Autumn

I love this time of year.

 

Every year I am surprised by how bright and vibrant the leaves are on the trees.  Some of them are so beautifully rich that they actually seem to be glowing.

 

I love seeing the leaves on the trees and I love watching them drift silently and slowly to the ground, like snow.  I love kicking through them on the floor and scuffing my boots through huge piles of dried, curling leaves.

 

I love how predictable the trees and plants are through the different seasons - even with our awful British weather. 

 

The Bible talks about their being different times and seasons for things in life too:

 

         "There is a time for everything,
         and a season for every activity under heaven:

         a time to be born and a time to die,
         a time to plant and a time to uproot."

 

         [Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 NIV]

 

We don't tend to think of 'death' as having a season or a purpose.  It usually signifies the end of something.  But when we look at the trees in Autumn, we see that death is part of a necessary cycle.

 

In the film 'Calendar Girls' one of the characters describes this cycle:

"Every stage of their growth has its own beauty, but the last phase is always the most glorious."

 

We don't usually think of death as being beautiful or glorious.  It is something to be mourned and grieved.  But there is a real freedom in stripping away the things in our life which are dead.  Things which have no life left in them. 

 

It may make us feel vulnerable and exposed, in the same way that trees are bare through Winter.  But without shedding that which is dead, we cannot expect and eagerly anticipate new life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blackberries

I love Autumn. 

 

I love the crisp chill in the air.  I love going for walks in the countryside in my wellies.  And most of all, I love blackberrying.

 

I love that, for those who have a few hours to spare, there is an abundance of delicious blackberries waiting in the hedgerows to be picked and enjoyed.  For free.

 

Yesterday, I spent a very enjoyable afternoon doing just that.

 

There are so many parables I could draw from the experience [and perhaps I will in another post], such as looking in the right places and taking a different perspective on things, and having to fight the thorns for the fruit. 

 

But what really struck me yesterday was the shape of the blackberries.  When I was little, I used to enjoy trying to pull off each of the drupelets [apparently the technical term for each of the little bobbles] to eat them individually.  It is a fiddly and messy business but, if achieved, can be quite satisfying.

 

All of the tiny seed-bearing bobbles joined together around the soft core made me think about what the church should be like. 

 

We are all unique individuals with our own roles to play.  We each have a 'seed' within us which will grow and develop and produce a flourishing plant.  But we are all joined together around the 'core' - the central person of Jesus.

 

Paul explains how we are all joined together through Christ -

 

"You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body.  It’s exactly the same with Christ.  By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives.  We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything."

 

[1 Corinthians 12:12-13 MSG] 

And he continues to explain how we are all linked together and affected by each other -

 

"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t.  If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing.  If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance."

[1 Corinthians 12:25-26 MSG]

 

The church isn't a club for religious people to hang out at on Sundays.  The church isn't the building.  The church isn't the pastors, or the vicar, or the worship leaders. 

 

The church is you and me joining together through our shared faith in Jesus and sharing our lives together - the hurting and the healing, the joy and the weeping.

 

 

 

Nothing is Wasted

Is there anything that epitomises Autumn more than an apple crumble?

 

The soft and sticky sweet cinnamon-spiced apples topped with crunchy crumbs of crumble - delicious!

 

I made one this evening after I realised that I had a fruit bowl full of apples which were a little bit past their best.  I didn't want to throw them away and waste them, but they were fluffy and floury and didn't taste at all nice on their own.

 

However, in the crumble, they were absolutely delicious.

 

It is easy in life to throw things away when they seem 'past their best'.  Things that seem dried out and past it and of no use anymore. 

 

But the Bible says that God uses everything for our good:

 

"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."

 

[Romans 8:28 NIV, emphasis mine] 

 

Rather than throwing out the things in our lives which seem too far gone, God can use them to develop our character and to make us more like Him.  In His hands, nothing is wasted.

 

I think the words of this song are absolutely beautiful: 'Nothing is Wasted' by Jason Gray -

 

"The hurt that broke your heart
And left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope's a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground where joy will grow

And nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

It's from the deepest wounds
That beauty finds a place to bloom
And you will see before the end
That every broken piece is
Gathered in the heart of Jesus
And what's lost will be found again

Nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

From the ruins
From the ashes
Beauty will rise
From the wreckage
From the darkness
Glory will shine
Glory will shine."