Tag: Autumn

The changing seasons

29th August 2026

Note: It seems as if Autumn is coming early this year. The extreme temperatures and lack of rain have desiccated many plants and are causing the early fall of leaves. There has also be a deeply sad sparsity of swallows and swifts. I first wrote these prayers 2 years ago when that seemed less acute. These prayers may therefore also represent something of the progress of climate change itself.

And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years – Genesis 1:14

A reading from Isaiah 55: 9-11

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Change Happens

A drop of water

falls.

Drip.

Another.

Drip.

Drip, drop – more fall. 

The drip becomes a trickle;

Drip, drip, drop -.

the trickle a stream.

The stream becomes a river,

a down pour, a torrent –

surge, rush, roar.


A flood begins with just a drip. 


Snow.

Sun on snow. 

A little warmth,

a little melting.

A moment of easing,

    loosening, 

         a shifting of weight.

                 gathering momentum –

 And whoosh! 

A million tonnes of speeding snow.


An avalanche begins with just one flake.


A swallow

perched on the telephone wire,

testers slightly. 

Now or later?

One swallow, two.

Another, three. Sway.

Now or later?

Four, six; 

Eight, ten. Now?

Gather, check, sense the air.

Now? Now!

Up, and away, 

wings beat, compass set,  

off – 

fare well.


Where one or two are gathered, 

change begins.

May God bless our endeavours.

Amen. 

Mindful Sauntering: the in-coming of Autumn 

There is a suggestion that a saunterer is a person walking to the Holy Land, coming from the French ‘à la sainte-terre’. So let’s consider sauntering to be a form of holy or blessed walking.

For everything there is a season,

a time for every activity under heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. 

He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:1,2,11

“Autumn … makes a double demand. It asks that we prepare for the future — that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go — to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness.”

  Bonaro Overstreet, “Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness,” in Jean Beaven Abernethy, Meditations for Women (1947)

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It’s in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. Robert Bly)

God, open my mind and heart.

Lift the barriers, 

unbind the strong grasp of my demands 

when I want everything to go my way.

God, reach into my inner space. 

Sweep out all my old clutter, 

enlarge my capacity to receive.

God, empty me of whatever impedes 

the growth of our relationship.

Help me to recognise and accept 

your sources for my growth.

God, soften my resistance to emptying.

May I welcome each inner season 

as a catalyst for my transformation.

Joyce Rupert

God of life, you believe in us, you enrich us, you entrust us with the freedom to choose life.

For all this, we are truly grateful.

Amen.