On how autumn sadness may be an act of faith

It’s just that everything gets so cold. And I really don’t like being cold.

I suppose that’s the first reason I’ve never liked autumn. I hate to be cold. No amount of sweatshirts or scarves or bundling up will change that I’m cold, and about to be colder.

The sun starts to set earlier. The limitless opportunity of long summer evenings disappears into darkening skies. This makes me cry sometimes. It always has.

You know how you’re supposed to live in the moment? Sometimes the moment is an arrow, blasting you forward toward a future you don’t want, and can’t escape.

That future is endings, and goodbyes, and helplessness, and decline. That future is death. Maybe it’s maudlin to say it out loud, maybe it’s tasteless to write it down. But even with all we have to hope for, for all our hallelujahs, for all our confidence that God abides with us, there is still death, still the cross, peeking out at us, reedemed but not eliminated.

Sunsets and falling leaves and brisk air all remind me of this. I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to be negative or morbid. It feels like a failure. Or maybe not.

Maybe being passionately in love with the world means being realistic about all of it: the good, bad and confusing. Maybe part of my devotion to this marvelously mysterious life involves spending some time exploring its darknesses.