Before the Fall

Pastor’s Epistle—September, A.D. 2018 B

Some will insist that autumn doesn’t properly begin until the equinox in late September, but with respects, I must disagree. As soon as we enter into these “brr” months, it is well and truly fall in the hearts and minds of our children, not to mention our retailers.

We welcome the new season along with a new academic year, both across the street and here at St Peter’s. Sunday School starts up again, as well as Confirmation, Adult Formation, Pub Theology, and all that good stuff that constitutes our life of faith together. As usual, we kick things off with our Rally Sunday festivities on the ninth.

The fun holidays start to pop up as well: Mikkelmas in September, Hallowtide in October, Thanksgiving and Advent and the Hanging of the Greens in November. Forgive me if I seem to be getting ahead of myself, but pastors are as susceptible to seasonal anticipation as anyone. My wife and I left for Alaska in the heat of summer, and returned not 10 days later to find cool evening breezes, noticeably earlier sunsets, and more than a few trees already changing their colors.

Alaska, as I’m sure many of you know, is a land that defies all description, either in writing or photography. No account can do it justice. That sort of natural majesty, so deeply humbling and awe-inspiring, can only be spoken of in frankly religious terms. Little wonder that John Muir—the famous naturalist often credited as the founding prophet of our National Park Service, and incidentally the son of a preacher—suffused his writings with a mystic’s rapturous love for the sublime beauty and power of glaciers.

It’s been a wonderful summer, wildly successful in many ways. Our VBS at Paul Miller Park was a blast. Our midweek Bible Study on Christian character was rich, rewarding, and well-attended, while our Sunday morning readings of the Didache exceeded both my hopes and expectations. We even had fun with that Summer Saints vesper series, and blessing our fresh-baked loaves at Lammas. Thank you all for that; a good summer stems, by God’s grace, from God’s people.

But fall is when I feel most alive. It is the season of riotous color throughout the earth, of delicious scents upon the breeze, of cold and warmth, summer and winter, fire and ice intermingled as one. It is life and death and resurrection on display for all the world to see, and I must confess that I do love it so. Autumn is a new beginning for us all.

I’ll see you in Church.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.