stop her from assuring her garden’s rebirth.

There was something touching, he wrote, in “her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection.”

Writer Anne Lamott found the spirituality of fall in her own struggles, along with other members of her California community, to care for a family with a daughter suffering from cystic fibrosis. She chose to see in the child’s laughter on a fall day more than the family’s new fears with the approaching flu bugs that could threaten her life.

Lamott also appreciates the “shelter” the community had erected around the family with their physical gifts of caring for the children and the spiritual gifts of being by their side as they laughed and cried together.

“We, their friends, all know the rains and the winds will come, and they will be cold _ oh God, will they be cold,” Lamott wrote. “But then we will come too … we will have been building this barn all along, and so there will always be shelter.”

The theme of creating a shelter, and of humanity’s dependence on God and responsibility to care for one another, resonates with Rabbi Richard Block of The Temple-Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, particularly as the Jewish community celebrates the harvest festival of Sukkot.

Sukkot commemorates the biblical account of the Jewish people wandering in the wilderness for 40 years after they left Egypt and before they entered the Promised Land. Sukkot _ Hebrew for temporary structures partially open to the sky _ celebrates the tents people lived in while they were wandering in the desert and the protective divine “clouds of glory” that were said to have surrounded them during their journey. Many local families build structures in their yards during the holiday.

As the air becomes colder, and the exposure to the elements in the Sukkot helps people understand the fragility of human existence, it also makes them empathize with those in need and moves the faithful to acts of generosity, Block said.

The rabbi, like many others reflecting on autumn, appreciates living in a part of the world with distinct seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter. These natural lessons each season offers on both the value and brevity of life lead to renewed vows to lead purposeful lives on Earth, he said.

For those who take the time from their busy lives to appreciate the world around them in the fall, the beauty quickly can lead to transcendent thoughts, spiritual writers say.

The Rev. Milorad Orlic of St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in Lorain, Ohio, said just as each leaf in the colorful landscape contributes to a stunning overall vision, so does it remind him, “We are all made in God’s image and likeness, but we all realize it in our own unique way.”

And death need not have the final victory. “The beauty of the fall season reminds us that while we do have an end, that end, if it’s a life of faith, can be beautiful, can be glorious and can even be joyous,” he said.

At St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Cleveland, the Rev. Gena Thornton begins each service with the words, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice …”

So while she knows some people tend to get depressed by the shorter days and fading sunlight in fall, it is her favorite time of the year. The crisp, cool weather and the changing landscape so beautiful it almost leaves her speechless make her “feel more glorious than I do in the spring, almost.”

For Thornton and others, their belief in eternal life helps fall become a time of great beauty in the face of both winter and their own mortality.

“Sometimes we don’t want to face that. We don’t want to look at the end of the life cycle, which is as much a part of life as birth is,” Thornton said. “It should cause us to be more wise and cause us to enjoy every day.” (David Briggs writes about religion for the Plain Dealer in Cleveland)

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