The Daily AUTUMN - Introduction

Autumn comes to Tennessee like a cool drink on a hot day. September starts with temperatures still in the 90s, but people break out flannels and beanies anyways as a matter of principle. By early October, Summer finally gives up her chokehold on the weather and mornings are chilly and days are pleasant. I don’t recommend you visit Franklin in the Fall be- cause you’ll buy a house here before you head back out, assuming you can find one. This morning, when I let the chickens out of their coop I could see my breath and it was dark and I was well aware that Autumn is here and Winter is coming.

Winter and Summer are seasons of waiting and administrating. In Winter we tend to our interior lives - we come together inside and get cozy. Winter is when we reflect on what the year has been and we turn the calendar and begin to plan ahead for the next. In Summer we gather outside and pull weeds and try to stay cool until Autumn rescues us.

By contrast, Spring and Autumn are seasons of activity. In Spring we open the windows and dust the sills and clear out the cobwebs. We mulch our flower beds and plant our gardens and replace the hard tops on our Jeeps with soft tops. In Autumn we reverse the process and harvest what was planted in the Spring, and we sit on hay bales and carve pumpkins and celebrate the goodness that has come up from the ground.

Every season has specialness and things to appreciate, but in Autumn even the land celebrates. The trees and clouds put on a show for us for a few weeks, like an encore song we’ve been waiting the whole concert to hear.

For most of us, Autumn evokes at least some kind of emotion. For me it’s all mixed up with the end of Camp Meeting and the start of the school year, plus a few weeks of Band Camp. I hated school but loved marching band, so I get conflicting sensations - a sort of melancholy (sweet sadness) in my chest.

The first Autumn Jennifer and I were together I flew to see her in St. Louis and spent a few weeks getting to know her and her family. I fell in love with all of them. She took me to Branson and Elephant Rocks and Johnson’s Shut-Ins, and at the Exotic Animal Paradise, an angry bison rammed the car Jennifer’s mom rented for us. The next Autumn we got married and the Autumn after that our band set out on our first real tour, so there are a lot of feelings associated with the sounds and smells of this season. In California, Autumn was the month when I missed home the most. People dress the part- the flannels and puffy coats and Uggs, but unless a person is commuting from Big Bear down to Irvine, they don’t ever need an actual coat or closed-toed shoes.

When we moved back to the South we were excited to be on the same side of the Mississippi as our families again, but Jennifer’s dad died two days after she and Sadie-Claire landed here, while Hutch and I were still on the drive cross-country with our cars. A few weeks after Jennifer’s dad’s funeral in St. Louis, my Pa Paw (Amos) died, and then, tragically, his wife - our Ma Maw (Leah) had a stroke at his funeral and was gone three weeks later. After two months of back and forth to Pennsylvania for the viewings and services we landed back in Tennessee exhausted and contracted the Covid Delta virus (the fun one) and spent about a month, and the holidays, on the couch.

So as we enjoy the fresh clean air this Autumn, we’ll also be missing some really important people we looked forward to spending more time with.

Seasons make us remember... The colors,
The smells, The pies,
The college fight songs, And they take us back, Back to times before

And the more of these seasons You have in your memory
The more there is
To think about,

To be reminded of, To remember

And as you remember
You re-member
The parts of your soul
That have been scattered about By what you have been through:

The wins and losses
The dramas and traumas And everything in between

It’s remarkable what One more time Around the sun Can teach you.

There are a few well-known verses Of ancient Hebrew wisdom about seasons,
And how each one has a purpose And a very specific rhythm to it:

There is a time for everything,
a season for every activity:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to let go,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Up until recently all of humanity lived without air conditioning, without climate control, with the windows open and breezes filling our homes with the aromas and chills of the seasons. A person could smell a storm or frost coming and go out and make sure the animals are protected or the plants are covered. But most of us have lost that sensitivity, and so we’ve become less in tune with the rhythm of the seasons.

You might not realize it, but these few weeks we are in right now - the ones near the Autumn Equinox, are almost an equal balance between day and night, with the days giving up about a minute of sunlight per day until the Winter Solstice when nights are the longest. Our chickens know it - it’s just in them. Right before sunset, without us doing a thing, they stop their pecking and scratching and head back to the coop to bed down for the night.

You’re a mammal too, So this is in you too, (This divine timing) You just may have forgotten it.

I’m not suggesting you go without heat or electricity. I’m definitely not going to. But it wouldn’t hurt to remember that this life you live, of a constant 72 degrees, of an eight-hour work day or a seven-hour school day, regardless of how bright or cold it is outside, isn’t a natural rhythm. Our timing is man-made and it keeps you and me a little out of touch with the natural order of things. The speed and pacing are against what is naturally occurring and it can make you forget the seasonal (cyclical) nature of all things...

The seasons of birth The seasons of death, Of constructing Of deconstructing

Of being sad, Of celebrating (dancing)

Of scattering, Of gathering

The holding on, The letting go

All of it has a time
All of it has a season
All of it has an appropriateness All of it belongs

Just not all the time.

And leaning back into the seasons, Into God’s natural timing of things, And becoming aware of what Season you’ve just been through Or the one you are in now

Can help make sense Of your life.

I’m looking forward to spending Autumn with you,

Jeromy