all of the signs of fall are here

Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them mark off the seasons, days, and years. (Genesis 1:14)

The trees are changing, leaves are blowing, people are sneezing and snorting – all of the signs of fall are here.

The nose thing is about the only downside I can think of. Same with spring. It is great after the dreariness of winter but you sneeze your head off with all of the new stuff.

In autumn you do the same because of all the dead and powdery stuff. Then finally, the cold hits and you stop.

But while it is here, it is beautiful. There is one tree just down from the church on Main Street that is magnificent. It is big and orange and beautiful. A couple of years ago, I took several pictures of trees around the church and that was one. It is a picture worth taking.

The glory of God is shown so strongly in fall. Of course, it is in spring too. Then the world is waking up. Now the world is getting ready to go to sleep.

Albert Camus, who I never liked to read, said: “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” Somebody else wrote: “Autumn's the mellow time.”

The whole process is rather strange when you think about it. In primitive societies they tried to think of reasons for these things that baffled them.

Greek mythology had a girl named Persephone who got tricked into marrying Hades, the god of the underworld. Her mother got her out of some of the contract, but Persephone still had to go into the underworld for six months of the year. That time she spent with Hades was fall. Everything died because the world was sad that she had to go. When she came back the world was happy and that was spring and summer.

Of course, that was a primitive people without God trying to explain the inexplicable. They couldn’t figure it out so they made us stuff to explain it. Kind of like Hollywood and Christianity when it comes down to it. They can’t understand Christianity because they are outside of God. So they make up all kinds of stuff to try to understand what they cannot understand.

We usually smile at primitive people and their attempts because we are “an advanced civilization” and consider ourselves beyond that sort of thing.

We’re not really all that far. We still can make fools of ourselves in stuff.

But I still like fall. I love the colors and the texture of the air. I love the impending cooler weather. I really like all four seasons when it comes down to it.

I think I’ll go look at a tree. They are beautiful.