In autumn, the truth comes out.

And by autumn, I mean any autumn. Autumn the meteorological season before winter; Autumn on the calendar; Autumn in our life span; and Autumn in the liturgical year.

In every case, if you step back far enough, you can see the patterns. The photo op brilliant foliage reveals what was there all along, shaped by experience.  In spite of the sometimes-brutal clarity of autumn, I love this time of year.

Deciduous trees that turn yellow, gold and orange in autumn are not so much changing color as revealing the color that has been resting underneath, hiding under the green of chlorophyll. As the days grow shorter and cooler, chlorophyll production decreases. The leaves have always been golden. The trees have experiences, and these matter, too. Perhaps there has been plenty of rain and the soil is rich, or perhaps a hurricane has blown off so many small branches that the tree suffers malnutrition from a lack of chlorophyll. Then, too, if it is the sort of tree that turns red, its intensity will be impacted by sugars manufactured and stored; more sweetness makes for a more brilliant red.

In October or November, looking back at the resolutions, motto, word or intentions for the new year, the truth is revealed. In March one might kick that can down the road; even in June there is still “plenty of time.” But in autumn, reality comes to visit. We either did, or did not, step up and out into the life we intended to try to make. The combination of who we are (like it or not) and the experiences thrown at us by life bring the outcome we assess in the autumnal review of our intentions for the year. I’ve had the same motto for years now because apparently I’m a slow learner.

In the mirror, in the season of life poets call autumn, we see the person we have been all along, plus our experiences. The smoothness and sameness of youth is gone for those in midlife and later; laughter and tears, pain and care, habits – good and bad – all are revealed. A twenty-five-year-old might hide bad habits, but by forty-five, the entire body shows the pattern and at sixty-five, odds are the mind and spirit are far from what they promised to become before a bad habit became an addiction. On the other hand, there can be an explosion of energy, creativity and spiritual growth at in the autumn of life that startles those who mistook the responsible behaviors of younger years for that person being “boring.” This is when adult children wonder if their parents have gone a bit crazy – taking up new hobbies, traveling, refusing to be properly “old.” No, they were never actually boring, just busy with lifegiving, the drive that Erikson called “generativity,” that leads people to make sacrifices for others, and trees to manufacture food out of sunlight to nourish themselves and the seeds for future trees.

And then the liturgical year winds around, ending about four weeks before Christmas, with the Scripture readings for the last few weeks focused more and more on the last things – our own death, the final judgment, the need to take account of how we are living and make changes in accord with the highest good.  How appropriate that this unveiling of the reality beneath happens in such a pervasive way – that we are offered the chance see ourselves, our year, our years in total, through the same golden lens.

Happy mid-autumn; wishing you all the golden light the season offers.