The Fall Paradox
Reverend Raymond K. Petrucci
In order to understand the meaning of this season as a paradox within our human experience, we need to note that winter does not arrive "officially" until late December. During the preceding months, the natural world yields to the oncoming chill, giving one last display of its brilliantly colorful magnificence before the bitter winds blow the tree branches free of leaves. Most days, the sky places a grey shroud over the dying landscape. You would think that the gloomy and barren surroundings of the season would darken our spirits. Admittedly, for some, this time of year is depressing, but for most of us, I believe the opposite is true. The holiday season is upon us. Thanksgiving and Christmas have dominance in our thoughts and even Halloween holds the promise of sweet treats. All these celebrations, especially Christmas, uplift our spirits.
Seasonal changes are predictable; we can prepare for them long before the event. Covid was a different situation. We had to learn how to deal with it as we learned about it and lived its effects. Everyone had to adjust to a "season" of trying to be safe without knowing if the recommended measures would be effective or not. We lived seeking a counterbalance between science and the economy. Ultimately, we had to measure our physical and psychological vulnerabilities against the responsibility or irresponsibility of others. Except for wearing a mask and social distancing, I lived through the time of the virus as if it never existed, but I had friends who died from it. The paradox of confidence and anxiety was felt keenly.
Our theme flows into the season of Advent with all the preparation within body and soul for the One who is to come. We are called to spend much time internalizing our focus and examining the state of our soul while being drawn outward by often frantic holiday activities. Spiritually speaking, Advent puts the complexities of human nature on display, particularly, our understanding of good and evil and how we react to that understanding. Our Lord confronted evil with his divine love and overcame it by fulfilling the will of the Father. Perhaps, the most remarkable paradox of the mission of Christ is the confidence of his enemies that all had ended through the crucifixion, but it was just beginning. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. provided us with an illustration, "Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but one day that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C. so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name."
The days and months and seasons go by with a sense of rapidity that is peculiar to old age. The value of dwindling time is cherished dearly, but the desire of reaching an eternal horizon grows. I have stood upon the mortal shore wishing a prayerful bon voyage to parting souls. I think to myself, "It can't be long before I join them." There is fear, but it is tempered by a Christian joy. Leaving loved ones and all that is familiar is disconcerting, but the purpose of the journey of life awaits. Filled with the hope of faith and the desire for mercy toward a contrite heart, I look ahead. In the words of Christopher Columbus, "You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to loose sight of the shore." The Fall season is a paradox of loss and death and the promise of joy and life.
This season finds us still dealing with the virus and its variants that won't go away. Wisdom and foolishness are not strangers to the human condition and their presence continues to make its mark on history. Sometimes I notice an aimlessness within our populace that recalls the gospel scene of Jesus taking pity on the crowd who persisted in their pursuit of Jesus even when he tried to go away with his apostles for a period of prayer and rest. He saw the crowd as sheep lacking a shepherd. Jesus then stayed in that place for a time and taught them. If we are ever to overcome the illness of hatred and division, we, and as many people who will listen, must heed the Truth of the Shepherd who came to lead a wayward people to a daily experience of hope and love and, at life's end, to a heaven of everlasting peace and love. As we slog through the mud below, let us look to the sky above. Pray for our human leaders who have the unenviable task of reaching a variable and complex crowd with a way that restores a greater sense of direction and unity of purpose in their lives. I believe the cornerstone of that achievement is a spiritual awakening.
Our Lord has inspired countless voices, many of whom both past and present were not even Christian, to receive and to heed the command to a love that offers the attainment of a better world. Although the evils extant throughout the world will relentlessly try to spread its influence, all of us can mitigate its horrors by lives that resolve to manifest the living, saving, and sanctifying presence of Christ. The slogan "We can do it." used to unite us in doing what is necessary to defeat disease also can be applied to social ills. Growing weary, feeling tapped of energy, and becoming lethargic can be a spiritual condition as well as physical, but hold fast to the Hand that will save us.