A Hidden Wholeness

Some people don’t like the season of autumn because, as Fr. Edward Hays observed, “The autumn winds hold the whisper of death.” Brown leaves drift to earth and are crumpled underfoot, any plants left in the garden are blackened by frost, and the hours of daylight diminish. And yet, if we look below the surface of autumn, we find something quite different, as articulated by Thomas Merton at the beginning of his poem, Hagia Sophia:

There is in all things
an invisible fecundity,
a dimmed light,
a meek namelessness,
a hidden wholeness.

We may fear the dimming of our light and the prospect of becoming nameless after we die. However, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have been given a share of “invisible fecundity” (fruitfulness) and “hidden wholeness” that survives the death of the body. Similarly, we can look at brown leaves and withered plants and see desiccation, or we can look deeper and see vessels of new life that will emerge in the spring. Not the same life, as we might wish, but life nonetheless.

In her poem Let Evening Come, as the evening of life approaches, Jane Kenyon assures us,

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Let autumn come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. We have been promised new life, so let autumn come.