I wonder if you, like me, find that the end of summer is a very bittersweet time. The weather is still warm, but the days are getting shorter and the sound of the cicadas heralds the coming of fall. Vacations will soon be over, and the church calendar is filling up again. Here and there the leaves are beginning to turn, and the stores are busy with back to school shoppers. Maybe it’s the fact of school starting again that marks such a change in the seasons of the calendar and of our lives. We haven’t had school-age children or young adults in our house for many years, and yet every fall I get the sense of excitement and starting fresh that goes with new pencils and clean notebooks. And with it comes a fresh surge of the energy that waned during the hot, humid dog days of summer.
But along with the renewed energy comes nostalgia as I look out the window of my office at home and watch the children arriving at the school across the street. I remember how excited I was about going back to school myself, and what it was like when my step-daughter would arrive home in the afternoon, bringing her friends with her to work on some school project or get ready for soccer practice. How life at our house has changed since those days! Yet there’s a sense of timelessness about fall and back-to-school, a sense of being connected with past, present and future.
I think that’s one element of what faith is all about. It’s that sense of connection with past, present and future—with the communion of saints who were once part of our life on this earth and now are part of the company of heaven; with the signs of God present and at work in our lives every day; and with the hope for a future when God’s reign will be fulfilled. Faith, for me, is the knowledge that I am part of something that is much bigger than me, something that encompasses not only this life and this world, but the life to come, something that helps to put my life and my daily struggles in a broader perspective, something mysterious but real.
The author of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Now is the season, for many of us, of renewed activity; may our faith in God’s abiding presence be renewed as well.
