Margaret Felice

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On how autumn sadness may be an act of faith

October 1, 2012 · Filed Under: 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.

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4 Comments

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  1. I should keep a journal | Felice mi fa says:
    October 16, 2012 at 11:57 am

    […] I’m quiet now, because it’s October and everything hurts and I fear what I might write. My journal is vague swaths of feeling with all the details lost […]

    Reply
  2. 7 Quick Takes, Volume 14 | Felice mi fa says:
    October 19, 2012 at 9:48 am

    […] exhaustion, October ennui…all of these things have had me a little bit blocked blog-wise this week. (I’m not sure […]

    Reply
  3. Letting pop music save my sanity, if only for a moment | Felice mi fa says:
    October 22, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    […] through the speakers. For a few minutes, the drums and the guitar and the bass made me unstoppable. I could look autumn in the face and not turn to stone. I could eat whatever I wanted. I was singing, I was loud, I was powerful. Even though the wind in […]

    Reply
  4. As Autumn Encroaches | Felice mi fa says:
    August 13, 2013 at 1:58 pm

    […] there is the seasonal sadness that threatens every year. Sometimes it is just a few twinges at the window when I see the sun set earlier behind trees without their leaves, sometimes it is a slow sink into […]

    Reply

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